Re: Next Aston Villa manager thread

[achilles]

It all depends on their forward thinking but I would be surprised if they would settle for a consolation period, billionaires don't normally have patience.
Lots of good managers out there but the clock is definitely ticking!

[UnclePanda]

RANIERI!

[UnclePanda]

I wouldnt be against Carlos Carvalhal either.

That said, I think we need to stick with Bruce

[The Utterer]

Star saying it's agreed!!
Henry to Villa

[AstonThriller]

LOL BRILLIANT if this is true . The Bruce disciples are losing their minds tonight. "We need stability", "Henry would be like RDM", "Bruce has done a good job, why change with two weeks till the season starts?" BOLLOX!!. Bruce has been an absolute failure and deserves to get the hook. What has he achieved at the club exactly? He had the most expensive and experienced team to ever grace the championship, and everytime the team needed to step up in important games WE FAILED. Henry would be a longterm investment, charged with changing the culture and style of the club and I would back him all the way.

The man has been schooled under Wenger, Guardiola, Rikjaard, Martinez etc, and has played with some of the best to ever do it in Messi, Ronaldinho, Vieira, Zidane etc, so why not? What on earth do we have to lose right now? For most of my life I've had to sit back and watch British dinosaurs and chancers like Mccliesh, Sherwood, Bruce, Lambert, Mon etc, and where has that got us? nowhere but the championship. Time for the club to have a new identity now. Thierry will most certainly encourage passing football and also possession football. There may be some growing pains, but we will be much better for it as we move forward.

Every decent manager had to start somewhere. All of the greats were given a chance and took off, I'm more than happy to give Henry a chance to show what he can do. Lampard and Gerard have been given jobs lately, so why not him too? I hope this happens because imo he has more pedigree than both of those guys. Let's remember he was just an assistant manager at a world cup, the guy is not a total novice and he's earned his stripes now.

[Dazzle]

LOL BRILLIANT if this is true . The Bruce disciples are losing their minds tonight. "We need stability", "Henry would be like RDM", "Bruce has done a good job, why change with two weeks till the season starts?" BOLLOX!!. Bruce has been an absolute failure and deserves to get the hook. What has he achieved at the club exactly? He had the most expensive and experienced team to ever grace the championship, and everytime the team needed to step up in important games WE FAILED. Henry would be a longterm investment, charged with changing the culture and style of the club and I would back him all the way.

The man has been schooled under Wenger, Guardiola, Rikjaard, Martinez etc, and has played with some of the best to ever do it in Messi, Ronaldinho, Vieira, Zidane etc, so why not? What on earth do we have to lose right now? For most of my life I've had to sit back and watch British dinosaurs and chancers like Mccliesh, Sherwood, Bruce, Lambert, Mon etc, and where has that got us? nowhere but the championship. Time for the club to have a new identity now. Thierry will most certainly encourage passing football and also possession football. There may be some growing pains, but we will be much better for it as we move forward.

Every decent manager had to start somewhere. All of the greats were given a chance and took off, I'm more than happy to give Henry a chance to show what he can do. Lampard and Gerard have been given jobs lately, so why not him too? I hope this happens because imo he has more pedigree than both of those guys. Let's remember he was just an assistant manager at a world cup, the guy is not a total novice and he's earned his stripes now.

I haven’t been Bruce’s biggest fan I think it’s fair to say. But one or two points regarding your post; whilst listing your previous managers (dinosaurs) you have omitted Brian Little, Ron Atkinson, and John Gregory? All successful managers at the Villa and very much British. Two you have listed as dinosaurs are Sherwood and Lambert, both “younger” in managerial terms and, at the time, trumpeted for their modern ways and abilities to nurture younger players. Didn’t end so good. We move on to foreign managers. I remember Josef Venglos, Gerard Houllier, Remi Garde. Houllier I think might have been ok for us but unfortunately got ill. He had the advantage of having managed in the premier league for a number of years at Liverpool. Venglos didn’t work, Garde unfortunately a disaster. Garde had been a player under Wenger at Arsenal.
Failed in big games, you say? Granted, first half at biggest game of season at Wembley was bad. However are we really forgetting massive wins against Wolves, Cardiff, Sheff Ut, Birmingham? Or even a 5-0 drubbing of what was then a cock-a-hoop Bristol City? Let’s just throw a bit of balance into the conversation

[DelboyVilla]

The way I see it Bruce had his chance twice! All he managed was a play off final which he blew in the first half with his negative tactics? I know Bruce talks about how the players struggle to cope playing for a big club like us and I think Bruce has struggled with the expectation more than most of his players. For a lot of the time he has seemed to be lost and not know his best side or formation. He seems to need a lot of first team coaches?
He seems like a nice guy and he is loyal but I am not sure over his claims to be the loans specialist? Come on, who if you are a fringe player at a champions league club and you get given the choice of working with Bruce or Henry which would you take?

We know Bruce will not get us promoted next season but with Henry? He could surprise us?

