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

[TheMachineryOfNight]

I'm sorry if I'm a few pages behind but was catching up with posts and I was dismayed by the nervousness from the alleged email where we were saying we are entitled to approach McLeish.

Moved to register and post, in fact.

Will AM be new manager? I don't know (but doubt it strongly). 

But re: that email, then let's be clear: (and if it helps to get rid of the SHA connection, the same's true if it were David Moyes, Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger resigning so still applies if it is a desirable outcome.)

• Contracts are two-way things: SHA are entitled to reject his resignation but we are not entitled to ignore that rejection and just press on at AM's say so.  One party can't just walk off unless expressly allowed in contract - and it would be rare indeed for that in football management, I suspect
• Villa will know categorically that this is the case so even if we were a shady organisation, we would know we were on shaky ground
• The only thing we really know is that we wrote to Wigan to ask for permission.  Why, apart from digging at the neighbours, would we suddenly get in the gutter?  We wouldn't. 

So we wouldn't have grounds, we would know that and if nothing else we have a reputation for acting respectfully.  If anyone cannot see that this is a fan/press mocking up an email to look like it's from the Villa then maybe you should click the 'Give up' button at the bottom.

Oh, it says 'Go Up'
 

[class-of-82]

i would let gary mac and cowans stay in charge until houllier can return. the guy is a total step up in class from o"neill, all the chants against him and the banners no wonder he nearly croaked it. it will take time to clear the deadwood that boring o"neill left us with. all that over the top rubbish about when he went back to anfield etc. can anyone imagine the reception morley or mortimer or anyone of that wonderful team of 80/81 would of got when they came back to villa park for the 1st time as manager of another team and would they of saluted the holte end with a smack of the heart yes of course they would but houllier does the same when he goes back to anfield and gets pelters for it.

[brian green]

The single thing which is keeping me sane at the moment is that Randy is no fool.   He must know that the biggest loser if we sign McLeish will be himself.   Every single bit of the considerable store of sincere goodwill he has accumulated from Villa fans would be lost at a stroke.   He would go from being an admired and respected owner of the club to what Doug Ellis was at the end of his reign. Despised and ridiculed.

If we start the new season with McLeish as our manager, if we are not at least one goal up after the first half hour of the first game, the crowd will turn on him and from there it will be all downhill.

[garyshawsknee]

My objection to McLeish has nothing to do with where he was managing last year. Had he relegated Wigan or Bolton twice in 4 years, I'd be against him as manager just as much. He's had sufficient resources to have at least kept them in the PL on both occasions. The fact that he hasn't reveals all we need to know about his qualities as a PL manager.

A question for you TV as youre in North America. Does Randy do the hiring and firing at the Browns,if so is his track record shit for the want of a better word? Apologies if im jumping to conclusion and you know nothing!!

I actually work a lot in Cleveland for what it's worth. He took over the Browns in 2002. Since then he's had 2 full time head coaches, but they were hired by the then General Manager Phil Savage. He gives his people rope to do their job. Then as Phil Savage found out just over a year a go, if it doesn't work out, he gets rid of you. The person he appointed, Mike Holmgren is very highly respected in the game, and Holmgren has just made his first Head Coach hire.

The Browns being poor isn't an owner issue in my opinion. The Browns play in a really hard division where 2 of the 4 teams are amongst the best there is every season. NFL owners for the most part are not as hands on with day to day business as most club chairman. With the exception of a few, they hand off their business to executives, GM's etc to run the sports side of the business. I think Randy is doing something similar at Villa which might a weakness as it relates to our football, as much as it is a strength of his management style.

Cheers for that. I thought i heard before that he doesn't directly choose them. Not sure if that means Paul Faulkner is pulling alot of the strings.

[Villanation]

For me its simple...

We started the season without a manager, we ended the season without a manager, we still don't look anywhere nearer getting a manager, we seem incapable of attracting anyone of any reasonable quality, people speak of faith, I'm sure there where some on the Titanic that where convinced something would save them just before they where plunged to there icy graves.

Evening people

[Villanation]

The single thing which is keeping me sane at the moment is that Randy is no fool[/size].   He must know that the biggest loser if we sign McLeish will be himself.   Every single bit of the considerable store of sincere goodwill he has accumulated from Villa fans would be lost at a stroke.   He would go from being an admired and respected owner of the club to what Doug Ellis was at the end of his reign. Despised and ridiculed.

