If Sherwood goes.... who to turn to?

Word is that Moyes is under pressure in Spain. Probably my first choice.

Otherwise, Marcello Bielsa has just quit at Marseilles. He has an excellent reputation and can clearly work with French talent.

Any others to consider (not Fat Sam!!)?

Would have to be Moyes for me...don't particularly like him in truth, but we need someone who knows the league and knows what they are doing from the touchline.

Forget the likes of Bielsa...too much of a risk.

Villa fanatic Gary Rowett anyone?

Fuck Rowett. We need someone who's been around and seen it all. Fuck Moyes too the bog-eyed freak. He's shit.

Bielsa would do. What's Klopp doing these days?

We need someone with PL experience, no more risks please!

Lets not forget its Tom Fox doing the choosing - So i wouldn't look beyond Ray Wilkins and Big Sam.
Not saying that would enthuse me, But I don't think Tom Fox is dynamic enough to poach a decent manager from another club.

smetro wrote:Lets not forget its Tom Fox doing the choosing - So i wouldn't look beyond Ray Wilkins and Big Sam.
Not saying that would enthuse me, But I don't think Tom Fox is dynamic enough to poach a decent manager from another club.

I wouldn't argue against that, I just want some stability and some sort of plan at the club!

Trotters wrote:Fuck Rowett. We need someone who's been around and seen it all. Fuck Moyes too the bog-eyed freak. He's shit.

Bielsa would do. What's Klopp doing these days?

Waiting for Rodgers to get kissed off at Liverpoo.

Well, we do have a relatively solid caretaking management team in situ already should Fox pull the trigger. I'm sure Wilkins\Cowans\McDonald would run things steadily and surely wouldn't achieve worse results.

We could look forward to well-thought-out selections, appropriate subs at the right times and - whisper it - maybe a decent game plan and switch of tactics when needed.

Whilst they have their hands on the tiller the club can search out a big fish who can swim in the deep water we operate in. Sherwood is currently showing, despite making an initial splash, that he is out of his depth. He's drowning not waving at the moment so unless he gets his act together very, very quickly he'll sink.

One thing does bother me, though. Will Fox pull the trigger? There is one big reason to be pessimistic about that. I used to work for quite a large organisation and there were some truly useless fuckers there, some of them in quite senior positions. I spent some time wondering how this could be, when it was apparent very early they shouldn't have ever been employed.

Then the scales fell from my eyes. Reputation and judgement. Rather than shitcan them within their probation period, the hiring manager would, more often than not, leave them in place and shunt them elsewhere at the earliest opportunity. Thus the idiot became somebody else's problem and most people forgot who'd fucked up allowing the waste of space in.

Lambert wasn't Fox's hire, he possibly just had to convince Randy it was time to get rid and it wouldn't have taken much. Sherwood, on the other hand, is Fox's boy and firing him after not much more than six months in the job - including the close season! - is going to look bad on him and he'll know it. That will possibly give Sherwood a dangerous amount of further time. There has to come a point where a change has to be made to retrieve the situation. Sacking Lambert when they did was a very close call, they only just did it in time to get the new manager topspin that got us out of a hole we were spiraling deeper into.

We are in a hole early this season and have a bad set of fixtures coming up. At what point does Fox draw the line?

achilles wrote:We need someone with PL experience, no more risks please!

Although I see where you're coming from there, I'd just like to point out McLeish -check, Lambert -check, Sherwood -check.

Cha Ching wrote:

achilles wrote:We need someone with PL experience, no more risks please!

Although I see where you're coming from there, I'd just like to point out McLeish -check, Lambert -check, Sherwood -check.

Perhaps proven PL experience would be a better expression, as McLeish had just taken the slum dwellers down, Lambert had 1 season and Sherwood had a few months!

I would hate to see any of the names mentioned so far in our technical area (current support crew not included), the prospect of Fat Sam is up there at the horrific end.

Quite who would be right for it that would realistically take the position should it come available I am not sure!

No-one yet. Let's see how Tim responds to this start...

It would be a name from the other European leagues for me. A young up and coming German, Dutch, French or Spanish manager would do. Someone that knows how to work with the young French players we've signed. Someone with modern football and ambitions. Someone like Thomas Tuchel before he went to Dortmund.

I don't dislike Moyes, but I really really don't want another scottish manager. Just no.

Offer Klopp a billion quid, sorted.

Joppe84 wrote:It would be a name from the other European leagues for me. A young up and coming German, Dutch, French or Spanish manager would do. Someone that knows how to work with the young French players we've signed. Someone with modern football and ambitions. Someone like Thomas Tuchel before he went to Dortmund.

I don't dislike Moyes, but I really really don't want another scottish manager. Just no.

No. Absolutely not, a "young up and coming" manager would NOT do. We've just sacked a Scottish one, an English one is skating on very thin ice right now and when he plunges into the pond I don't want to see us do it again. Managing AVFC is not a job for an up and coming manager, it's a job for a big beast. I don't mean a dinosaur big beast, such as MON, I mean someone with true, deep, knowledge of the game and a gravitas and intellectual depth that cannot be ignored.

Houllier was the closest we have had to that figure since the year 2000 but unfortunately that was not to be. One thing you can be sure of, GH wouldn't have given Agbonlahor another contract, assuming he had lasted that long.

