Aston VIlla - relegation?

[Sheriff Fatman]

It is strange seeing them in this mess,not long ago they were fighting us for 4th spot. I think Villa have probably got more right to be pissed off with us as we weakened them a fair bit by signing Millner and Barry from them who were their best players at the time.

But we didn't force them to sell to us.

exactly. had the owners showed enough anbition those two would have stayed.

The real truth in the Barry transfer is that we didn't necessarily weaken Villa but we did weaken Liverpool. Barry was Benitez's main target and nothing Villa could have done would have stopped him going. However, Benitez made it public which in turn pissed off Alonso hence his move to Spain.

I don't think the Milner deal was as destructive to Villa as the Barry deal as they were already on the slide.

And those with sympathy for Villa being pissed off with us for taking Barry and Milner, two words - Billy McNeil.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

And those with sympathy for Villa being pissed off with us for taking Barry and Milner, two words - Billy McNeil.

This is a very good point, mate.

I'm sure Villa fans would have shrugged their shoulders at the time at McNeill moving to a club where he saw more opportunity for success and where his own financial rewards were better.

Him staying at City at that point would have represented our best chance of avoiding relegation that season. Certainly Jimmy Friz was hopelessly short of what we needed and we weren't exactly overwhelmed with top level applicants for the job. Him leaving when he did fucked us up, big style.

Ironically it was out of the frying pan, into the fire for McNeill who managed two relegated first division clubs that season, a first at the time. I've heard him subsequently speak of his regret of leaving City when he did - and in the manner he did. It certainly undermined a great deal of the residual goodwill that he retained following him carrying us to dramatic promotion the previous season. The reception he received when he brought his Villa team to Maine Road that season was extremely hostile. The Kippax was absolutely rocking that day.

That said, I know he's not been at all well lately and I hope he's coping as well as he can with his illness.

 

[paulchapo]

And those with sympathy for Villa being pissed off with us for taking Barry and Milner, two words - Billy McNeil.

This is a very good point, mate.

I'm sure Villa fans would have shrugged their shoulders at the time at McNeill moving to a club where he saw more opportunity for success and where his own financial rewards were better.

Him staying at City at that point would have represented our best chance of avoiding relegation that season. Certainly Jimmy Friz was hopelessly short of what we needed and we weren't exactly overwhelmed with top level applicants for the job. Him leaving when he did fucked us up, big style.

Ironically it was out of the frying pan, into the fire for McNeill who managed two relegated first division clubs that season, a first at the time. I've heard him subsequently speak of his regret of leaving City when he did - and in the manner he did. It certainly undermined a great deal of the residual goodwill that he retained following him carrying us to dramatic promotion the previous season. The reception he received when he brought his Villa team to Maine Road that season was extremely hostile. The Kippax was absolutely rocking that day.

That said, I know he's not been at all well lately and I hope he's coping as well as he can with his illness.

Yes i was well pissed off when he jumped ship but more at his comments that Villa were a bigger club. Still we had the hopeless Swales in charge at the time but i think Villa still had deadly Doug who wasn't much better.It didn't do McNeil much good anyway as he kind of disappeared after this,well at the top level in England anyway.

 

[petrusha]

And those with sympathy for Villa being pissed off with us for taking Barry and Milner, two words - Billy McNeil.

This is a very good point, mate.

I'm sure Villa fans would have shrugged their shoulders at the time at McNeill moving to a club where he saw more opportunity for success and where his own financial rewards were better.

Him staying at City at that point would have represented our best chance of avoiding relegation that season. Certainly Jimmy Friz was hopelessly short of what we needed and we weren't exactly overwhelmed with top level applicants for the job. Him leaving when he did fucked us up, big style.

Ironically it was out of the frying pan, into the fire for McNeill who managed two relegated first division clubs that season, a first at the time. I've heard him subsequently speak of his regret of leaving City when he did - and in the manner he did. It certainly undermined a great deal of the residual goodwill that he retained following him carrying us to dramatic promotion the previous season. The reception he received when he brought his Villa team to Maine Road that season was extremely hostile. The Kippax was absolutely rocking that day.

That said, I know he's not been at all well lately and I hope he's coping as well as he can with his illness.

Yes i was well pissed off when he jumped ship but more at his comments that Villa were a bigger club. Still we had the hopeless Swales in charge at the time but i think Villa still had deadly Doug who wasn't much better.It didn't do McNeil much good anyway as he kind of disappeared after this,well at the top level in England anyway.

I'm sorry to be a pedantic twat, but it wasn't a first for Billy McNeill to manage two clubs that both went down in the same season. Ron Saunders had achieved the same with Birmingham City and WBA the previous season.

