villabromsgrove

Get rid of the Solskjaer and it will be fine. Solskjær out! Blimey it didn't take long did it!

Solskjær! Thanks Stewie, I feel like a proper linguist now.

Not at all as far as I can tell. He will fly in for an interview tomorrow, but he's clearly first choice and it's his to lose now. If Gaztons nodding then it's probably going to happen.

OSG and Poyet are both inexperienced managers who may well go on to better things. They may well both be obtainable. Martinez/Lambert/Rodgers would be less of a risk but may well be much harder to attract currently. Do we gamble on an exciting but largely unproven prospect, or do we spend more to attract a slightly less risky but still potentially exciting target? I would still rather take a risk than employ a Curbishley/Bruce type who would guarantee more of the same old boring predictable out of date stuff that we've endured too much of as Villa fans.

OGS is an interesting if somewhat risky candidate. He coached the reserves at Man U, and his present coach at Molde coached the Man U 13-16 year olds, so they should be good with young players. Ole is footballs' Mr. Nice Guy, SO It's how he would cope with bloody minded older players that would worry me. OGS favours a fairly defensive counter attacking style of play with quick full backs overlapping and two holding midfielders sitting deep. It's not particularly good to watch but it worked well for Molde last season.

I don't see Roberto Martinez as a "flavour of the month" manager, he's much more than that imo. I've enjoyed his style of football since 2007 when he became Swansea manager. He gradually introduced a more continental style of play and coached average players until they were comfortable with owning the ball. The number of successful passes per game were up there with Barcelona, albeit at a much lower league level. Pundits were quick to acknowledge the Roberto Martinez legacy when Swansea were promoted to the Premiership under the management of the very able Brendan Rodgers. Wigan may be perennial strugglers in the Premiership, but Martinez has performed miracles working with a squad of mainly very ordinary players. The fact that he has done this on a shoe string budget, in front of a small fanbase, in a rugby orientated unfashionable town, makes his achievement all the more remarkable. In my opinion Roberto Martinez is the best candidate for the position of Aston Villa manager. If anyone at Villa ever browses these pages, please make RM an offer he can't refuse asap. It would be a pleasure to watch "easy on the eye" football at Villa Park, and the anticipation of year on year improvement to our teams' collective footballing ability would surely help both Randy and the fans sleep better at night. UTV!!!!

Norwich played proper football last Saturday, passed & moved with wingers. Can't say I'm an expert on their footie style, but everytime I've seen them, they seem to play decent football and what's more they hold the ball better than we have for a long time. THIS to me has been the biggest gripe since MON days. Why oh Why has our ball retention been so appalling? Since Milner left it's got even worse. According to McLeish our players had already started their holidays during the match. All Norwich had to do was dribble round our claret and blue striped deckchairs! 8)

I think that Lambert is more tactically astute than MON was and is probably a good man motivator, but I agree with you about his direct style of football. I thought that MONs' style of football got found out after a couple of seasons, and I can remember looking at my watch at many home games waiting for the boredom to end. MON had a lot of good things going for him and so does Lambert, but it's not the kind of football to excite and inspire. It's still streets ahead of the anti football that we've endured this season though.

Martinez for me (just to be on topic) ... and YES to the the red and the ads.

I would be surprised if Liverpools search for a manager includes our potential shortlist. Liverpool have the same problem as Chelsea ... senior players with huge egos. A Martinez/Lambert/Rodgers type manager would suffer from the same reception as Hodgson. Pools fans also have huge egos and would not willingly except anyone who wasn't a big name. Villa, have now shifted most of our "big ego" players with the remaining two or three on borrowed time. Villa fans have adjusted our egos, and are now much more realistic about our immediate aims. The next 48 hours may well give us an indication of our intentions, as the current media frenzy focuses a couple of American chairman on the task of making the right appointment without any unnecessary delay.

