So who do you want as the next Villa manager?

[peter w]

Because it's not possible to say that on one hand  Rodgers is a successful manager over Bob Paisley simply because of their era, without recognising that because of money he stopped himself getting the sack at Liverpool. Well, possibly. He was deeply unpopular at the end of last season and spent a hell of a lot of money on attacking options this season. Don't get me wrong I like his attitude towards football, but his Achilles heel is the defence, something which his training methods can't hide.

I'm not saying we need an 80s throwback because I don't think Pulis is one. It was a response to you bringing the 80s into it. Or was it monty?

[Monty]

Ah we've all brought the eighties into it. Anyway, I'm not sure cross-comparing eras is that helpful. It reminds me of that bit in The Simpsons, where Lenny and Karl are arguing and Karl says 'no no no, Muhammad Ali, in his prime, was way better than anti-lock brakes'.

[pauliewalnuts]

Because it's not possible to say that on one hand  Rodgers is a successful manager over Bob Paisley simply because of their era, without recognising that because of money he stopped himself getting the sack at Liverpool. Well, possibly. He was deeply unpopular at the end of last season and spent a hell of a lot of money on attacking options this season. Don't get me wrong I like his attitude towards football, but his Achilles heel is the defence, something which his training methods can't hide.

I'm not saying we need an 80s throwback because I don't think Pulis is one. It was a response to you bringing the 80s into it. Or was it monty?

I agree with you re Rodgers and defending (and would have agreed about Martinez last summer on the same thing, but he inherited a very good one), but surely it doesn't matter whether Rodgers is a better manager than Paisley or not, because Paisley is not going to manage a Premier League team in 2014, whereas Rodgers is.

He doesn't have to be better than Paisley, he has to be better than all the other managers managing in the top flight thisyear.

I brought the 1980s into it because i referred to the style of British managers in the 1980s. Not British managers as in a nationality thing, though, which is what I think you thought I meant. I don't care what nationality the manager is. I just want someone who will get us playing a style of football suited to the modern game - because that's where we're playing.

[hilts_coolerking]

Pulis-football was revolutionary once, if always a bit limited, as was MON-ball, which was the style played by a decade of English European Cup winners. However, the game has changed - since then (among others) we've had Sacchi, Cruyff, Aime Jacquet, Wenger (who was utterly new in England at the time but now looks a little rigid), Mourinho, Guardiola and now Klopp. Yes, these are top-of-the-table managers but their ideas trickle down, and the general trend in the PL is towards possession football as not only more entertaining but actually safer, actually less risky. I want a manager who gets that.

There's always more than one way to skin a cat though.  Possession football isn't be all and end all and neither is it the only way to win a football match.  I want a manager who will do whatever it takes tactically to win.  And regardless of the type of football our next manager prefers I want him to be good at it.

[pauliewalnuts]

Pulis-football was revolutionary once, if always a bit limited, as was MON-ball, which was the style played by a decade of English European Cup winners. However, the game has changed - since then (among others) we've had Sacchi, Cruyff, Aime Jacquet, Wenger (who was utterly new in England at the time but now looks a little rigid), Mourinho, Guardiola and now Klopp. Yes, these are top-of-the-table managers but their ideas trickle down, and the general trend in the PL is towards possession football as not only more entertaining but actually safer, actually less risky. I want a manager who gets that.

There's always more than one way to skin a cat though.  Possession football isn't be all and end all and neither is it the only way to win a football match.  I want a manager who will do whatever it takes tactically to win.  And regardless of the type of football our next manager prefers I want him to be good at it.

I would agree that winning is important, but I'd rather finish 12th whilst playing great football than 8th whilst playing cynical Allardyce or Pulis style bollocks, any day of the week.

I think we sometimes forget, it is supposed to be about entertainment, it is supposed to be fun, enjoyable. An easy enough thing to forget when you're a Villa fan, obviously.

One of the ways I think Randy was unlucky was that he spunked tens of millions of pounds supporting a manager who delivered reasonable success for four years, yet in that time never managed to put together a team which had a particularly good home record, and managed to spunk all that money without buying a single bums-on-seats player.

He went off and bought lots of mid level players (two entire defences in two years, for example) rather than an expensive, "cor, look at him, he's decent" ticket seller.

[peter w]

Because it's not possible to say that on one hand  Rodgers is a successful manager over Bob Paisley simply because of their era, without recognising that because of money he stopped himself getting the sack at Liverpool. Well, possibly. He was deeply unpopular at the end of last season and spent a hell of a lot of money on attacking options this season. Don't get me wrong I like his attitude towards football, but his Achilles heel is the defence, something which his training methods can't hide.