Yes, City beat Villa 3-1 in November 1986 when McNeill came back with his new club and he got a tremendous amount of stick from the home crowd. I remember, as City closed in on the victory in the second half, the Kippax indulging itself with great gusto in protracted chants of "Billy McNeill is a wanker, is a wanker" (notwithstanding that his name had one too many syllables for it to scan properly).

If I recall correctly, McNeill didn't actually say that Villa were a bigger club than City, but he did imply that it was better set up to achieve success at the time and was more ambitious. I suppose a lot of fans take that as meaning the same thing.

I felt sorry for him at City. He was lied to by Swales about the funds available when he was appointed. He did extremely creditably to get us promoted given that most of his purchases were from the bargain basement. He stuck at it, thinking that if he could get us promoted, he'd then be allowed to spend. Unfortunately, after winning promotion in 1985, he wanted to buy Alan Smith, Russell Osman and Danny Wilson, top division players would have given us a decent uplift in quality down the spine of the team. Swales let him buy Mark Lillis from Huddersfield and Nigel Johnson from Rotherham, plus sign Sammy Mac on a free.

After he kept us up in 1985/6 notwithstanding the poor squad he had, Swales made him trade at a profit the following summer and told him to throw in players from the successful youth squad. McNeill knew that pitching in too many of the kids, too early wouldn't do them or the team much good, but his chairman wouldn't listen.

I believe that McNeill was a very underrated City manager. When you look at the conditions he worked under for more than three years, especially when compared with the promises made to persuade him to join the club, then I fully understand why he walked away. Of course we as fans don't like it when a manager walks because he thinks another club offers him better opportunities, especially when the previous season we had an average gate of 24K compared with their 15K even though we finished above them in the league table by only one point and one place in the table.

But with Villa allowing him decent money for players (he bought David Speedie when he went there, IIRC, the sort of player he had no chance of bidding for at City), you can see why he fancied the challenge. Now, it didn't work out, and I know he later regretted going there because he found a bit of a nest of vipers by all accounts, but at the time, it was a decision most managers would have taken IMO.

Anyway, the Villa move finished his managerial career south of the border. However, he did go back to Celtic and win a double in their centenary year, which was a decent achievement given that they had nothing like the cash Rangers were throwing around under Souness at the time.

I like him. And I don't blame him at all for jumping ship when Villa came calling.

 

[Paul Lake's Left Knee]

This is a very good point, mate.

I'm sure Villa fans would have shrugged their shoulders at the time at McNeill moving to a club where he saw more opportunity for success and where his own financial rewards were better.

Him staying at City at that point would have represented our best chance of avoiding relegation that season. Certainly Jimmy Friz was hopelessly short of what we needed and we weren't exactly overwhelmed with top level applicants for the job. Him leaving when he did fucked us up, big style.

Ironically it was out of the frying pan, into the fire for McNeill who managed two relegated first division clubs that season, a first at the time. I've heard him subsequently speak of his regret of leaving City when he did - and in the manner he did. It certainly undermined a great deal of the residual goodwill that he retained following him carrying us to dramatic promotion the previous season. The reception he received when he brought his Villa team to Maine Road that season was extremely hostile. The Kippax was absolutely rocking that day.

That said, I know he's not been at all well lately and I hope he's coping as well as he can with his illness.

Yes i was well pissed off when he jumped ship but more at his comments that Villa were a bigger club. Still we had the hopeless Swales in charge at the time but i think Villa still had deadly Doug who wasn't much better.It didn't do McNeil much good anyway as he kind of disappeared after this,well at the top level in England anyway.

I'm sorry to be a pedantic twat, but it wasn't a first for Billy McNeill to manage two clubs that both went down in the same season. Ron Saunders had achieved the same with Birmingham City and WBA the previous season.

Yes, City beat Villa 3-1 in November 1986 when McNeill came back with his new club and he got a tremendous amount of stick from the home crowd. I remember, as City closed in on the victory in the second half, the Kippax indulging itself with great gusto in protracted chants of "Billy McNeill is a wanker, is a wanker" (notwithstanding that his name had one too many syllables for it to scan properly).

If I recall correctly, McNeill didn't actually say that Villa were a bigger club than City, but he did imply that it was better set up to achieve success at the time and was more ambitious. I suppose a lot of fans take that as meaning the same thing.

I felt sorry for him at City. He was lied to by Swales about the funds available when he was appointed. He did extremely creditably to get us promoted given that most of his purchases were from the bargain basement. He stuck at it, thinking that if he could get us promoted, he'd then be allowed to spend. Unfortunately, after winning promotion in 1985, he wanted to buy Alan Smith, Russell Osman and Danny Wilson, top division players would have given us a decent uplift in quality down the spine of the team. Swales let him buy Mark Lillis from Huddersfield and Nigel Johnson from Rotherham, plus sign Sammy Mac on a free.

