MACDONALD MUST BE FREE TO COACH
Kevin MacDonald's talents should be put to best use on the training ground says Taylor
Thursday September 2,2010
By
Graham TaylorASTON Villa expect to have a new man in charge soon. What they must not do is appoint Kevin MacDonald as the manager.
Villa are a club I have a lot of affection for, having worked there twice as a manager and also been on the board.
This is their opportunity to remodel how the football side of the club is run and probably their best chance of breaking into the top four.
When I was managing them, MacDonald was there. He has been there a long time and I have great respect for his knowledge and coaching ability.
That is why Villa should appoint him as head coach, his responsibility beginning and ending with the first team and getting out on the training pitch with them. That is what he is best at.
If they make MacDonald the manager in the old-fashioned way, they will not be getting the best out of him. It will be a waste.
It’s how Martin O’Neill managed Villa – he was responsible for everything. It’s the way I used to manage, it’s the way Sir Alex Ferguson used to manage. But Alex now delegates more. If I was in management now, so would I. The job is too big for one man. It needs to be split.
MacDonald would have to do the media duties as well because there is no way the man who runs the team can’t answer the questions.
But all the rest of it, the contracts and the money side of the club, that needs to be taken off him and done by someone else.
What has happened with O’Neill couldn’t have happened at a worse time. And he’s taken another four staff with him – the assistant manager, first-team coach, goal-keeping coach and chief scout.
It’s been a big hole to fill for MacDonald, promoted from looking after the reserves at which he was excellent. With Tony McAndrew also promoted alongside him, MacDonald has done well to get Villa through these past two weeks.
The chairman, Randy Lerner, did not over-react to the team beating a poor West Ham side in the first game under MacDonald, nor did he over-react to the 6-0 defeat at Newcastle. He has let MacDonald run the team and is taking an overview of the five games he has had.
MacDonald has taken his time to be sure, but perhaps not done himself any favours by talking openly of his doubts about doing the job now he has said he wants to be considered. This is a big chance for Lerner to put Villa on a better footing, to be able to compete in the big four with a head coach who appoints, or agrees to the appointments, of those who will work with him.
There will be a lot of applicants for the job, but I don’t see a lot out there. Sven-Goran Eriksson would bring a calm to the job, but is he the same manager now who did pretty well with Manchester City? I don’t know.
Martin Jol? Would he want to come to Villa now he seems to have got what he wants with Ajax?
Other top European names with no experience of our Premier League have been ruled out by Villa. The appointment of MacDonald as the new head coach is more and more attractive, with that brief to change the whole model.
When I was on the board at Villa I asked the then manager, John Gregory, what he wanted, and how I could help. He said that Villa needed a better worldwide scouting system and I set about putting that in place for him. However, when I left it was not carried on.
It’s the big area that is letting down Villa.
I know Ian Storey-Moore, who was chief scout under O’Neill, and how the club operated. Villa did not take many players from abroad, it was mainly an English-based squad. That has to change. MacDonald and the board must never again be wide open to five senior members of the football staff leaving when the manager goes. It has wiped them out.
Here is the opportunity to put a framework for coaching and scouting in place that stays in place no matter who the manager might be and who he brings with him.
If Lerner is not going to provide substantial amounts of money in the future, then the club finding their own players would fit in with that edict and would make Villa stronger.
I would like that.
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