GREAT_BEARD_OF_ZEUS

I thought that individual left Villa.... Yes he/she did, not sure whether still has any links at the club... if indeed they ever had any or were even there in the first place?

Villa_Insider (remember him/her) has just popped up on twitter...

Moyes no question about it.

It’s all about playing your audience people. When news of Ancellotti slipped out, everyone got excited to the point of bursting until the rumours were quashed. To then go and announce another manager, no matter who – he would have been a disappointment in comparison for most fans. So what do you do? You release a few whispers here and there, play the press at their own game with a few dummy rumours – mostly involving much more depressing options such as McClaren. The fans then work themselves into a fear frenzy, imagining the worst and turning on each other arguing that the end is nigh. Then wham – reveal afore mentioned new guy, who now seems like the saviour of the universe in light of all the doom and gloom which has immediately preceded his appointment! Classic PR ploy.

So remind me when did Chelsea name their new manager? You know, that tiny club from London who've been without a manager since the end of the season?

Yep, heroes and villans forum. Oh dear... I feel like my girlfriend has told me she's a lesbian, only to find her in the bed of another man :-(

Someone has just tweeted that MYSTERYMAN has posted on a forum to say it's not McClaren or Hughes. Now i know that info was passed onto us by Mazrim but why is MM posting somewhere else after dumping us? I feel like i've been cheated on!

:shock:

To be fair you can only really judge him on last summer when he had 5 days left before the start of the season to get someone in - most managers in a job would have been very very hard to prize away at that point and we couldn't afford the time to do it. I think Randy is far more ruthless than his public persona would suggest - at least I hope he is.

I have a feeling that Randy has stuck to his guns from last year and gone all out for his two favourites in Moyes and Hughes. I think Moyes is 50/50 and will need a lot of persuading, hence why we’re interviewing Hughes too. For all we know we probably said to Hughes that he would be under consideration but that we had other candidates to consider – so he went and quit before being tied up to Fulham in the belief that if we didn’t appoint him other positions would arise in the summer (Chelsea, Everton etc)

Some guy called Mac MaCarthy has just tweeted no idea who he is, but hey, all adds to the excitement eh!

Conspiracy theory alert: MatKendrick says that he knows for a fact that we sounded out Ancelotti's advisors but he said no. Taking MK at his work, we therefore know that this more than likely happened over the weekend. Now let's say he turned us down on Saturday, the board then know that plan A is no longer a goer so turn to plan B... Moyes! Randy picks up the phone and says "David, we've decided you can have that beachside villa in Barbados as part of the package, are we on? He says yes and then we then get a piece of info from YIM saying that he has heard from an inside man that Moyes will be the man appointed. It all fits!

Well I have to admit I would have gotten all excited had he come, but (and check my previous posts) I did have more than one or two nagging doubts about him… mostly over his far from impressive record with top clubs (UCL successes aside). For me I have always had Moyes in mind as the best outcome. People will point to a lack of trophies, but success is all relative to the club you’re at, consistent top half finishes on a small budget (often coming ahead of us in the MON era) is a better achievement than a handful of trophies in 15 to 20 years at top top clubs. I only hope that Yankee in Madrid’s news the other night proves to be true and we get him in. Any news on this since the other night YIM?

Do we think the parting with Houllier was ended amicably or not, what with noises that he wanted to carry on? Just trying to work out whether or not there's a possibilty he'd be involved/consulted on future manager/player selections.

Nobody can say how long it will take to get a new man in, not me, not you, not Pat Murphy or the rest of the twitterati, none of them and here's why... Presumably Lerner has his list of targets drawn up – or at least that will be well underway considering they’ve known this could happen for some time now. Therefore how long it will take is down to how far down that list we have to go. Carlo Ancelotti could ring up Villa Park this afternoon and say “Tell you what Randy old bean, give me £50k a week salary, bonuses of X,Y and Z and a transfer war chest of 50 million and you’ve got yourself a deal.” RL could turn round and say “**** it, Carlo you’ve got yourself a deal!” and we have a new manager by Monday. Equally likely he could turn round and say “**** off you greedy fat eyebrowed word removed, you’re taking the piss” and Monday brings with it fresh negotiations with manager choice number 2, and so on whilst we all continue to fret and speculate until one of them strikes a deal.

I'm not sure the Ancelotti deal is dead - he said the other week that he would consider managing West Ham for goodnessake, therefore i can't imagine he's turned us down so quickly, unless he and Villa are engaged in a bit of brinksmanship on contract terms. My other thought is Moyes - each time i read an article saying he isn't coming, the actual quotes from him are vague and non commital at best, saying he wants to be at a club where 'he has the chance to give the fans something' etc. Again could be playing Kenwright to an extent, but it could also be that he is avoiding the real question so not to rule himself out in the eyes of Lerner. If it is neither of those two i'll be pretty disappointed - unless it's a completely out of the blue mega manager like Deschamps or Villa Boas.

Funny how Moyes has had similar levels of speculation made about his position and we've never contacted Everton? *rushes off to put money on Moyes*

Apparently 5 Live are reporting that Villa have contacted Fulham to tell them Hughes isn't a target!! The plot thickens... and if true, down the pan goes my £20 bet :evil:

Those performances you talk about over the last 3-4 years included a 7-1 loss to Chelsea where I'd say we were more than just carved apart. Freak results happen to the best of managers, especially when they are facing clubs with significantly better players. For me the fact that Fulham bounced back to batter the scum 3-0 (should have been more) at their place in the next game proves more about the type of man Mark Hughes is than that result against Liverpool.

As much as i'd like Deschamps, if he did anything remotely good with us - in the spotlight of the premiership, big clubs would come in for him very quickly.

I don't know Morales - Benitez got them into the top 4 by splurging massive amounts on top top Spanish talent like Torres, Alonso and Reina. Don't think he'd be able to do the same here. His tactics are more suited to the European game too - something we won't be needing fo a while!

Sorry if this has been asked, but why are people so keen on Ancelotti? I was suprised when Chelsea went for him and ok he won the league and cup in his first season (often a mark of the previous managers leagacy) but since then (and the loss of Wilkins) has had a poor season by Chelsea standards - and in a season when there was no outstanding team to run against? I've had a look at his record in Italy and all bar one season with Parma, all his major success has come with big (historically table topping) teams - which we are not! I can understand Deschamps, Rijkard etc because they seem to have something different to offer - a history of creating successful, modern footballing sides, but Ancelotti i just don't understand?

I agree with Mantis, Hughes appointment would basically mean the likes of Warnock, Ireland, Dunne etc had won and got their way. And after the way they have acted this season I want them turfed out of the club quick as!

There’s part of me (and only a small part) which would take great pleasure if one of Young or Downing suddenly suffered a career ending injury and we just turned rounded and said “right well off you ****, you didn’t want to sign a new contract so don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. Thankfully I’m not that nasty or vindictive and wouldn’t wish that on another human being, but you do sometimes think that’s what some of these players deserve.

Bloody hell Gillz, that's made me think twice too. Well argued. Sign him up.