Who do you want as the next manager? New poll option.

[rob_bridge]

Yet his side plus Alonso won the Champions league the next season, and he won several trophies while there. He identified most of what is wrong with our side, and wanted to fix it in the summer. Were he still here I reckon we would be comfortably in the top 10 at the moment.

Ozz if we had got Curbishley in 2010 or Martinez Iin 2011 we would have had 2 Top 10 finishes without the expense of 2 disastrous appointments.
Houllier is very good at pointing out others weakeneses - not good at his own mind.

'...I would prefer to lose to Liverpool...'

Arrogant and Aloof

[rob_bridge]

Lets all hope and pray he is right

Lambert, Martinez, Poyet, Rogers. Any of them would be great. Young, ambitious and done it with players far less fancied than ours.

I'm really, really wary of Next Big Thing managers. I can't remember the last one to do well on the back of moving to a better job after promotion and staying up.

Promotion to top league or just promotion?

Top league.

Owen Coyle has done ok. Bruce did well to keep Wigan up and send that lot down. I'll settle for OK compared to relegation fodder crap we have currently. 

It's all relative, but I'd hesitate to use the words 'ok' and 'well' in relation to either of those managers.

It is all relative which is a point -OK is better than crap which is what McLeish has done with Villa and others. 4 Prem seasons - 3 crap, 1 good. I'll bet on a crap one next season. I maybe wrong I was about Fergie getting the sack in 1990.

[curiousorange]

2 of our most succesfull periods have followed relegation but the situation has changed now. For every Newcastle there is a Sheff Wednesday, Forest and a whole bunch of YOYO clubs

well yes but what do you do? Say they bring in curbishley who's shite but mebbe less shite than Mcleish. He's not gonna turn this team into world beaters especially if the purse strings are kept shut. Plus he's got the charisma of a wet weekend. I'd give it till Christmas before the knives are out because too many of our fans are in laa laa land re the team's ability

The problem with keeping him until Christmas is that he will have spent  whatever money RL has made available. Our 2 worst outfield players are Hutton and Nzogbia so not a lot of reason to give him more cash. The Villa fans I speak to have pretty moderate expectations, they just dont believe we should be relegation candidates and I agree, we shouldnt.

not sure i agree. If we're keeping that defence again and are living on free transfers I can't see much more than a very modest improvement unless the proverbial miracle worker came in. Lower mid-table if we're lucky with injuries. I'm not sure that would be enough to keep the fans off a manager's back

I don't see that a new Villa boss necessarily has to be resigned to modest improvement. Time and again it has been demonstrated in football that it's not necessarily who you're using to play the game, but how they play together. Yes, we're hardly going to set the league alight but an astute manager and a clean slate could see us at the top of a very mediocre pack. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a new manager to have that ambition.

best of the mediocre pack would be everton on 53 points. if you know a manager who get this team with no re-inforcements up there then by all means bring him on, but realistically  we're nowhere near them quality wise or indeed liverpool below them

I didn't say no reinforcements, I was taking your point that free transfers etc might not be the cause for pessimism you inferred - just because a player's contract has expired it doesn't mean they're not worth chasing. I don't agree that we're nowhere near them quality-wise either. We have quality players, it's just that they've been playing under a duff manager. If it turns out N'Zogbia, Ireland and Bent are crap under a new manager, I'll be the first to hold my hands up.

[hawkeye]

Ireland has been our best player and has talent.
Bent is a very limited footballer, can do only one usefull thing and that depends massively on service.
Nzogbia is a myth, not interested, his attitude stinks.

[ozzjim]

Ireland has been our best player and has talent.
Bent is a very limited footballer, can do only one usefull thing and that depends massively on service.
Nzogbia is a myth, not interested, his attitude stinks.

The Bent one just happens to be the hardest and most important part of the game. I think if a manager comes in that gears the team to providing Bent with chances, we will win more than we lose.

The issue with that though, is the loyalty to Agbonlahor, and where to play him to get the most out of Bent.

[hawkeye]

Ireland has been our best player and has talent.
Bent is a very limited footballer, can do only one usefull thing and that depends massively on service.
Nzogbia is a myth, not interested, his attitude stinks.

The Bent one just happens to be the hardest and most important part of the game. I think if a manager comes in that gears the team to providing Bent with chances, we will win more than we lose.

The issue with that though, is the loyalty to Agbonlahor, and where to play him to get the most out of Bent.

Spot on, Gabby has not looked right since MON left, I dont think the Gabby Bent thing works, in the right system you would have Gabby or Bent not both.

[Greg N'Ash]

fully expect one of Bent or Gabby to be off in the summer if only to raise funds. Some free transfer will be bought in to fight it out with wiemenn and the money will go elsewhere, probably on the midfield. Minus Randy's cut of course

[hawkeye]

fully expect one of Bent or Gabby to be off in the summer if only to raise funds. Some free transfer will be bought in to fight it out with wiemenn and the money will go elsewhere, probably on the midfield. Minus Randy's cut of course

oh you optimist you

[Greg N'Ash]

they don't compliment each other. something's gotta give

[django]

I imagine Randy is looking to poach Steve Keane.

[Richard]

Any of the following would be ok :

Lambert
Rodgers
Hughton
Poyet
Capello
RDM
AVB
Martinez
Benitez
Adkins
McDermott

No thanks to :

Curbishley
Allardyce
McCarthy
Keane
Southgate
Strachan
etc. etc.

[tomd2103]

Any of the following would be ok :

Lambert
Rodgers
Hughton
Poyet
Capello
RDM
AVB
Martinez
Benitez
Adkins
McDermott

No thanks to :

Curbishley
Allardyce
McCarthy
Keane
Southgate
Strachan
etc. etc.

Lot of untested names on the list there.  Whereas I think some of them definitely have potential in the Premiership, there is a name that should act as a word of caution against such an appointment and that name is Owen Coyle.  This time last year, his first season with Bolton had gone really well and he was being linked with a lot of clubs.  Look at where Bolton are this season and the lack of jobs he is currently being linked with.  Will the same happen with the likes of Lambert and Rodgers?  Do we need a manager with a proven track record at Premiership level?   

[django]

Coyle has been a bit unlucky I think, they had by far the toughest opening fixtures of any team (we had the easiest) and they never got any momentum going. And they have a lot of shit players, lost Cahill, lost muamba..

Thing is with managers, once their touch has gone like that, whatever the reason, very few of them can turn it around, even at another club. For Coyle read, Paul Jewell, Brian Little, Phil Brown etc etc

Unless your prepared to pay big money (ha!) it's about getting someone on their way up and them convincing everyone else that their the next big thing.

Amazing to think that we ended up with Mcleast considering the above was equally true in the summer.

[dave.woodhall]

We don't need a proven Premier League manager, but we do need one with an idea, plan, call it what you like, that stretches beyond survival. I wonder whether Lambert & Rodgers have that ethos. 

[WA Villan]

Would be happy to see Gabby moved on. We are trying to accomodate him and it restricts our options up front. Also these so called kids, Fonz, Bannan Albrighton, need to be shipped out. Their in their 20's if their not their yet they never will be.Their taking up valuable squad space.