If we start the new season with McLeish as our manager, if we are not at least one goal up after the first half hour of the first game, the crowd will turn on him and from there it will be all downhill.

I'd love to know what you base that on.

[AV82EC]

For me its simple...

We started the season without a manager, we ended the season without a manager, we still don't look anywhere nearer getting a manager, we seem incapable of attracting anyone of any reasonable quality, people speak of faith, I'm sure there where some on the Titanic that where convinced something would save them just before they where plunged to there icy graves.

Evening people

Did you read General Krulaks post yesterday or does that involve actually having to compute the information and is hence too difficult.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

For me its simple...

We started the season without a manager, we ended the season without a manager, we still don't look anywhere nearer getting a manager, we seem incapable of attracting anyone of any reasonable quality, people speak of faith, I'm sure there where some on the Titanic that where convinced something would save them just before they where plunged to there icy graves.

Evening people

For f***s sake Nation, don't volunteer for the Samaritans!

[eastie]

And if we start the season well and get results all will soon be forgiven- let randy bring in his man and get behind the club whoever is manager!

Mcleish won a trophy at blues and spent very little- remind me what we won under o neill spending £140m?

Granted blues were relegated but he will have better players and much greater resources here, he will sort the defence and has an eye for a bargain as in dann and Johnson- we may not play exciting attacking football but we didn't under o neill either.

[jacquesderrida]

I don't often post, but two thoughts occur to me (for what they're worth).

Under Randy's tenure, we have never ever leaked information to the press; never played that game. So it's curious to me that now, if we were interested in MacLeish, we would suddenly drop our guard and just send this supposed email: especially given the obviously contentious nature of such an appointment.

Second, MacLeish suddenly resigns from Birmingham (after receiving much publicised backing from Yeung). On a quiet news day, wouldn't the hacks be asking: what's happened here? What discussions have taken place, internally? Instead, nameless sources deflect all attention from such questions towards us: that we've been sniffing around MacLeish. And suddenly, this Pannu chap can come out in the press, playing the honourable MD role: coming across as the injured party. That seems a bit convenient to me. (No questioning from the press of why MacLeish has decided to leave them, note...)

Of course, who knows what's going on. But I have no reason to doubt that we'd be careful enough not to let emails leak now. And I have to question why Bloose seem to be playing the injured party card so hard (in the wretched Express, for instance).

Just a couple of thoughts.

[PeterWithe]

Saddam Hussein didn't achieve a landslide like this, well done Eck.

[paul_e]

For me its simple...

We started the season without a manager, we ended the season without a manager, we still don't look anywhere nearer getting a manager, we seem incapable of attracting anyone of any reasonable quality, people speak of faith, I'm sure there where some on the Titanic that where convinced something would save them just before they where plunged to there icy graves.

Evening people

Prove it without quoting some journalist that knows nothing about what is happening.

As I've mentioned elsewhere there's no need to panic.  The only sides that have done any transfer business of note are man utd and liverpool, we're not missing out on anything, the players are on holiday so there is no need to rush.  All this panic is entirely down to the fact that we haven't appointed anyone and the press are making up stories to fill column inches.

Until we appoint a manager and we see what signings he makes in and out we can't judge anything.  To start acting like we're a sinking ship and are bound to involved in a relegation battle next year is unbeleilably premature.  Just stay off the internet/talksport/ssn for a few days, calm down and wait and see.  They told us they were going to take their time, why are people panicking now that we are, in fact, taking our time.

[cheadlevilla]

Things seem dismal and grey at the moment... Randy's goodwill with the fans seems to be leaching away as witnessed by some of the slightly bizarre posts and the claims that life was better under Dougie
The best hopes we have ie Moyes and Hughes are grey as well, but are much better than the black options of Mcleish, Curbishley et al
I still fervently hope that Randy's hat is big enough to pull out a surprise that satisfies the majority of us, and allows us to carry on supporting the best club in the world

[jacketspuds]

There's a difference between the, at times, unattractive football of MON and the appalling negative football of McLeish.

[eastie]

The e mail details were leaked by blues not villa , a villa source only confirmed we had contacted them - no approach or permission as yet.