Aston Villa at West Brom, an inevitable sacking and a probable one

A statement from the club this week said something about only concentrating on the next three games and there is a lot of speculation that the manager is cancelling summer meetings with agents and that he will no longer be employed come the end of the season or when safety is assured.

I can't write again that I told you so, but I can tell you that the root of the problem is not the manager. The root of the problem is whoever pushed for his appointment and I don't think for a second it was Lerner. Lerner isn't actually the problem - it's whoever is pretending to know something about football.

And not sacking him now is an even bigger mistake. Remember in March a couple of years ago the story broke about O'Neill leaving at the end of the season and then he came out to tell us that he wasn't? Well, he did leave and the speculation was spot on.

You see, the mistake is, that we all know he is going to go, so where is his motivation and that of the players? Just waiting until we are safe is actually inviting a nightmare scenario and as I wrote the other day, we are basically letting the footballing Gods decide our fate, because we have let this go on too long and nobody at the club knows what they are doing.

Running a football club isn't easy and I don't for one second claim to be someone with any experience, but from day one it was known by many that Alex McLeish was the wrong person and not knowing that just goes to show that whoever made the decision simply isn't capable of making those types of decisions.

Somebody has to take responsibility for it and it isn't Lerner. There was always an inevitability about McLeish not lasting in this job and I'm actually surprised he saw January, because that was when he should have gone, much like whoever forced the decision through has to go this summer too.

West Brom at the weekend

But, as someone pointed out in such a manner that it smacked me in the face, we still need three points and that doesn't even secure our safety, but it would make it extremely surprising if we didn't stay up, so with the match coming up tomorrow, I've got a hope; a hope that we win.

It isn't going to be easy though. West Brom are tenth in the table and this manager has us playing like a poor team, so it is going to take hard work, not giving the ball away needlessly and players to want to have the ball. All in all, it isn't going to be a walk in the park and we must score goals.

So, will we? If there was ever a match we needed the luck to fall for us, this is the one and as it is a local derby, you'd like to think that the players were going to be up for it.