Aston Villa Announce New Manager: Alex McLeish Lands Job

That’s awful structure, incidentally. Birmingham should fire their press officer. Anyway, the club might ask for up to 5M (the total value of McLeish’s remaining contracted years with the team), but it seems unlikely that they’d get that much. There are also tapping-up accusations starting to fly around, which is interesting. My guess, for the very little that’s worth, is that Randy Lerner woke up one day and decided that he’d annoy as much of the Midlands as possible. In which case... well played, Randy.

I’m not convinced that McLeish was the right man for the job, although he’s not a bad manager. Villa chased after Wigan’s Roberto Martinez, who would have been a much better fit, and probably could have done with someone who would get them to play more stylish football. Apart from trolling both Birmingham and Villa fans, this doesn’t seem like an interesting appointment at all. Oh well.

Honestly, it’s tough to disagree. Birmingham City have been a negative team in their time in the Premier League and the majority of neutrals weren’t crushed to see them go down to the Championship. If Villa want to play an entertaining style of football and challenge for Europa League places, McLeish would be a curious hire.