One For The Road

Wow. Ok, I don't live a depressing life. I am a very successful enterpreneur that has visited over 120 countries and have built an amazing life for myself from nothing. Building companies up from scratch and spending my entire life travelling. So you can take that attitude somewhere else because you couldn't be more wrong. There is no need to get personal. The reason WHY I have become successful is because I know when to pick my battles. I don't hope for things that are totally unrealistic and OUT OF MY CONTROL. That's just stupid. If I can personally change something to make it better, or strive for something that I can achieve then that's exactly what I do. I'd wager that if you are looking for a depressing life then you might want to look closer to home. Above all, I was absolutely BANG ON with my prediction as to who we would get as I am very aware of our financial predicament and not so blinkered as to think that just because we are Aston Villa we can hire who we want. Anyway, I off to swim in my tropical hotel pool in my "depressing life".

What were you expecting? This is precisely what I said would happen. People see these ludicrous names being banded around and get all excited and then when soneone like Smith walks in they feel let down. We were never getting those names that were being mentioned on here given our current position. People didn't want to believe that what I was saying was true and really believed we were about to hire a Champions League manager when the reality was always going to be someone like Smith. I am very happy with Smith because I didn't expect anyone of a higher calibre. Others are now feeling let down. There's that useless "hope" I was talking about on the speculation thread. Hope is of no use when it's not aligned to reality. Given our limited resources and lowly standing, this is the best we could have got. He is a good, proven Championship manager with a good attitude and an exciting, attacking mentality. Which is just as well seeing as though we have no defence.

I don't think it will go that way this time. We have new owners, a new manager and a new philosophy. This is not an appointment with a short term view, this is a statement from the club that we are building for the future. Yes we need to try and get promoted this season, but we need to think about building a solid foundation in the likely case that we don't. Smith knows this league, he knows that club and he has the potential to give us what we have needed for years. Stability, with a plan and clear direction. He will get time. There would have to have been some guarantees of that in order for him to leave Brentford. This isn't an appointment to just get us promoted, we tried that with Bruce, this is a long term project. That said, he will be under no illusions that promotion this season is the target.

Imagine how Sol Campbell feels?

Why wouldn't I be happy with this? You make it sound like I just say things to be negative rather than actually just being realistic. There hasn't been much to shout about in recent years and I'm glad we are finally getting it right. I said we wouldn't be getting Fonseca, Wenger etc and I was told I had no ambition. I think it was you that said thank God I'm not advising the board? (Apologies if I'm wrong) I also said thatt Henry wasn't the right man for the job to which I got even more stick. I also said I thought it would be Smith. It seems that if I had been advisibg the board, they would have agreed with me. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Time to unite and get behind the team. These situations always split the fans and we all have our opinions. That's the nature of football. We all want the best for Aston Villa at the end of the day. Now it's done, the board have picked their man and I couldn't be happier. As I said a couple of weeks back, the season starts with Swansea at home. Let's get a bumper crowd and kick off with a win in the fixture that finally did for tactics Tim. UTV

Welcome home Deano. Its the man I expected, the man I wanted and I'm behind this all the way Absolutely buzzing with this appointment UTV

Show some "dignity".

So what?

Yes and how did he work out?

Ok. Get rid of experience all together from the dictionary. It means nothing at all and people with no experience are in exactly the same position to perform the job as well as those who have experience.

That's just not true at all.

Maybe the board have decided he isn't the man for the job. Maybe the feel that now isn't the time for a huge gamble and they want to employ someone they feel is more likely to get us into the play offs this season. I can't see Henry turning us down so if he isn't coming then it's because the board have decided against it. Or that they have decided to accept Arsene Wengers application that is sitting on their desk marked "urgent".

MON was experienced and I enjoyed his spell in charge very much. Finishing 6th 3 years in a row and making it to Wembley a couple of times. Houllier was experienced and got us a 9th place Premier League finish. I'm not sure what your point is.

And he was the last "experiment" of a manager with little experience. Henry has even LESS than he did.

He has no actual managerial experience. That's the absolute minimum we should be looking for at this stage. This situation has the potential to go so wrong if we don't go up this year and we need to take it seriously. Its not the time for a wild experiment.