I'm not saying we need an 80s throwback because I don't think Pulis is one. It was a response to you bringing the 80s into it. Or was it monty?

I agree with you re Rodgers and defending (and would have agreed about Martinez last summer on the same thing, but he inherited a very good one), but surely it doesn't matter whether Rodgers is a better manager than Paisley or not, because Paisley is not going to manage a Premier League team in 2014, whereas Rodgers is.

He doesn't have to be better than Paisley, he has to be better than all the other managers managing in the top flight thisyear.

I brought the 1980s into it because i referred to the style of British managers in the 1980s. Not British managers as in a nationality thing, though, which is what I think you thought I meant. I don't care what nationality the manager is. I just want someone who will get us playing a style of football suited to the modern game - because that's where we're playing.

Exactly, so what are these modern training techniques that managers managing today have and surely they'll all have them?

As for the nationality thing I know you weren't saying that you'd prefer one manager over another because of it, but whenever there's a thread over new managers - and there's been a few recently - foreign names are thrown in simply because they're foreign and many think they'll bring great foreign football to the club.

The rebuttal to any English named managers is always the same - harking back to horrible football and the 1980s.

[Monty]

There's always more than one way to skin a cat though.  Possession football isn't be all and end all and neither is it the only way to win a football match.  I want a manager who will do whatever it takes tactically to win.  And regardless of the type of football our next manager prefers I want him to be good at it.

Possession sort of means two things now, and I suppose I'd rather say 'passing football', because possession football probably better describes that very particular, tiki-taka influenced ball-hogging style which is actually much more about control than it is about attack.

Passing football could mean this, but it could also mean what I think is the latest development, namely what Klopp, Rodgers and Simeone have done this year - a game based around lunatic pressing and playing in the opponent's half as much as possible (this comes from Bielsa as well, though he's nuts in his own special ways).

Dominating the possession statistic isn't as important, because transitions (horrible buzz-word, but there we are) and counterattacks are viewed as opportunities gained through pressing. However, despite this reactive element, none of these teams do that with long balls to the big man, and all recognise the need to be able to ball-hog when necessary and can do so, because their attacks are still based on passing the buggering thing along the floor. I think this is the next step in attacking football from pure Guardiolista tiki-taka, which now looks pretty defensive and cautious, and liable to be caught out by teams who press them hard.

One thing's for sure - when faced with a massed defence, the best way through is almost never to lump it to the big guy. Mourinho doesn't do that when attacking on the front foot - Drogba's physical brilliance was always brought out on the break, when you could lob it up to him and he'd be one-on-one with some terrified defender. However, if you want to break teams down, the long ball is just pathetically over.

[Monty]

I brought the 1980s into it because i referred to the style of British managers in the 1980s. Not British managers as in a nationality thing, though, which is what I think you thought I meant. I don't care what nationality the manager is. I just want someone who will get us playing a style of football suited to the modern game - because that's where we're playing.

Agreed on the nationality - it represents a stylistic trait more than a real national prejudice. I wouldn't want Javier Clemente either, the old-school Basque nutcase fond of what the Spanish call 'patapun y parriba' (which Sid Lowe amusingly translated as 'bish bosh, up it goes').

[pauliewalnuts]

Exactly, so what are these modern training techniques that managers managing today have and surely they'll all have them?

Why would they all have them?

I thought you were saying I was suggesting all British managers are the same? Of course they are not. I am talking about a traditional British style, one which is dead in the water.

Surely the reason we're having this discussion at all is that we are talking about Tony Pulis, a manager whose entire footballing ethos is based on physical power, long balls and gamesmanship? Pulis has done alright with Stoke - mid table - and with Palace this year, saving them.

My point is that we are supposed to be aiming for better than that. I don't think it is unrealistic for an Aston Villa fan to find the concept of fighting our way to mid table to be underwhelming, even though it's better than the last three years?

How many teams who play like Pulis's Stoke did achieve anything like where we should be aiming?

The rebuttal to any English named managers is always the same - harking back to horrible football and the 1980s.

I thought we'd been over that - like I said, British manager does not necessarily equal horrible 1980s football, I suggested Rodgers as an example, but don't know why you've discounted him. Because he's had money? What difference does that make?

As for what are these modern techniques - at the most basic level, they involve training a team to play a game based around keeping the ball, rather than brute physical power, which is what the English game has been based on in recent years, although much less of late.

Honestly, once more, I don't care if the manager is British or not, what I don't want to see is us playing the sort of football which was played 20 years ago in this country - you just can't do it any more and hope to have anything more than a minimal level of success.

