Former Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish is unimpressed with Tony Xia’s presence on Twitter.
Former Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish finds Tony Xia’s social media presence similar to that of American president, Donald Trump.
The USA president is an outspoken personality and often makes controversial remarks on social media.
McLeish observes that Tony Xia intervenes too much into club’s management, and he is worried that his constant tweeting could undermine manager Steve Bruce.
The former Rangers manager says that he doesn’t understand why the club’s owner would want to speak so much, especially with matters on the pitch.
He acknowledges that Xia can do what he likes because he owns the club, and says it is a “modern phenomenon”.
He adds that it can backfire because it may “affects the gaffer”, and advises him to be careful about what he says.
“It’s kind of Donald Trump like isn’t it?” said McLeish, as quoted by The Birmingham Mail. “It’s just a modern day phenomenon.
“It’s difficult for me coming from a different era to understand why the chairman would want to speak so much, but it’s his club and he can do what he wants.
“I think it is very easy to say something that maybe effects the gaffer, the manager and you have to be careful what you say.”
McLeish recalls that he too faced similar problems during his time at Birmingham, with Karren Brady, David Sullivan and David Gold being in charge at the time.
“I had it at Birmingham with Karren and the two Davids. They said one or two things towards the end of the season when we were going for promotion,” he added.
“I said look if you can just let me do the football speaking I’d be much obliged. We had a good agreement, very amicable and we went on to get that promotion back to the Premier League.”
Aston Villa are 13th in the Championship table, and were dumped out of the EFL Cup by Middlesbrough on Tuesday.
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