So around this time yesterday I found out the news about
O'Driscoll being removed from the manager’s role. I was in the pub, at the time
and to be honest most people, who I was with, fans of different clubs, simply couldn't
understand why we had made this decision.
But we had. We
really had just sacked our manager after a glorious win over Leeds. Ok now in
the previous games things hadn’t gone right, but it looked to me at the time
they had someone clearly lined up. And the speed we have got to this point
suggests to me this was all in place.
It is a great shame,I had a lot of time for O'Driscoll and what he was trying to do. The football was good, the players seemed to like him and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction. Now that direction has changed
So Alex McLeish,
Big Eck, is our manager.
Let’s look at the
positives. He has succeeded at this level with Birmingham before. He won many trophies
with Rangers, and has top flight, European and International managing pedigree.
That said he does
play extremely agricultural football, took Birmingham down twice and narrowly
missed relegation whilst at Villa. There are some extremely bad signings he has
made in the past, but then every manager has that.
It's the quality
of football for some that will be the issue. He plays a more pragmatic game rather
than O'Driscoll's fluid football approach. The more direct approach of course
as we all know is not what we ideally like to see at City Ground, more so
because of the blessed Brian Clough years. When we have tried to play a direct
game in the past we don’t succeed. Whether this is because we never take to the
manager or whether it’s simply we haven’t had a decent manager for that game isn't
even for debate. Cotterill & Kinnear will not be on any City Ground hall of
fame.
McLeish sets teams
up to not lose, which is a critique some had of SoD in his few games we played
1 up front. McLeish sides don’t score many goals. Both his Birmingham and Villa
teams were fairly goal shy in the last few seasons, so this doesn’t' exist
excite me.
Couple the lack of
goals, and the direct football it doesn't bode well for an instant rapport with
fans. There have been people already bemoaning the appointment and even some on
Twitter trying to start a virtual lynch mob with the aim of forcing him out as
soon as possible. Now that is just silly and being very anti the club. I don’t
approve of the last 24 hours or so at our club, but I will get behind them as I
do every Saturday. In 2 or 3 weeks when this has all blown over I guess not too
many will be fussed if we start with wins. Furthermore at the end of the day
none of us really have a say. the al-Hasawi's for whatever reasons have decided
this is what needed to happen and that they hopefully know what they are doing.,
That said this
move worries me that we may have owners who are too trigger happy. It speaks
volumes that most fans have been in complete surprise and even anger at this.
But I think what
we really do is dust ourselves off and move on for the good of the team. Dwelling
on the dismissal and bringing a negative force to the ground won’t do anyone
any good.
Comments
Post a Comment