Manager #26 for Aston Villa, Alex McLeish. Villa had failed to prepare for the tempestuous nature and selfish denouement of Martin O’Neill only to then appoint the woefully unfit for purpose Gérard Houllier as first team manager for him to fail to either start or end the season in place. As Villa’s squad shrank and regressed so did the logic in the boardroom and a freshly relegated manager and purveyor of some of the most negative football the top flight of the English game had ever seen was appointed to a post he had no CV to deserve.

That the appointment of Alex McLeish also included a move from neighbours Birmingham City and required significant compensation payments simply compounded the embarrassment.

That said, McLeish was not a selfish, self centred man like Martin O’Neill, and was not a disrespectful and destructive influence like Gérard Houllier. McLeish was however hopelessly ill-suited to managing Villa and so it proved over one of the most torturous seasons Villa had seen to date.

Villa had considered the deeply flawed Roberto Martinez and Mark Hughes, both of whom would have been barely welcomed given their track records, as well as allegedly coming close to the managerial pariah that was the laughing stock of Steve McLaren. Yet amongst those less than inspiring candidates was also Frank Rijkaard, yet Villa pulled for McLeish, not the first, and certainly not the last of crazy appointments by Villa but certainly the one with the most inevitable conclusion.

Then owner Randy Lerner, whose understanding of football had always been tenuous, decreed from New York that McLeish was his chosen man and to this day the reasoning remains unclear however his instructions to his Villa deputy Faulkner was to get McLeish’s signature whatever the cost.

As Faulkner himself recalled “Ultimately it wasn’t a year to look back on fondly.”

The thing is though, McLeish had more dignity and commitment in his little toe than did his three predecessors O’Leary, O’Neill and Houllier combined.

McLeish also made some intelligent signings and with more luck the likes of Robbie Keane, Charles N’Zogbia, Jermaine Jenas would have been long term contributors to Villa’s success as proved his signings of Alan Hutton and to a lesser extent Shay Given, both of whose Villa careers were disrupted and in Given’s case ended by McLeish’s successor.

The whole campaign was however overshadowed by the news that Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov had been diagnosed with leukaemia and a club and fan base which had begun to fracture, combined to pray for Stan. McLeish of course throughout was dignity personified and although performances on the pitch were inevitably dour, as was his being relieved of his duties at the season end, Alex McLeish does not deserve to be spoken in the same breath of disdain as either his predecessor or successor.