Where now for Aston Villa?

[Dazzle]

It should be certain that Bruce is on his way out now, 3-4 games too late in my opinion. So where next for Aston Villa? What exactly is Steve Rounds remit in his role, is he not supposed to be instrumental in sourcing managers/coaches and playing staff that fit into a predetermined style to create an identity? Did the Bruce appointment have the unqualified backing of Round? Is it Wyness who pushed for the appointment of Bruce? Or was it Brian Little? If so what is the point of Round? Or were all three (or more) in complete agreement over the appointment of Bruce? If they were then we have a bigger problem than any manager. The whole idea of this very short term thinking is clearly not working, many of us worried that it wouldn't and wanted a different way after RDM. I think it's literally shit or bust this season, failure to get promoted will cost us immensely imo.
So where now, what do we do for the best? For me, given the options now, I'd certainly be sounding out Jokoanivic. Do the background research, see the style, find out about him. In other words do the due diligence properly. Don't just go for a name with a "record" as it is obvious to most of us that the game has changed in the championship over the last couple or so seasons.

[smetro]

Well theres no more money - so we are competing on a level playing with every other club in this division. Problem is some of these smaller clubs are extremely well run so they only have to install a reasonable manger and they are quite a force at this level.
Aston hasn't been well run over the years - Xia has made nominal improvements, but despite his talk there seems to be little strategy to get us back to the top. - And from what Im seeing it would take a super human effort to stay in the prem should we ever get there.

The only glimmer for me is that we do seem to have some reasonable u23's

[Villa_Dan]

We might as well bring in someone like Dean Smith.

Because even if he doesn't get us up he would at least stick around for next season when we have to make wholesale changes and start the process of rebuilding from scratch.

[Guest]

I agree with ^ Dan.

I don't know anything about Smith really, but I don't think we should expect success just because we sign a manager with Championship success. Hot hand fallacy and all that.

[De Kuip]

Not sure if some people are a being a little harsh on Xia. To be fair to the bloke he wasn't experienced in english football so he appointed people who had a decent track record in Wyness and Round. Villa were an absolute basket case - possibly still are but I don't think the club  is as bad as 2 years ago. He reconnected with the fans - something that was badly needed. We got Under Armour as a kit, appointed a new commercial manager and he's doing lots of community work internationally. He appointed - or was advised to appoint - a safe manager for stability and accepted whoever it was that identified SBs coaching team.
As it has panned out Round and Wyness seem not to be doing what they were appointed to do, far from it in fact.
Bruce doesn't seem to have the answers, but to be fair, even those of us that didn't want Bruce, and I was one of them, mainly didn't want him cos his football was boring or he was thought a bit old fashioned. Very few could have predicted that he'd be anything but a safe pair of hands, let alone the disaster he has been.
I'm more angry that fuckwits like Calderwood are still stealing a living, because whilst the buck stops with SB for on field performances, the basic lack of coaching at villa currently is a scandal.
So in summary, I'd like to see all of the above replaced except Xia and Luke Organ, but no way am I going to criticise Xia other than to accept his naivety. He's been well and truly stitched up by too many talentless pigs at the trough, whose days are well past and should be fucked off from this great club of ours no later than 0900 hrs today.

[smetro]

Not sure if some people are a being a little harsh on Xia. To be fair to the bloke he wasn't experienced in english football so he appointed people who had a decent track record in Wyness and Round. Villa were an absolute basket case - possibly still are but I don't think the club  is as bad as 2 years ago. He reconnected with the fans - something that was badly needed. We got Under Armour as a kit, appointed a new commercial manager and he's doing lots of community work internationally. He appointed - or was advised to appoint - a safe manager for stability and accepted whoever it was that identified SBs coaching team.
As it has panned out Round and Wyness seem not to be doing what they were appointed to do, far from it in fact.
Bruce doesn't seem to have the answers, but to be fair, even those of us that didn't want Bruce, and I was one of them, mainly didn't want him cos his football was boring or he was thought a bit old fashioned. Very few could have predicted that he'd be anything but a safe pair of hands, let alone the disaster he has been.
I'm more angry that fuckwits like Calderwood are still stealing a living, because whilst the buck stops with SB for on field performances, the basic lack of coaching at villa currently is a scandal.
So in summary, I'd like to see all of the above replaced except Xia and Luke Organ, but no way am I going to criticise Xia other than to accept his naivety. He's been well and truly stitched up by too many talentless pigs at the trough, whose days are well past and should be fucked off from this great club of ours no later than 0900 hrs today.

