The replacement for MON...?

[Bosco81]

Gerrard Houllier? Who?

He's a nobody.

I will be fucking furious if he gets the job.

Same here, hopefully this drip feeding of names to test fans reactions will mean we might have to dip into the £18M Milner pot to get a manager who is good enough to have a job currently.

[Small Rodent]

Gerrard Houllier? Who?

He's a nobody.

I will be fucking furious if he gets the job.

Same here, hopefully this drip feeding of names to test fans reactions will mean we might have to dip into the £18M Milner pot to get a manager who is good enough to have a job currently.

Won more silverware than any Villa manager in probably everyone living memory on here.

[citizenDJ]

Gerrard Houllier? Who?

He's a nobody.

I will be fucking furious if he gets the job.

I can understand people not wanting Houllier as manager for different reasons, but he's hardly a 'nobody', is he?!

[Le Lapin]

Was it Houllier that got rid of Carew for Baros? Wonder how they will get on. Happy enough with Houllier though, he needs to be the manager.  This director of football lark does not work in the PL.
No one knows if this is a goer yet though, we could all be on the wrong track.

[PaulTheVillan]

I'm not keen on the idea of a Director of Football.

[Proposition Joe]

The DoF structure works well at Bayern.  There, what we would call DoF, they call the Manager (Uli Hoeness), and what we could call the Manager, they call the Trainer (Luis van Gaal).

The Trainer doesn't go out and choose players to sign, in theory at least, just tells the manager the sorts of players he needs, and the Manager goes out and buys a bunch of players and says to the Trainer, "here, I bought you these, now win the league again with them".

But the Trainer chooses the tactics and formation and team etc.  Were KMac to be Trainer in this context, I would worry.

[PaulTheVillan]

Donadoni?

[Jimbo]

A couple of things;

First, this Director of Football thing. I agree with the poster above that for all intents and purposes that Alex Ferguson is more or less a DoF. And for that case O'Neill was, and probably half the league managers. Leaving the  Assitant Manager with "coaching".

No, Ferguson is a manager. He does the transfers, sorts out contracts, speaks to (some of) the press and everything else - but most importantly he picks the team. He throws the tea cups and turns the hairdryer on full blast at half time when things turn to shit. He's the manager.

The coaching staff, or assistant manager and his team, is what it's always been. There is no director of football at Old Trafford. Or at Chelsea. And I'm struggling to see how it would work here.

My gut instinct is that Houllier - if indeed it is he who tops our admittedly weak list of candidates - would come in as manager in the traditional sense, with the possibility that KMac becomes his assistant. So that KMac plays a big part in coaching the players, and Houllier picks the team. A DOF doesn't pick the team. 

We'll have to wait and see how the board play it. It might not be Houllier after all.

[frank]

But the Trainer chooses the tactics and formation and team etc.  Were KMac to be Trainer in this context, I would worry.

Agreed. I'm very unimpressed by KMacD's tactics and team selection.

[TimTheVillain]

Donadoni?

Stan's brother has put him in for the job.

Don't know enough about him, but he doesn't meet the criteria if they're sticking to it.

[Irish villain]

I can see Houllier getting a 1 year deal, I think they wanted a Moyes or Hughes but would not go for them as they are both attached. So get in Houllier for 1 season, see how it (and he health wise) goes and then look at things next Summer.

I'd rather see us have a long term plan. I'd be hoping there was no uncertainty surrounding our manager's future so that we could push on immediately.

[claretandblue barmy]

Gerrard Houllier? Who?

He's a nobody.

I will be fucking furious if he gets the job.

I can understand people not wanting Houllier as manager for different reasons, but he's hardly a 'nobody', is he?!

Firstly Im not so sure he'd be my first choice as a replacement, but his CV is far greater than some of the other names that people
are shouting for.. And as a previous poster quite rightly pointed out in a four or five year spell at Liverpool he won more there than we have won in 25+years he's also won league titles & other silverware in France so hardly a nobody?

[pauliewalnuts]

But the Trainer chooses the tactics and formation and team etc.  Were KMac to be Trainer in this context, I would worry.

Agreed. I'm very unimpressed by KMacD's tactics and team selection.

Yep.

I can't understand how anyone thinks a central two of Ireland and Petrov is not going to get walked through at will, for starters, and I think that's what he wanted to play against Everton, too.

[Bosco81]

Won more silverware than any Villa manager in probably everyone living memory on here.

So when there was grumblings about MON last season and we wondered who we could get that was better than him, was the first name that popped into your head, Gerard Houllier, I bet it wouldn't have made the top 20.

[E I Adio]

Two little known facts about Houllier.

1. Concerning his "health problems." He suffered a dissected aorta in 2001 at half time during the game with Leeds. This condition has nothing to do with a myocardial infarction (heart attack) as has been reported. Aortic dissection is not associated with heart disease.

2. Today he is 63. I know that to the young Turks on here that's as good as having one foot in the grave, but thankfully these days it's more like middle age.

Happy Birthday Gérard.