I digress, my point is this is not the place to come and serve one's apprenticeship. This is not the place to try to forge a reputation in one's first big job. This is not the place to come to learn from one's mistakes. This job is one for a seasoned manager, not a greenhorn. I don't care what the fucking Quintax and IQ test says, I don't care how glib and apparently clued-up the young fucker is at interview, I don't care how much the press laugh at his presser jokes and laud him for being a character. I want a manager who is bringing more than a wing and a prayer because they have proven they can do it elsewhere.

I'm not throwing any names in here, fuckers get paid hundreds of thousands to do that for a job. That's their next big call. Do it soon and get it right.

Right now i'm so over the "young with potential" type of coach that we've gone for over the last two years. Just looking at the premiership the managers doing well outside the top four are all pretty much vastly experienced like Pardew, Hughes, Bilic, Koeman etc. The only one without much experience is Monk but he came into a fluent system with an established philosophy.

If we're looking for a manager with pedigree PLUS Premiership experience then who better than Roberto Di Matteo? I saw his name suggested elsewhere and it makes sense tbh. He's got a 43 or above win ratio everywhere he's been and managed two different sides in the champions league.

He's only 45 too and started from the bottom with MK Dons and worked his way up. So we'd have a "name", someone young but also very experienced and he has knowledge of the English game too!!!..if what clear at his time with Chelsea was he knew how to organise a defence and make them hard to beat and imo that's exactly what we need right now.

I also like Murat Yakin and Lucien Favre but i'm not sure if those guys can speak english. Karanka also looks like a very decent coach.

I like Martinez. He's articulate, easier to understand than Lambert, knows his football, understands the league and is obviously a great man manager. Doggedly determined not to bow to the pressure of the big guns either and usually wins. He's not into self-aggrandisement, talks up his players not himself and can do good things with small budgets.
Anyone?

The problem with that Ember is that you think we are in position to get a " beast", but we're not.

We're an old club with shit players, no money, an owner that doesn't care, no fans coming to matches (this is probably gonna burn, but we had 34k in our derby), why on earth would an experienced highly rated manager come here? That's the entire point. We can't. Thus we gotta gamble on young up and coming. Just like Everton did.

There are so many intangibles to being a successful manager at a particular club that it turns into a lottery no matter who is chosen.
Look at Hughes for an example. Great at Blackburn and Stoke. Clueless at QPR.
Pardew sacked at West Ham for being useless got Charlton relegated and couldn't get them promoted again and now he's flavour of the month at Crystal Palace.
Advocaat with all his experience can't get Sunderland off the foot of the table.
Theres no manager bar the likes of Pulis and Allardyce who can come in with limited squads and get them to perform to a basic level but the downside is that there is no progression beyond lower mid table and the entertainment is minimal.

Joppe84 wrote:The problem with that Ember is that you think we are in position to get  a " beast",  but we're not.

We're an old club with shit players, no money, an owner that doesn't care, no fans coming to matches (this is probably gonna burn, but we had 34k in our derby),  why on earth would an experienced highly rated manager come here? That's the entire point. We can't. Thus we gotta gamble on young up and coming. Just like Everton did.

The 34k was to do with the club making it very difficult to get tickets due to fears that the noses would end up in the home section of the ground. So no point using that as a stick to beat the fans with. This same year there was a packed house for the FA cup quarter-final against Albion...so the fans are there but looking at our home form over the last five years is it any wonder the crowds fluctuate?

AstonThriller wrote:

Joppe84 wrote:The problem with that Ember is that you think we are in position to get  a " beast",  but we're not.

We're an old club with shit players, no money, an owner that doesn't care, no fans coming to matches (this is probably gonna burn, but we had 34k in our derby),  why on earth would an experienced highly rated manager come here? That's the entire point. We can't. Thus we gotta gamble on young up and coming. Just like Everton did.

The 34k was to do with the club making it very difficult to get tickets due to fears that the noses would end up in the home section of the ground. So no point using that as a stick to beat the fans with. This same year there was a packed house for the FA cup quarter-final against Albion...so the fans are there but looking at our home form over the last five years is it any wonder the crowds fluctuate?

Ok lets use average attendances the last 20 years. Second biggest City in the country and we can't fill the ground at all. Just like all other areas with the club atm, even our attendances scream small club.

If we want to stay in this league and decide to give Sherwood the heave ho then the only real candidate to keep us up is Fat Sam. Forget your silly foreign managers or prying Martinez away from Everton (will never happen) if we want league experience with a decent record then Sam's your man.

Therefore before people completely write off Sherwood perhaps they show be careful what they wish for because I suspect those folks will be the first to complain when Fat Sam is leading out the team.

DelboyVilla wrote:If we want to stay in this league and decide to give Sherwood the heave ho then the only real candidate to keep us up is Fat Sam. Forget your silly foreign managers or prying Martinez away from Everton (will never happen) if we want league experience with a decent record then Sam's your man.

Therefore before people completely write off Sherwood perhaps they show be careful what they wish for because I suspect those folks will be the first to complain when Fat Sam is leading out the team.

My father-in-law supports West Ham and thought Big Sam was the right man at the right time for them, and did a good job stabilising the team and getting them playing decent football.

Not for me, another Pulis

Well as this is a fantasy thread given that we never seem to act with any speed at Villa, so I think we're stuck with Tim for the foreseeable, and as half our team are French, I'd go for Lyon manager Hubert Fournier - great coach, plays attractive attacking football.
Never happen though, but I can dream can't I??