Not so sure. He came in with 'by Hell and high water I will make aston villa a success' - He learned from Lerners mistakes and brought in an experienced CEO in Wyness. But I was still looking for some innovation from XIA -I just don't see much of it. The money appears to have dried up and we are hiding behind FFP - Although Round is called technical director - he isn't really that an important figure - he is more like coaching or fitness manager.

[Gordonsleftboot]

Is Doug still around? Seriously, is anyone tapping into his knowledge of how to run a club? OK he wasn't great but he took action.

[FoxyAV]

The only glimmer for me is that we do seem to have some reasonable u23's

Some of whom seem considerably better than their equivalent first team players. I'm fairly confident about the players we have, we just need someone who can work with them.

I feel quite strongly about the academy, it's one of the best in the country and we should be making use of it and doing our best to attract promising kids to come to us rather than, well, virtually anywhere else. Onomah looks great but how many of us would rather be putting all that risk into O'Hare? How many of us would rather see Audrey or Davis on instead of Gabby?

If I were Xia I'd be making sure the academy is run by the very best staff. Maybe if we get in a new manager we don't have to throw a £5million payoff at after a season we could use that money to bring in the very best youth coaches? Of course all that is worthless if the kids don't get played. If I were Xia right now I'd be asking Bruce why he didn't even have reserves players on the bench last night. Say what we did about Sherwood (most of which he deserved!), at least he recognised the importance of academy players and bringing them through into the first team.

I may have mentioned this before but I assume the U23s train with the first team and if we had a philosophy are coached in it too? Or are they all taught how best to hoof the ball no matter how fast or at what angle it comes at them from? Thor on right wing last night is not the answer, the correct player (Adomah) is and if he's not available, Blackett-Taylor. This is the Championship. I thought Reading's number 38 looked really good in midfield last night. He's about Bannan size and 21 years old. Green is 19 but so is Blackett-Taylor. We brought in Elmo and pay him a big wad of money when really Adomah is better going forward and in defence, and has twice as much energy, and we have B-T as Adomah's reserve. I'd go so far as to say that Green provided the only entertainment last night. So what's the point of Elmo, especially if Bruce is happy to try out Thor there even when we do have Adomah fit. Maybe I have it all wrong and Adomah is being brought back slowly so why the hell not play B-T for the first half?

[Dansvilla75]

First post for what seems like eons, so sick of whats happening with the club at the present felt it warranted a post. Since the latter days of the Lerner administration we have seen managers come and go who have took up the mantle and quickly been crushed against the rock that is Aston Villa, its fair to say most of them had their hands tied behind their back but that's not true of late, there are no excuses.

Bruce for me was never going to play anything but turgid football. In pres season I rightly pointed out to friends how our pre season game against Shrewsbury town was more telling than we realised only to be shot down in a ball of flames with the old pre season excuse. For me Shrewsbury represented the kind of resilience we would face this year, teams who were well organised and driven by the desire to collect a big scalp, sadly I think that for those types of team we are becoming less and less a desirable team to beat and more of a joke. On paper we should not be struggling especially on a second season to get out of this league, Newcastle are equally a big team but managed on first time of asking to drag themselves up, whether they stay there remains to be seen but at least they have achieved it on first time of asking. Recently the argument has been that the Geordies struggled in their first couple of games last season, there was a massive difference in that you could see the green shoots poking through and knew it was only a matter of time before they turned it around which of course they did. Sadly at the moment Villa are stuck somewhere in a long winter and those shoots are nowhere to be seen!!

There is a major issue with Villa currently and that is we are one of the biggest challenges in English football. Why is this so? Its because with all the history attached to the club, with the amount of support globally we can boast and the fact that we have extremely ambitious backing. The weight of expectation is massive even if on paper it is completely achievable its a level of expectation that's going to take a special kind of person to manage. The problem is thus far (since Xia) we have had 2 managers incapable of rising to the challenge and incapable of managing the expectations placed upon them within themselves. Bruce has never managed a team with such high expectations and RDM had the Chelski team already set up for him so lacked any real experience.

Going forward if Bruce is to be replaced which is looking ever likely the next man in needs to be someone capable of managing expectation and getting the best out of what should be the best squad in the league. For a start the likes of Hutton and yes McGrath loves a trier should never be allowed on the pitch and there are a few other dubious selections we could all mull over thus far this season.

Aston Villa is a massive challenge and only the best of managers is going to achieve what needs to be done, is a young thrusting man up for the job and able to handle the expectation? I guess at least they would have nothing to prove. Lets hope the next appointment brings such a person whether they are young or not because we are fast running out of lives. I reckon tata head has one game left to turn it around and that is three games too many.

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