Similarly, when picking football teams, he's happy to pick Garry O'Connor ahead of Nikola Zigic.
About half an hour before kick-off I heard that O'Connor was to start ahead of Zigic and I genuinely believed that it was a joke - some kind of wind-up. It made no sense whatsoever. I'm still thinking about it now, and it still makes no sense. I very, very much doubt that Alex McLeish could sit me down and convince me in any way that it was the right decision. Pre-match, in the salubrious surrounds of Yates' Wine Lodge, Sunderland, I was discussing the possible team with two other Blues fans and we felt that McLeish may go 4-5-1 and have a dilemma about whether to pick Cameron Jerome or Zigic up front, but that he'd probably go 4-4-2 and avoid such a dilemma. Even after several £1.59 pints none of us contemplated O'Connor starting.
Now, I know those who back McLeish to the hilt will say, "ah, but O'Connor had a good pre-season and Zigic didn't score", but sorry, that's a garbage argument. O'Connor scored a few goals out in China against opposition about as useful as Stalybridge Celtic (please note that my usual "crap team of choice" Rochdale have been substituted so as to not put the kiss of death on our Carling Cup hopes). I only saw Blues at MK Dons and at home to Mallorca pre-season, but O'Connor was far from impressive in either. He looked like his old self - a slow, lumbering extra out of Prison Break. He scored at MK Dons, but only after it deflected off a defender that he'd hit his shot at. Zigic, on the other hand, showed plenty of neat touches, showed how very adept he is at holding the ball up and bringing others into play and generally how he's a very clever player to have others play off. Not to mention the fact that he cost the club £6 million, is proven at international level, etc.
But no, let's pick O'Connor... baffling.
Blues were awful in the first half, resorting far too often to long balls up at the centre forwards as they had little or no other option. Zigic, sat on the bench, probably still got closer to winning some of the balls in the air than Jerome and O'Connor. Blues' play was as erratic, disjointed and painful to watch as the new Match Of The Day titles. There was no cohesion whatsoever. It was woeful stuff. There was some hope when O'Connor picked up a nasty looking injury, but unfortunately it was nothing serious.
Still, Sunderland didn't really pose that much of a threat themselves (although they were the far more comfortable side), but were 1-0 up at half-time thanks to a Darren Bent penalty. Blame for the goal could be levelled at various people, but Roger Johnson has to have plenty of that blame apportioned to him. I said a number of times last season that I don't always understand those Blues fans who are still a little dismissive of Scott Dann yet hold Roger Johnson up on some sort of pedestal. I think both still make the odd mistake, but Johnson got lucky at times last season and wasn't punished. I actually think Dann is probably the slightly better defender.
Anyway, Johnson made a horrendous error that left Blues totally exposed, Dann couldn't bring Bent down and Stephen Carr did bring Frazier Campbell down. It was a close call as to whether it was in or out of the area, but it was a very quick break and all happened at such a pace that it was a tough decision to make. It'd be a little churlish to blame the officials as Blues were very much the architects of their own downfall in the move. Bent scored, as he tends to do against Blues, and it was 1-0.
Before half-time Lee Cattermole was sent off. It was difficult to see his indiscretions too much from the away end, but there'd been a few of them and we all know what he's like - on that basis, he deserved it. Kieron Richardson was also given a final warning after having been booked and appeared to be lucky to stay on the pitch himself. Bizarrely Blues' performance was so poor that Sunderland probably didn't need to resort to the nasty side of things, but they did and it proved their undoing later.
Keith Fahey was replaced by James McFadden at half-time. A bit like O'Connor, if Fahey's a first choice player this season, Blues are likely to struggle. He's neat and tidy on the ball and can play a bit, but come on... him and O'Connor in a Premier League side? Really?
Blues continued to offer little and Sunderland even made it 2-0. Well, I say Sunderland did - they didn't. Carr did as he looped a forward ball over Ben Foster's head into the back of the net. Foster may have been caught slightly in no man's land, but I don't think he can really be blamed and questions have to be asked of what Carr, on the stretch, was trying to do.