You've got to understand things like tactics (something MON couldn't get right by the time he came to us) for a start. If you play a style of football which is 10 years out of date, let alone 30, you're going to struggle

[hilts_coolerking]

My worry Monty is that the theoretical tactics are all well and good if there's a lot of money to spend on players and can attract a top quality manager but it may be that we don't get taken over and are stuck with Lambert and the current squad with maybe one or two additions.  As things stand I just don't think we can play that way.  We can press more certainly but our players give the ball away for fun as a by-product of not being able to pass.  It doesn't matter what tactics you use if your players are shit.

If we don't get bought out and Lambert stays his priority will quite reasonably be to stay up, not introduce a more progressive style that appears beyond him and our current squad.

I don't want Lambert to stay and I'd love to see more exciting football but we have to be pragmatic if things don't pan out they way we hope they will.

[pauliewalnuts]

If the financial regime doesn't change then, frankly, changing the manager won't change much at all. Lambert should have done better, yes, but another year down the line with a tight wages policy and an owner who wants out over shadows everything.

If we want very short term "stability" he might as well stay.

[peter w]

As for Rodgers - the money does make a difference because he getting maximum publicity and has had a chance to showcase his coaching methods, but has needed money to get him where he is. last season Suarez wanted out and the fans were calling for his head. He spent lots of money and has been rewarded with a 2nd place finish. Without that money he would have been consigned to the gravy train dustbin and ended up in the lower half of the Prem/Championship.

As for the manager nationality thing I thought I made it quite clear that I knew you weren't going on about nationality. But when posters rebut English managers the reason for rebuttal goes back to the same thing. if we do get new owners we'll go off once more on a fancy parade around the world hoping for the new dawn to come from overseas because of their modern training methods.

I do want Allardyce, Pulis, Pardew, etc etc but if Lambert is sacked then I'm not convinced that they'll be flocking to B6 to get a pice of the action. Especially taking into consideration the fair Play rules now, someone will come in, see the squad and think they're in for a right scrap. Money needs to be spent but rules don't allow for a complete overhaul but bit by bit.

If Martinez was available I'd go and get him. But he's not. Moyes? Not this season. Then who. Who is a viable contender to take over from Lambert?

[hilts_coolerking]

If the financial regime doesn't change then, frankly, changing the manager won't change much at all. Lambert should have done better, yes, but another year down the line with a tight wages policy and an owner who wants out over shadows everything.

If we want very short term "stability" he might as well stay.

I disagree with you there.  There's little point stabilising your position if that position is perilously close to relegation.  I think there are better managers than Lambert out there who would be more effective than him in implementing a style - whatever that might be - and carrying it out effectively.

At the moment we have shite ineffective football.  Shite effective football would be a step up.  Hopefully at some future point we would be able to step up again to unshite effective football.

[Monty]

I know what you're saying Hilts. The fact is that, while you can spot gems like Benteke, the general rules holds that the less money you spend, the more you have to choose between individual abilities in the players you sign. For example, world-class genius Iniesta can dribble, can pass long and short, can accelerate, can press hard, can make runs off the ball so uncanny they can probably not be taught (I'm using Iniesta because all top players are all-rounders, even though only physical ones like Ronaldo and Toure are often seen as such, despite being atypical). However, the less money you have to spend, the more you have to choose between qualities - a player who can dictate play or one who breaks up the play? One who makes runs into the box or can slip in through balls? And, indeed, one who can defend and make tackles or one who can pass the ball?

What I mean by this rambling exposition of the obvious is that, at our level, we can't really play the ultra-flexible tactics at the top, because instead of three midfielders who can all pretty much do everything, we're going to end up specialising more, and therefore biasing ourselves to one style or another. I won't deny that I'd rather sign passers than stoppers, but my point has always been this: that it's easier to teach a passer to be a defensive pest by pressing and positioning than it is to teach a limited play-breaker to pass the ball properly. It's all hard at our level, but I think it can be done.

[pauliewalnuts]

Of course money makes a difference, but some managers do a better job than others even when they don't have it. Rodgers didn't have money at Swansea, for example.

Money makes a difference regardless of who your manager is.

If we don't change our financial approach it will limit everything. If we are searching in a limited pool then I will go for the option most likely to at least make watching us vaguely interesting, and that means not people of the ilk of Pulis or Allardyce.

It's not really complicated or over optimistic, surely, to want a manager who will at least try to get us passing the ball, is it? That's what it comes down to.

Genuinely, if the spending policy is to go unchanged, I'd stick with Lambert. What is the point going through another manager search when you are financially crippled?