Has to be Martinez for me. I read that he will watch up to 10 full replays of a wigan game at home on a 60 inch touch screen computerised tv, so that he can draw on the screen. When he feels he's learnt everything he can about what he and his players need to work on from that game, he will tweak things accordingly. That attention to detail allied to his technical coaching ability would benefit the Villa squad immeasurably.

Randy's done the easy bit by sacking McLeish, now let's see if he can get the hard bit right. He needs to be bullish about getting the right manager for Villa. No more Mister nice guy when it comes to dealing with other chairman for his number one target (whoever that may be.) Randy has some work to do before he deserves our unqualified support again. It's up to RL/PF to earn the united backing of fans who were totally disregarded as we were plunged into the nightmare that was last season.

Why? Well as Trent noted he'd be an improvement on McLeish, but we could erect a scarecrow in the dugout and see a marked improvement so it's not saying much. The problem with Martinez is he places style over everything. He forces his teams to play in a manner he deems appropriate even when it risks the clubs survival. Lets not forget that, despite their admittedly remarkable resurgence at the end of this season, they were shit for much of it, and they've been shit for much of his reign. And it a lot of comes down to the fact he insists on this style of football that rarely works for them. He's gotten away with it, just about, thus far, but I'm sure Wigan fans would prefer not to snatch survival from the jaws of relegation year on year and I'm convinced they would be more... comfortable if they were managed by someone with a bit of pragmatism. He's also bought a load of rubbish in his time. I don't think we have the players to make the most of his game style, and I think we'd be awful under him as he insisted on a style of football unsuitable for our situation. Given that we're also arguably in a rather fragile position right now (weak squad, lots of work needing doing and, you can assume, not a whole lot to fix it with), I wouldn't want to gamble on him. I think he'd have us lose and lose a lot. No... no thanks to Martinez. I said as much last year, and I think the same now, now amount of miracle turn arounds makes me ignore the fact that his Wigan have been terrible much, much more often than not. And a lot of that is his fault - it's possible to make teams out-perform themselves, O'Neill made his career off it, but it requires simplicity and playing to the strengths you have. Martinez insists his teams play in the manner he wants, not what fits it. Lambert is a better fit for our team imo. We have a team that doesn't suit itself to 'technical' football, a holdover from O'Neill, and Lambert can make use of that and build on it imo. You really are underestimating our players and Martinez. Wigan and for that matter Swansea don’t have better squads than us. They play a simple style of possession football that our players are capable of adapting to. These teams are not some form of English Barcelona. I suggest you watch a few of Wigan and Swansea’s games. Their players are average premiership players (at best). All they have proven is that you can play nice, neat possession football in the Premiership and get by with a squad of average players. Out squad is superior and our finances are much superior. There is no reason to believe Martinez would not be a success here. An interesting and well written exchange of views between Chindie and Villastine on Lambert and Martinez. I think that both candidates are good young managers, but personally favour Villastines' compelling argument for Martinezs' abilty to produce good football from very average players. Chindie makes a good point about Lambert playing simple football that utilises the strengths of his squad. I believe that PL would be a safe pair of hands, but I want our next appointment to offer more than that. Imo Martinez doesn't complicate things too much (he couldn't with the standard of squad that he has at Wigan.) What he has done is coach the confidence to want to own the ball into fairly average players. He will win enough matches to keep us safe while our squad build their confidence, to the point where our players once again enjoy playing attractive football.

I was 100% certain that McLeish would be sacked. Thanks for getting it right Randy (at last). Now comes the challenging bit. (imo) Martinez would eventually have Villa playing the kind of football that we should aspire to (if we have the collective patience). Lambert would be the quicker fix but wouldn't take us quite as far as RM over the next three years. (again imo) UTV!!!!

Lambert has adopted a "buy british" policy at Norwich which reminds me painfully of someone else. However, I think he is more tactically astute than Mon and would be a vast improvement on AM. I just think that a number of our potentially talented young players would gain more from Martinez than from PL. Poyet could be a risky appointment because of his lack of experience. I think he could produce an exciting footballing team, but Randy quite rightly will not take the risk after his two disastrous previous appointments.