[FoxyAV]

I don't want Bruce at all. He's wasted a huge amount of money on players who are superfluous or he doesn't know how to play, blamed the players for losses, played questionable starting 11s and given us some dreadful football. 10 men behind the ball and Hogan isolated up front with only hoofball to contend with and the striker gets blamed for only having a few touches. Pushing out Baker so we can throw a load of money at Terry. And so on. No, I don't want him and his silver tongue around. He can take his £2million (here I am, spending the new owners' money!) and tell all his friends in the media why he's been wronged.

On the other hand while I like the sound of Henry he has virtually no experience. We don't know what he's like under pressure, we don't know what he's like with players - experienced or not - in fact we know nothing about him as a manager because he's never been one.

Do we really want another season of floundering around? Sure, Sherwood was a nice guy but he was lost. Maybe he had the wrong advisors, maybe the players weren't the ones he wanted.

On the other hand I think I'd be happy to see Henry come to Villa as assistant to an experienced manager, Wenger for example. That would be nice. We can dream now can't we?

[Dazzle]

If the paper talk was for Martinez AND Henry then I’d view it as a no-brainer. Let’s have some perspective, Brian Kidd was a lauded No.2 along with Rene Muelensteen and even our own Kevin McDonald. Being a successful No.2 doesn’t equate to being a successful manager. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can say if Thierry Henry is a good manager. There is no evidence to point in any direction regarding his managerial abilities, there can only be belief and an optimistic wish. He might be outstanding, and if we do go that route then we all sincerely hope he is. It’s all about timings for me, and I don’t think now is the time. I wanted Bruce gone last summer and again by October time. I think there were more hits than misses with regard to his signings. Lansbury, Hogan, and Whelan would obviously be the most obvious failings thus far but we also shouldn’t forget that we basically had no Grealish for a couple of months or so and Kodjia was basically out for the entirety of the season. Johnstone, Snodgrass, Hourihane, Elmohamady, Terry, Grabban can all be regarded as hits. Even I would concede that Bruce’s time hasn’t been as bad as we might make out, it’s simply that he hasn’t got us promoted which was the single aim. But then I do now balance that out by comparing how close we were in May to where we were just two summers ago.

[FoxyAV]

I see the signings a different way. Hogan, Hourihane and Lansbury weren't successful signings for Bruce because he couldn't get them to work despite buying them. All seemingly bought based on statistics and then dropped into a team not set up the way their previous clubs were, then put on the bench. I really like Hogan, he has a great work rate and makes really good runs that are virtually never picked up - or acted - on. He could be a really good player for us if we had a decent manager. In terms of the club and FFP I think Hourihane did work out (once enough other players were injured and he could be selected), as did Grabban (despite not being able to cope with hoofball either - the first half of the final involved us punting the ball to him to lose, why I thought with Kodjia starting we'd have had a chance but not with Grabban), Snodgrass and especially Johnstone. Whelan was superfluous (unless he was on the pitch to look angry or make the opposition midfield look good), as was Elmo (De Laet, Hutton and Bree, even Richards!), Terry (I preferred Baker) and Onomah (had two or three games where he could be arsed and all the rest where he couldn't - plus he was superfluous). Tuanzebe never really got going but looked really special when he was fit. I'd love to see more of him and I'd love it if he were one of ours.

In essence we had three successful loan players and one purchase and a lot of players we simply didn't need or who weren't played correctly. Onomah is a DM, for example.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Any manager who we can say with any degree of certainty is a good manager, we aren't in a position to go and get, it's a choice of either sticking with Bruce, going for one of the same old out of work names on the managerial merry-go-round, who fail everywhere they go, or taking a chance on someone who's inexperienced but shows promise.

The way people go on about him only being a 'name' you'd think we were being linked to a a famous former player who's retired and had no involvement with the coaching side of the game whatsoever, it's not as if we're offering the job to Gary Linekar... Henry's been involved in coaching players for the last few years now, the usual starting point for would be managers.

Besides there will be others brought in to work alongside him, Steve Bould has been mentioned, so it's not as if there's going to be a lack of experience, and I wouldn't be surprised, if we also bring in a DOF to work closely with him.

If Henry does sign up, it would also speak volumes of NSWE's ambition for the club, to attract Henry and convince him to quit his £4m a year job at sky, then he would have been sold a very impressive vision, and will have had assurances that he'd have every chance of getting his managerial career off to a good start.

All that said, I still have doubts this will happen as the daily star aren't very reliable at all, only thing giving it some credence is that Alan Nixon is also saying it's on the cards, and he's often wrong himself. I suppose we'll find out either tomorrow or Thursday depending on when this meeting with Bruce is actually going to happen.

[FoxyAV]

Or going for one of the big managers like Wenger (is he currently employed?) and really showing intent!