After he kept us up in 1985/6 notwithstanding the poor squad he had, Swales made him trade at a profit the following summer and told him to throw in players from the successful youth squad. McNeill knew that pitching in too many of the kids, too early wouldn't do them or the team much good, but his chairman wouldn't listen.

I believe that McNeill was a very underrated City manager. When you look at the conditions he worked under for more than three years, especially when compared with the promises made to persuade him to join the club, then I fully understand why he walked away. Of course we as fans don't like it when a manager walks because he thinks another club offers him better opportunities, especially when the previous season we had an average gate of 24K compared with their 15K even though we finished above them in the league table by only one point and one place in the table.

But with Villa allowing him decent money for players (he bought David Speedie when he went there, IIRC, the sort of player he had no chance of bidding for at City), you can see why he fancied the challenge. Now, it didn't work out, and I know he later regretted going there because he found a bit of a nest of vipers by all accounts, but at the time, it was a decision most managers would have taken IMO.

Anyway, the Villa move finished his managerial career south of the border. However, he did go back to Celtic and win a double in their centenary year, which was a decent achievement given that they had nothing like the cash Rangers were throwing around under Souness at the time.

I like him. And I don't blame him at all for jumping ship when Villa came calling.

This was very much around the time of my awakening as a City fan, i remember my dad and brother being very annoyed at his betrayal, so i was duty bound to feel the same. I think that Villa being recent European Champions had to have some pull on his decision to go there and agree most people would have done the same, but football fans arent as forgiving when it comes to their own team. As a young lad living in Birmingham and a City fan (when everyone was a Villa or Liverpool fan at the time) i got a huge amount of stick from my classmates when McNeill jumped ship.

David Speedie at Villa? Are you thinking of the wrong person, he was a Chelsea player who went to Cov after that, i hated the **** and he cemented that hate by going to the Scousers late on in his career, under Souness, where he was shite.

 

[petrusha]

This was very much around the time of my awakening as a City fan, i remember my dad and brother being very annoyed at his betrayal, so i was duty bound to feel the same. I think that Villa being recent European Champions had to have some pull on his decision to go there and agree most people would have done the same, but football fans arent as forgiving when it comes to their own team. As a young lad living in Birmingham and a City fan (when everyone was a Villa or Liverpool fan at the time) i got a huge amount of stick from my classmates when McNeill jumped ship.

David Speedie at Villa? Are you thinking of the wrong person, he was a Chelsea player who went to Cov after that, i hated the c**t and he cemented that hate by going to the Scousers late on in his career, under Souness, where he was shite.

Yes, I seem to have made it up about Speedie, who signed for Coventry. I remember when McNeill went to Villa they were linked with various players so maybe Speedie was one of them. I can't remember who he actually signed.

I do remember when I was InterRailing with a couple of mates in the summer of 1987, we met a Villa fan in Vienna who didn't rate McNeill very highly to say the least. So it was a pretty disastrous move all round, really, because appointing dear old Jimmy Frizz left us much more likely to go down.

I tend to be able to be forgiving to McNeill because I foam at the mouth to this day when anyone mentions Peter Swales. In general, if it's possible to blame PJS for a situation, I will. :)

 

[City_Sean]

I don't think they'll go down. But they are destined for mid table mediocrity for a long time. The squad they now have is so poor, and Lambert is nowhere near a good enough manager to improve them.

 

[IH8MUFC]

I don't think they'll go down. But they are destined for mid table mediocrity for a long time. The squad they now have is so poor, and Lambert is nowhere near a good enough manager to improve them.

What manager could improve them? Their squad is poor.

 

[its a Barm]

Hope they don't go down like villa and always a good day out, but if they don't start scoring then they may well be doomed.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

I'm sorry to be a pedantic twat, but it wasn't a first for Billy McNeill to manage two clubs that both went down in the same season. Ron Saunders had achieved the same with Birmingham City and WBA the previous season.

Apologies. My mistake. That was always my understanding. Thanks for pointing that out :-)

Yes, City beat Villa 3-1 in November 1986 when McNeill came back with his new club and he got a tremendous amount of stick from the home crowd. I remember, as City closed in on the victory in the second half, the Kippax indulging itself with great gusto in protracted chants of "Billy McNeill is a wanker, is a wanker" (notwithstanding that his name had one too many syllables for it to scan properly).

The chants I remember we're a little more coarse than that!



As you say, upon reflection no reasonable blue could really blame McNeill for jumping ship. Doug Ellis was a difficult man, but he was an unknown quantity to McNeill at the time, unlike Peter Swales. No one can be criticised for believing their career aspirations were better served away from that individual.