Why?

McLeish has tried to seperate himself from the woeful team effort that we have all witnessed for months. Sorry Alex, you're the manager so you are more responsible than anyone else for the mess that your team is now in. Man up, accept responsibility and take the consequences which can only be THE SACK!

Lambert's surprised more than a few teams this season with his MON type football. I think he will find it harder next season to make further progress. Martinez for me is a better coach, and a better fit for our current squad.

Looking at the short list of possible new managerial targets .... Martinez, Lambert, Rodgers and Poyet, I think that the only one who could be described as a realistically "safe pair of hands" is Roberto Martinez. He has shown that he has the ability to keep a poor team in the Premiership, while seeking to improve that teams footballing ability. The other three names haven't been tested at the painful end of the Premiership yet.

One of the worst football pundits Mark Lawrenson says that he likes Mcleish but basically can't see any alternative to him being sacked (because of the fans) he then goes on to say that we are in a serious mess and predicts that Norwich will beat us 2-0. Message to Randy .... if a clown like Lawrenson sees that AM's departure is inevitable then you know that you have to act immediately.

Do you mean there is more or less ? I don't get ti. The match reaction threads typically have 130-180 replies, most of which are made by people watching the game by streams. I just can't see us having 200 odd season tickets holders on here. Nine season ticket holders in my family until last season. There may be two next season depending on whether AM and anti football get the boot.

I saw all those plus gustavo Bartelt in a pre season friendly. I also sat next to Vaclav Drobny and his girlfriend in the Trinity. She was an absolute cracker! (he wasn't so bad himself)(perhaps I shouldn't have said that)

Although McDermott has done really well this season, I would be surprised if he could replicate that success at Villa. He's lived close to Reading man and boy, and he's practically a fixture at the club. Imo he's too old to relocate for the first time in years, and he doesn't really carry a lot of personal authority. Poyet is a better shout, based on his philosophy of "caring for the ball" and playing attractive attacking football whenever possible. He may still be too inexperienced to fit Randys' criteria, although his reputation in the game as a player and now an emerging manager would gain him immediate respect amongst the playing squad. It's still definitely Roberto Martinez for me, although Gus Poyet would also be an exciting but more risky appointment.

This is ignorant in my opinion. Yes - their final position in the table is 16th (ish) every season, but that has got to do with their squad and not Martinez. They have a Championship-team with a few diamonds in the rough, that is about it. Do you think Wenger, Redknapp or let's say Di Matteo would have done so much better this season? Wigan have no cash, they have little backing and no atmosphere (i.e help) from their supporters in home games. What I like about Martinez is that he is a genuine footballing man, seems to adopt to the modern game (even with Wigan, which is a gamble indeed), has the backing of his owner unconditionally, as well as fans and players, and he is still very young. He is a talent, at least compared to old fools like McLeish. He is 38 years old, barely older than Ryan Giggs and younger than Brad Friedel. Managers develop in the same sense as players do, over the course of their career. Where was Moyes when he was 38? In his final years at Preston North End. Wenger? You wouldn't have heard of him. I am not saying Martinez is a guarantee to become the best manager in the world, but I am more than willing to let him take the reigns at Villa. He has shown commitment to Wigan in tough times, a kind of loyalty we don't see often in this game. He is regarded as a gentleman between the managers, he never picks unnecessary fights and he is articulate in the media. Does not make up drivel and blame the players when he has done a big mistake, unlike our current pensioner. And I like the fact that he stands on the touchline and gets involved in every second of the game.. shouting and instructing, not just sitting there in the dug-out like he couldn't give a shit. All in all, he has experience at 38, he like the attacking, modern game - he likes the passing mentality, he is loyal and he just deserves a chance at a higher level. I agree with every word of this post. Imo Randy should make signing Roberto Martinez his absolute priority, and pay or do whatever it takes to make it happen as soon as we've got the Norwich game out of the way.

I think you might be in a small minority with this opinion CI.