Who Should be Aston Villa Manager ? Now with new, revised poll

[pauliewalnuts]

As there have been a few withdrawals (taking jobs elsewhere, ruling themselves out etc), we've removed the old poll and started afresh with a limited set of runners - the handful with the lowest odds from oddschecker - to see how peoples' opinions stand now.

Vote counts have been set to zero, so knock yourselves out.

Bugger, I went too quick and there was only McClaren and Hughes available (I voted for the latter)- unless my eyes are worse than I think and I did not see the other options.

Of those in the poll I would vote Benitez 100%. After that I am not sure... Hughes probably, but after its Benitez all abit 'meh' for me.

Sorry, I fucked up and hit return which posted the poll as it stood after I'd added two names, so for a minute or so it was there just with two options.

[Redman]

I just wonder if the Barry saga has left a lasting taste with Randy against Rafa? MON was quite vocal in his condemnation of Rafa's methods / lack of class over the whole issue.

Then again who now gives a toss what MON thinks?

I could understand why anybody associated with Villa might hold a grudge about that.

But Randy is a businessman, isn't he? I hope he'd understand that although the Barry approach was aggressive and underhand, it wasn't personal. At the time, Rafa was working to a tight budget (hence why the deal never happened) but with high expectations. He was just trying to leverage the best deal he could for his club.

That might be so but it smacked of arrogance, "we are Liverpool and if we want to undermine your club and unsettle your best player so be it" lets not get into an arguement about this.

Well, it was arrogant. I think it was a technique Rafa probably inherited from Real Madrid. They're never shy about unsettling players either and it's something the big clubs can use to their advantage I guess.

[hawkeye]

Cheers mate, nice one sunshine.

Listen sunshine, your a mate, lets leave it there.

OK Pal

[Ian.]

Rafa I think. Ask again tomorrow. Glad it isn't up to me.

[mr woo]

While I can appreciate all the potential suitors have their negative points, most have positive qualities that either balance or outweigh them.

Which is why I'm mystified Martinez seems to have so much support.
Anyone suggesting he always has his teams playing good passing football has been watching a different Wigan to me for the past two years.

[DeKuip]

I expect that Randy takes a lot of pride in the youngsters coming through and will appoint a manager he feels will be prepared to give the likes of Deano, Bannan, Lichaj, Clark, Gardner, the Fonz etc every chance, rather than keep asking for more and more money to spend in the transfer market.

I can't recall too many Liverpool youngsters being given that chance by Benitez. That may well be a case of not having youngsters good enough at the time, I don't know, but all of a sudden Dalglish has come in and played a few decent young lads.

When the highly respected Academy manager at Liverpool Steve Heighway left, wasn't it because Benitez wanted to take control of the academy as well. Heighway said at the time "I would urge any football club to make sure the academy is not one of the areas the manager controls." This to me makes sense because managers come and go over relatively short time spans, but academies have to have long-term plans that shouldn't be left in disarray if a first team manager moves on.

[Dante Lavelli]

Redman, Thanks for coming on and providing a Liverpool perspective on Rafa.  I can only speak for myself but I like it when decent fans come on and add different viewpoints.

It's been mentioned on here a few times that Benitez pretty much re-built the Liverpool youth system which is now paying dividends for Kenny.  Is this true or an exaggeration?
 
Depending on how pessimistic the Villa fan is, it is possible that we might not have huge amounts of cash left for transfers.  How do you think Rafa would do when working under a tight-ish monetary conditions?  After all, didn't it start to unravel at Liverpool when they started to stop spending big money?

[TheSandman]

Of those listed I'd vote for Rafa the Gaffa by a long chalk.

[Holy Trinity]

Rafa had six years of oppurtunity to win a championship for Liverpool, and he only achieved a 2nd place finish only once

we wont win the league for a good 10 years i reckon, our aim is champions league, man u arse and chelsea had a huge head start over the chasing pack and the rest of the football league are playing catch up. to catch up you need the best players but to attract the best players you need to be winning things or at least competing in the champions league. us and liverpool have to compete by taking calculated risks 12 million downing, on every top clubs radar but nobody took the plunge, same with milner from age 16 at leeds he was "destined for greatness" according to the media yet it was us who took the risk and signed him not once but twice, liverpool took a huge punt on torres who man u had been tracking for 3 or 4 years fergie was put off by the large price tag but pool gambled and it paid off and they closed the gap, the league is never as simple as the best manager wins the league the best players win the league.
man city and chelsea can afford to throw 50 million a time on flops so they will in time become the new title rivals like arsenal and united were in the 0's. man u have a standing as one of the biggest clubs in world football.
the rest of us have to hope our gamble pays off or that one of the big 3 or 4 teams mess it up and we can benefit from it.

[JUAN PABLO]

Rafa had six years of oppurtunity to win a championship for Liverpool, and he only achieved a 2nd place finish only once

Id take that and the champs league winners

[villajk]

Of those listed I'd vote for Rafa the Gaffa by a long chalk.

As did I.

[Lobsterboy]

Of those remaining on the list I would take Rafa as the number one choice every time with Hughes a distant second.

No real interest in seeing any of the others take over at Villa but those McClaren rumours are getting worrying close to coming true...

[Greg N'Ash]

Crickey, I think we've invented a new system of AV. Instead of the least popular candidate getting eliminated and the votes added to everyone else, its 1st and 2nd that get knocked out. Could catch on......

edit: someone vote for McClaren or he's going to win it at this rate....

[Louzie0]

That's a very confident poll. Exclusive and definitive.

Noting a, 'we wouldn't mind Rafa, honest...' trend in posts.  Giving up a bit early?

I want an 'other' thread to vote in because I am still after Ancelotti.  Looking at the betting thread, Rafa, McClaren, Curbishley and MON are still there in the top 10.  Come ON!   

[Redman]

Good stuff Redman, do you put his failures in the transfer market because of a tight budget or just poor judgement, didnt he complete 64 transfers?

More than 64 I would have thought.

It was frustrating a lot of the time because we were signing players we knew weren't good enough to really challenge at the top. Even the alright-ish ones like Crouch and Pennant. Rafa must have known they weren't good enough too but he had to build a squad - especially in the early days. We missed out on so many top targets and had to compromise. Bellamy is a good example - he had a buyout clause of £6m and he could do a job for year. Then we sold him for £8m to finance Torres.

So there was a high turnover of players but it wasn't like replacing one load of shite with another - it was constantly upgrading. Rafa's gross spend was astronomical but his net was only something like £15m a year. He wasn't as wasteful as is reported.

Rafa's admitted making mistakes and his judgement wasn't perfect. But I don't think it was worse than other managers. The problem was, we only had a top class team, not a squad. So we couldn't really afford costly errors. Take Man U for example - they spent £30m on Nani and Anderson who went on to produce very little for the next 3 years. But they had the squad to absorb it. Now Nani has come good and Fergie is off the hook. If Nani was at Liverpool, he'd have been written-off long ago and Rafa would been tarred and feathered.