McLeish finally replaced O'Connor with Zigic before bringing Craig Gardner on for Carr. That meant that Seb Larsson went to right-back, Gardner into the middle of the park and Lee Bowyer to wide right. For a good few minutes Blues continued to look hopeless as Larsson sat too deep (despite Sunderland obviously sitting back on a 2-0 lead) and Bowyer drifted inside (as he was always going to do, being a central midfielder) and so Blues lost all width and you couldn't tell Sunderland were a man down.
It was bizarre really - you were up against opposition with ten men, with an out of position left-back on a final warning and with a 12 year old Belgian kid making his debut in goal, and Blues did nothing to trouble Sunderland at all. Well, for the first 70 minutes, that was.
If there's one thing we learned about Blues last season it was that they do have spirit and heart, and once again they showed that. Zigic suddenly and unsurprisingly started winning a few balls, holding the ball up and bringing teammates into play. He then hit a fine strike that FINALLY forced the 'keeper into a save. Gardner too - possibly the stand-out player from pre-season - brought some energy and dynamism to the side. Larsson suddenly realised he had no defending to do so got forward and all of a sudden (and finally) Blues looked a threat.
A short corner which saw Larsson cross to Dann made it 2-1, and moments later Dann missed a completely free header and really should have scored. Blues kept going though and Larsson's deliveries were a threat. Sure enough, just before the end another good Larsson delivery from a free-kick somehow found its way into the back of the net via (possibly) Dann's head and Liam Ridgewell's ankle, although no one is too sure.
It was tricky after that and you sensed Blues didn't really know what to do - clearly the momentum was with them and they could have gone for a winner, but at the same time being 2-0 down with 15 minutes left and coming back to 2-2 in any Premier League game is a decent effort and it's worth just taking the point. In the end Blues rightly settled for the point not doing anything stupid, and that made sense.
Look, I know that I'm often critical of McLeish, but I do like him - honestly I do. I just find some of his decisions baffling. To start with O'Connor and Fahey was bizarre. To leave Zigic on the bench was bizarre. Bowyer, at the end of last season and in pre-season has begun to look like his legs are catching up with him, not necessarily in a fitness sense, but in a not quite doing what he wants sense. He gives the ball away more and more. Gardner, on the other hand, has brought in some energy and dynamism, yet Bowyer's picked and Gardner's left on the bench. There's absolutely no doubt that the team that Blues ended up with on the pitch looked far more effective than that which started. Zigic, Gardner and probably McFadden all have to be in the team against Blackburn next week.
One pleasing note was Larsson's deliveries which appeared to be back to his best. I still have a number of frustrations with him, most notably about how deep he sits when Blues attack. He basically invites Carr to overlap every single time and very rarely looks to get into a dangerous position himself in open play. No wonder Carr's always knackered the amount of work Larsson puts him through. However, there were signs in pre-season and again today that Larsson's got his head screwed on a little more again and that can only be a good thing for Blues. It may be that he was unsettled by transfer speculation, but now there is no such speculation because he was crap last season, so he can focus.
I've bored people to death with my thoughts on transfers over the past 12 months or so, but it's still clear that Blues need bodies in. However, there do need to perhaps be questions asked about McLeish on that front too. The board may look at it and think "hang on a second, the last three outfield players we spent money on were Michel, Gardner and Zigic at a cost of about £12m, and this guy's leaving them all on the bench?" I do wonder if there's more to it somewhere. I'm not sure if McLeish is almost being stubborn in some ways and trying to prove a point to the board with his team selections, showing that we are still weak, or whether they are thinking that if he's just going to buy people but then be too cautious to use them and that he'll just stick to what he knows, perhaps there's a reluctance to give him more cash to spend? Who knows, but the situation is a strange one. Back to that Monoply game, McLeish probably prefers to play it safe, buy two properties that he knows, build on them, save his cash and not take any risks.
One thing is for sure, McLeish played his Get Out Of Jail Free card here as Blues were for much of the game very poor. That they got back into it deserves credit and in the end it's a decent point, but in terms of moving forward there are a lot more questions than answers at this stage. It's very, very early days and I feel sure that McLeish will have learned some lessons from this that he'll put right.
Result-wise - decent start. Performance-wise - under-par start.