The changing expectations of football at Aston Villa under Alex McLeish

The arrival of Alex McLeish at Aston Villa from local rivals Birmingham City in June was greeted with much enthusiasm by the media, who hungrily fed on the story of a former foe becoming a potential friend on the other side of town.

Some fans hell bent on despising their city rivals met his appointment with an angry response, hanging a banner on the club gates proclaiming “McLeish out” and a similar message was daubed on the wall of the clubs Bodymoor Heath training ground just days after his arrival.

Personally though, his previous employment didn’t particularly concern me. What did though was the brand of football he would bring to the club, having formerly imposed an efficient if ugly form of football at St Andrews.

Naturally this isn’t to say prior to his arrival, Villa were rivals to the Spanish national side, Barcelona or Marcelo Bielsa’s Chile in their approach to the game.

Far from it. For a number of years Villa have similarly to their neighbours played a certain way to take advantage of the strengths within their squad, but this hasn’t necessarily been at the expense of aesthetics.

Martin O’Neill’s approach became a mite predictable towards the end of his tenure, but at the peak of his powers the energy and enthusiasm of his counter-attacking team spearheaded by Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor was an exciting spectacle.

His successor Kevin MacDonald gifted to fans to an opening day spectacular last season with the 4-0 demolition of West Ham in an unrelentingly attacking display in which Marc Albrighton and Ciaran Clark made their full debuts, while Gerard Houllier introduced retention of possession, something which younger fans will be largely unfamiliar with.

All three of these managers were far from perfect though. O’Neill saddled the club with an excessive wage bill (I’m looking at Habib Beye’s weekly earnings in disbelief); MacDonald’s team saw goals go in at both ends, most notably away at Newcastle a few weeks after the joy of the opening day, while Houllier’s side flirted with the drop.

McLesish was brought into to help stabilise the clubs position and so far he’s done this, admirably taking them away from the perils of last season’s dalliance with a relegation battle with minimal fuss, leading the club to the right half of the table in the process.

Like his predecessors though, he too has his flaws, namely that the football at Villa Park this season is so bloody ugly that if Peter Beardsley were to line-up alongside it he’d look like Mila Kunis in comparison.

The scene was set in this season’s first game at Craven Cottage when centre-backs Richard Dunne and James Collins clubbed long hopelessly hopeful balls from the back out to Villa’s natural wide man Emile Heskey.

The cumbersome defensive pairing are tirelessly hard working and are happy to throw themselves in front of a speeding train if it threatens the Villa goal, but they are not twinkle-toed Maldini-like defenders able to execute deft cross-field passes and possession was often wasted.

This process of using of Heskey as a target and the centre-backs as missile launchers was again used at home to Wolves in what was the most tiresome viewing spectacle at Villa Park since a batch of games against Middlesbrough in the late 1990s.

The tactic has remained, but despite my protestations at its lack of good looks, it has been relatively effective and has helped Villa to a respectable start to the season.

This though causes great division in me. Obviously I want to see my childhood club succeed, but I also want to be pleasured by the action on the field.

I’m not unreasonable though, as I don’t expect to see world class play grace the turf a Villa Park and to be honest I don’t even expect to see good football always played, but one thing I do expect is that it isn’t bad boredom inducing football.

The price of success then in a stabilising season seemingly has an ugly price with little room for compromise, as the league table makes for reasonably happy viewing, although the view from the stands unfortunately doesn’t.

Tags: Alex McLeish, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Premier League