Who do you want the next Villa manager to be?

[aev]

Could it be that this was set up months ago? the fact that Sherwood didn't have control over the players we bought, that Fox and the new football director spent time at Arsenal with Garde, that most of the players bought in were young and French. You don't just get someone like Garde after a couple of weeks, it could be that this has been planned for months.

I can easily imagine that we bought our players over the summer with an eye on how somebody else might use them.

But if the whole plan above was put together based on how Remi Garde would do and he had shown enough interest in the job to warrant putting this plan into place - he wasn't working at the time we hired Sherwood. If Fox wanted Garde to be our manager, he would have just hired him when we needed a manager last February.

The way we have been going through managers it seems eminently sensible to have someone else buying the players.

[adrenachrome]

Could it be that this was set up months ago? the fact that Sherwood didn't have control over the players we bought, that Fox and the new football director spent time at Arsenal with Garde, that most of the players bought in were young and French. You don't just get someone like Garde after a couple of weeks, it could be that this has been planned for months. They couldn't sack Sherwood after keeping us up and they may have waited until we were in the bottom three before contactually able to sack him. If this has any credence then it is the first bit of long term planning we have seen at the cjlub in years.

It's a neat hypothesis. I'd like to think our bunch could be as Machiavellian as that.

I suspect the meeting in the U.S. the other week when sherwood was omitted from the invite list would of been when they hatched the plan

He wasn't omitted from the list. The club stated that he was invited but chose to stay with the players.

[olaftab]

If Fox wanted Garde to be our manager, he would have just hired him when we needed a manager last February.

You would think that would be the case  as you have explained that at that time he was free however the predicament we were in in February may be needed a motivator rather than a technically sound coach? Further if we had been relegated it would have been easier and better to start with a new coach with completely new set of players. I don't know  but I am just thinking out loud!

[ozzjim]

I think it would have been hatched when Henrik A arrived in July and Sherwood apparently didn't approve. He then didn't approve of half of the signings, wanted Adebayor, Lennon and Cambiasso instead of Vertout, Amavi and Ayew. From the reports in the Guardian and Telegraph, and Kendrick in the mail, since then Sherwood has been at loggerheads, by the look of it sulking and waiting for the boot. The unfathomable decisions as much to do with excluding the new blokes he didn't want. Kendrick is right, when Sherwood made it clear the director of football model was not for him, they should have shaken hands and walked away in the summer.

I reckon if Garde and his team arrive in the next couple of days, it will have been cooking since the summer.

[olaftab]

He wasn't omitted from the list. The club stated that he was invited but chose to stay with the players.

It could have been one of those "Tim you should come but if you want to stay with the team to work on better results than please stay I am sure Randy will understand" type of invite?

[PeterWithesShin]

Why give Sherwood such a long contract then? If we had to wait for him to be bottom 3 what if we were playing even worse football but jamming enough results to be 17th all season? It's a nice theory but I think it's unlikely.

[dl9]

I really cannot get excited about any of this talk.
The last time I was optimistic about our new manager was when we first had O'Neill.

Since then it has been a case each time of "oh f*ckinell" every single time, I can see no difference on this alleged bloke as well.

[Dave]

If Fox wanted Garde to be our manager, he would have just hired him when we needed a manager last February.

You would think that would be the case  as you have explained that at that time he was free however the predicament we were in in February may be needed a motivator rather than a technically sound coach? Further if we had been relegated it would have been easier and better to start with a new coach with completely new set of players. I don't know  but I am just thinking out loud!

It's not impossible, but if you're hiring a manager just because he's a 'motivator' you're probably not going to give him a three and a half year contract.

And it's not as if our situations are wildly different now and then. If we'd got to the summer and thought "actually Tim, thanks for the hard work - but we're going in a different direction" then the above would make sense, much like Spurs did.

This is a reaction to a panic that we might get relegated, just like it was in February.

[aev]

I don't know what time he was sacked but maybe there was a clause stating he could be jettisoned if we are bottom, which after Sunderland's win we now are?

[cdbearsfan]

His sacking was announced just before the Sunderland game kicked off.

[four fornicholl]

But in reality we know Randy is playing at home with his toy helicopter and Fox is throwing arrers at pictures on a dart board.

surely even randy knows how important us staying in the premier league is to his investment
conspiracy alert?

[aev]

His sacking was announced just before the Sunderland game kicked off.

His sacking was announced just before the Sunderland game kicked off.

I was always crap at Cluedo.

[cdbearsfan]

His sacking was announced just before the Sunderland game kicked off.

His sacking was announced just before the Sunderland game kicked off.

And quoting.

I was always crap at Cluedo.

[cdbearsfan]

Oh for fuck's sake, would anyone believe me if I claimed I did that on purpose?

[four fornicholl]

But in reality we know Randy is playing at home with his toy helicopter and Fox is throwing arrers at pictures on a dart board.

surely even randy knows how important us staying in the premier league is to his investment
conspiracy alert?

surely even randy knows how important us staying in the premier league is to his investment
conspiracy alert?