Flippin' Eck

I couldn't let this one go without passing comment, as it is truly the most baffling managerial appointment that I can remember.

It was all going so well for Aston Villa - finally rid of Deadly Doug (but not before his parting gift of a fantastic manager), and guided by what seemed that rarest of creatures, a sensible foreign owner. Then it all began to unravel: the departure of O'Neill (who has a fondness for litigation, so let's not speculate about any of that), followed by the appointment of an ageing Frenchman possessing the archetypal "dickey ticker".

Houllier's enforced exit should have been a blessing in disguise though - now the club could appoint a decent (and more importantly, healthy) manager who'd have the whole summer to build a team and bed them in. I can't imagine even the most masochistic Villa fan ever dreamed it would come to this.

First of all Mark Hughes looked like the obvious choice, but apparently the abrupt manner of his departure from Fulham did not endear him to Mr Lerner. So far, so principled. Lerner then cancelled an interview with Steve McClaren because he was worried that the fans wouldn't take to the umbrella-tainted ex-England boss. Again, this was fair enough. Plenty of credible candidates still out there, one would think.

All of which makes Randy's next move even more batshit mental than it should have been. Not only was Alex McLeish managing Villa's biggest rivals a week ago, and therefore about as big a hate figure as you can get in the claret and blue half of Brum, but he also walked out on his club in arguably a far more brazen way than Hughes did! Where did Mr Lerner's principles suddenly disappear to? Had he seen the quality of Birmingham's football last season?? How the hell did he possibly think this was a good idea?

I've never had any love for McLeish - painful memories of Martin Taylor's "tackle" on poor Eduardo still linger, not to mention a shocking challenge from Lee Carsley on Chris Iwelumo a couple of seasons ago which was nearly as bad. His teams are not just dirty, they are mind-numbingly boring with it - Blues averaged less than a goal a game last season with none of their strikers scoring for months. Even worse, Football365 pointed out that they had one of the highest overall spends in the Premier League over the last couple of seasons, so getting relegated after that really was some achievement.

Of course, nobody can blame Eck for making the jump. I bet he had to pinch himself when he heard about Villa's interest. Take a club down, then leave for a bigger club with a much larger budget - why can't all areas of industry offer such fantastic career opportunities? The jammy ginger bastard will be laughing all the way to the bank no matter what happens in the new job.

All of which of course makes me very happy to be a Wolves fan right now. Two of the other West Midlands clubs are seething in chaos, meanwhile we are punching above our weight by staying in the Prem with a low wage bill and turning a profit. The stadium is being redeveloped and our manager, despite performing miracles with us (take a look at the squad he inherited when he arrived - although "squad" implies there were more than one team's worth of senior players) is so unfashionable that other clubs have no interest in poaching him. Hurrah for well-run clubs and level-headed chairmen. Now see the Villa's relegation odds plummet.