It's not Sherwood!

[ciggiesnbeer]

Well hopefully Fox has learnt a lesson. I hope and expect he will be interviewing multiple well qualified candidates and deciding who is the absolute highest quality. If that means paying compo to another club then fine.

No more of this "we know our man" bollocks. This board does not know their man, that is clear. Even if it takes us a few weeks with an interim manager take the time make sure the replacement is the very best from a long list of interviewed candidates.

Not having a go at you personally ciggies, but it's a little bit amusing to say that written out after the bollocking the club got on here for adopting exactly that approach whilst looking for MON's successor. Small time, big clubs just go and get their man were some of the comments that I can remember. Funny how times change.

Aye true, true. The wheel turns

[Mister E]

It doesn't matter what we as fans want, Randy just wants someone to work within the restrictions as set by the club (bomb squad, championship fodder, money ball). Until the club start acting more progressively and appointing a manager who has been sounded out for their skills not just because they are available, then this shit will continue.

Well, yes ... Easier said than done. I actually think that all of the appointments post MON have been made with the future in mind and in the fervent belief that they would work out.
Erroneously, as it happens.

Southampton- Koeman, West Ham - Bilic, Leicester- Ranieri, they are being allowed to construct their own teams. Even Stoke and Palace are way ahead of us now.

And Sherwood hasn't?
The problem at the moment is not that Sherwood hasn't been given the scope: it's that he is not up to the task.

[kippaxvilla2]

I want Tim to stay if Bob fcukin Bradley is the alternative.

[ChicagoLion]

bloody hell that was difficult to read in any narative
footyskills

[Dante Lavelli]

What's the problem with Bradley?  Simply underwhelming or specifics about his management?
I thought he looked a good manager when he was in charge of USA at the world cup (2010?).

[ROBBO]

We are a disaster of a club at the moment, any other club we would be laughing our heads off.

[VillaAlways]

We are a disaster of a club at the moment, any other club we would be laughing our heads off.

No other club in the football league would still have this joker in charge after his antics.
They clearly are not bothered by all the utter shit he's been coming out with, let alone what's been going on on the pitch.

[Dave]

Let's make this clear, Fox will be hurting at how his man is behaving. He really isn't as daft as some people make out. I can assure you he is a shrewd and ruthless fucker.

Sorry, but anybody who is going to put Tim Sherwood on a shortlist of managers of one and have to "convince him" to take the job can in no way be described as "shrewd".

There's a big chunk of hindsight being applied there

Not in the least. Even if Sherwood had actually been a resounding success, it would still be ridiculous that there wasn't any consideration given to the possibility that he might not be.

If we were sitting in sixth at the moment, I'd be happily accepting how wrong I was about Sherwood, but still thinking that it was mad that somebody who had never employed a football manager in his life just took a punt on one without even bother to check any other option before handing him the keys (and a nice long contract).

Last February we didnt have many options (1). The only think Fox knew was that Lambert needed to be replaced. In came Sherwood, kept us up and got us to the cup final. I would say he was a great appointment for doing that (2).

(1) We didn't have many options because we decided we didn't want to have options. We decided that we wanted a "shortlist of one", it wasn't fate. There were literally dozens of other out of work managers that we could have considered, but chose not to.

(2) He was a short-term, functional appointment. He was miles away from being a great appointment. A great appointment would have been one who had kept us up and that we wouldn't find ourselves needing to sack two months into his first full season.

[passitsideways]

What's the problem with Bradley?  Simply underwhelming or specifics about his management?
I thought he looked a good manager when he was in charge of USA at the world cup (2010?).

He just doesn't seem to tick any boxes, does he? No PL experience whatever (let alone of the good kind), no reputation for progressive football, no significant managerial successes, and so on.

I think the logic is you either appoint a manager who you can perceive as low-risk, low-reward (but enough to keep you up) like Moyes, or you appoint a foreign manager with higher perceived risk in exchange for a greater possibility that in the long-term, he'd build something genuinely worth being enthusiastic about.

[Malandro]

With hindsight I'm starting to think sacking Lambert early and having Pulis for a couple of years would have been the right move, he'd have got the team straight and we could have built from there.
Perhaps its time to accept that kind of appointment.

[ROBBO]

i think some fellow supporters still believe we are a better club than we are in an age where money is the sole driver of success, all we need is a manager that can keep us in the prem until Sky collapses and all the top teams go broke, Pulis,big Sam it doesn't matter just a safe pair of hands.

[Tony Erdington]

Totally fed up now.


the measurement of success =stay in the prem, get sky money.

The Beautiful game

[Chris Smith]

i think some fellow supporters still believe we are a better club than we are in an age where money is the sole driver of success, all we need is a manager that can keep us in the prem until Sky collapses and all the top teams go broke, Pulis,big Sam it doesn't matter just a safe pair of hands.

I think Southampton have shown that there can be more than merely staying in the league, that you can still play entertaining football and try to win games rather than just survive. In any case there is no sign of the collapse you suggest, if anything the competition from BT will pump even more money in.

[PaulWinch again]

If they appointed Bob Bradley, I honestly think that'd be it for me with Aston Villa until Lerner managed to sell.

It'd be an act of extreme stupidity, even coming from the people who genuinely thought appointing Alex McLeish might work.

Completely agree.

[Villa in Denmark]

If they appointed Bob Bradley, I honestly think that'd be it for me with Aston Villa until Lerner managed to sell.

It'd be an act of extreme stupidity, even coming from the people who genuinely thought appointing Alex McLeish might work.

Completely agree.

I've no idea how Bradley is doing in Norway but the last two "big managers" to come out of Norway have been OGS and Ståle Solbakken who was such a raging success at Cologne and Wolves after winning everything in sight at FC Copenhagen that he's ended up back there albeit with without anywhere near the same success.  The standard in Scandinavia simply isn't good enough.

If he was dominating a league from the next level like Belgium or Holland then fair enough, but most top flight teams in Denmark and Norway and good chunk in Sweden are 3rd and 4th division standard.