I wonder too how fast the new owners want to move, are they happy to spend another couple of seasons in the Championship and go for a push in 2019-2020 or whatever? Would they take on a Henry safe in the knowledge he could well need a year to find his and everyone else's feet and get things working? Xia still owns 45%, is he going to be happy to sit back and let it play itself out rather than go for immediate glory? Either way I don't see Bruce bringing anything new to the table. Sure, he got us into the playoffs last season but it should have been automatic. Managerial nous from Colin Wanker beat Bruce and his millions. And I'm not sure Fulham were rolling in money either. If we give him the same players will he do anything better?*

I don't know the answers either but Villa's been a rollercoaster for a few years now so anything could happen. At least if we have to sell Grealish and anyone else we'll still have a very good team on paper, with promising academy players coming into the first team and so on. If it is Henry I'd be keen to see how he works with Hogan, Kodjia, Davis, Audrey and maybe even McCormack. We have some previously very successful strikers there, Bruce never worked out how to get them scoring last season did he?

*Actually, I can see Kodjia controlling more hoofballs and allowing the midfield into play, but it's not really anything to be proud of from a manager with Bruce's experience.

[Dions_Bald_Head]

I think this newsbreak is more along the lines of everyone knowing that Henry has been approached but The Star running with it as an appointment just in case it happens so they can look like they were first.

I'd be surprised if they don't leave Bruce in the post just because it's so late, but we have new personalities contributing to the running of the club now & we don't know how bold their thinking is.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Apparently Jim White has just said he's spoken with Bruce this morning, and the meeting with the owners is going to be tomorrow, so we probably won't hear anything official until later tomorrow or Thursday...

[smetro]

Apparently Jim White has just said he's spoken with Bruce this morning, and the meeting with the owners is going to be tomorrow, so we probably won't hear anything official until later tomorrow or Thursday...

I doubt he will get a meeting now. It would seem they are tying up the Henry deal then Bruce will get a phone call - It always seemed to me like Bruce was pushing for a meeting, but the owners weren't keen - never a good sign.

As for Henry - be surprised if it works out to be honest. He doesn't have any sort of track record - for all we know he could play ultra defensive long ball game ! - I just hope he stands or falls on his actual results and we don't stick with him on the grounds he implement some long term ethos - no reason why he can't do that of course - but must get reasonable results in the short term.

[smetro]

Apparently Jim White has just said he's spoken with Bruce this morning, and the meeting with the owners is going to be tomorrow, so we probably won't hear anything official until later tomorrow or Thursday...

I think if Bruce was staying they would have come out and squashed the rumours by now. Be a major surprise if he stays now - but can see this dragging out until the weekend.

[deadbuzzardalive]

I still wouldn't be surprised at all if it's announced that Bruce is staying, or if he leaves, instead of Henry they announce someone completely different as a replacement.

[DelboyVilla]

This may be his first managerial position but apparently Henry is a true student of the game and a meticulous preparer for anything he attempts. Remember he did his coaching badges with Arteta and Viera and I don't think people would be as upset if we were talking of one of that pair replacing Bruce? Bruce has fluffed his chance and I for one welcome such an outside the box appointment and would we have even dreamed of this conversation 10 days ago?

[Dions_Bald_Head]

Well Henry impressed me with the way he was able to remain suitably dour when France beat Belgium!

[smetro]

I still wouldn't be surprised at all if it's announced that Bruce is staying, or if he leaves, instead of Henry they announce someone completely different as a replacement.

I would be surprised if its not Henry now - If they sack Bruce and appoint someone else that would be even more surprising.

[DelboyVilla]

Well Henry impressed me with the way he was able to remain suitably dour when France beat Belgium!

He seems to have the ability to grow a fairly impressive beard? A few months and he could rival Jedinak?

[deadbuzzardalive]

We actually play tomorrow in London against West Ham, so presumably Bruce will be preparing and travelling for that, would seem odd to wait until a match day to have this meeting and tell him his contract is to be terminated, would be better just to get it over and done with today.

[smetro]

We actually play tomorrow in London against West Ham, so presumably Bruce will be preparing and travelling for that, would seem odd to wait until a match day to have this meeting and tell him his contract is to be terminated, would be better just to get it over and done with today.

I suppose they want Henry signed up. If they sacked Bruce then a week before the season starts we would be looking for a manager pretty urgently and Henry could up his terms. If Henry demands to much we can still fall back on Bruce - its just keeping our options open.

[deadbuzzardalive]

We actually play tomorrow in London against West Ham, so presumably Bruce will be preparing and travelling for that, would seem odd to wait until a match day to have this meeting and tell him his contract is to be terminated, would be better just to get it over and done with today.

I suppose they want Henry signed up. If they sacked Bruce then a week before the season starts we would be looking for a manager pretty urgently and Henry could up his terms. If Henry demands to much we can still fall back on Bruce - its just keeping our options open.

Gazzetta Dello Sport and other sources in Italy saying that Henry has agreed terms with us now, and all that remains is to agree the terms of Bruce's departure.

[big ming]

Read somewhere that his No.2 will be Steve Bould. Good appointment for a defensive coach. Don't know whether it is true or not.

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