We were promised an announcement confirming Alex McLeish’s appointment by now*, but that’s about as timely as everything else connected to the search for a manager, so I thought I’d share something I was just looking at instead.

For one reason or another, it doesn’t matter why, someone put it to me on Twitter that all MON’s Villa side did was hoof it up the pitch; the old long ball. It’s not a new charge, of course, or particularly accurate though. Were we stroking it around Brummie tiki-taka style? No, of course not. Were we just lumping it and chasing it as some like to portray us. No, that’s not true either.

So, since we’re also interested in a certain Scotsman’s brand of football at the moment, here are the stats for the last two Premier League seasons sorted by percentage of long balls to total passes made on average per game. The “propensity to hit it long” if you like.

I wish I’d had this data to hand when we played Stoke; a fan picked me up on my characterisation of his team as long ball team. As the kids like to say: “PWND”. Or something.

As you can see, Birmingham got fractionally worse in terms of resorting to the long ball from 2009/10 to 2010/11 while we, unsurprisingly, improved somewhat under Gerard Houllier. Otherwise, it’s all pretty much as you’d expect. The bigger teams can hold the ball better, they can pass it around while they dominate possession. The smaller teams need to use the possession they get more efficiently.

*Just as this post was due to be published the news broke that Aston Villa have agreed to compensate Birmingham City to the tune of £2m for Alex McLeish’s services and the official announcement should follow in the morning. I believe an actual press conference will not be until next week, but who can say for sure these days?

So, basically, it’s just a matter of time, there’s no doubt any longer.

EDIT: The claim about compensation has been dismissed, but confirmation of the appointment is still expected tomorrow.