rjshare

I don't know if this has been posted and it is probably bollox. But with all the negativity and uncertainty regarding McLeish, I thought we could draw some hope from it. well at least this one doesnt involve us having to wait for a fortnight to find out that its not true!

totally against? no, not at all if i thought that he could get the respect of the players. the problem is you are taking a huge risk in doing so and up until now just about everything lerner has done since he arrived has been measured, calulated and utterly safe. he may have backed mon with some big money to buy the odd overpriced youngster (delph for example) but putting an unproven manager in charge of his investment is a whole different leap of faith.

evertonia - you have got some f*ckin nerve comin on here and posting logical, well reasoned, balanced posts like this... joking apart - you are spot on and i dont doubt that your sources are telling the truth. for what its worth i really dont see why moyes would be that interested in coming here anyway - its a sideways move and although he may get a bit more to spend here he is working for the devil he knows where he is and is pretty much universally acclaimed as doing a very good job. if man city wanted him i could understand him getting tempted because we are all human - although even they would probablyhave a hard time turning his head i think, but i just dont see us having enough of a pull for him to want to leave everton.

anyone seen the no-quotes speculation story in todays star? apparently rijkaard would say yes if asked...

Nope and I don't think you would find many who disagree with me on that one. he has been periodically suggested during these threads and pretty much universally met with *facepalm* reactions!

what happens when chairmen sign players is shevchenko. when you let the manager pick who to buy you get darren bent. us bagging bent wasnt because lerner decided we needed him, it was because houllier did and lerner trusted his judgement. couldnt do anything else could he really? after all it was only 4 months after he had appointed the guy to manage the team... the fact that we were slow to replace mon and are now already slow to replace houllier is fact, it is nothing to do with opinion or what anyone has written in the press.

ambition could be replaced with "statement of intent" if you prefer. to be hypothetical for a moment: when chelsea started getting really serious they brought in mourinho who had just won the european cup - it was a statement: "we arent **** about any more, we are getting the best and you better be ready..." gary megson was a promising up and coming manager at the time, but would it have sent out the same message if they got him instead? i agree that "showing ambition" is an ambiguous thing to say and proves nothing in itself but i totally understand what brummybloke is getting at. if you bring in someone who is known as a "scrapper" manager who might just be able to save your premier league skin you bring in mick mccarthy and show the world what your expectations effectively are for the forthcoming season. if you bring in someone who is either a) a proven "winner" or an up and coming manager who is highly regarded, you are shouting from the rooftops that you intend moving the club upwards and on to bigger and better things - in other words, you show ambition.

i agree with the first and last parts of your post however you go off on an erroneous tangent in the middle. appointing brian little was more like when bolotn appointed owen coyle or more so when liverpool first got dalglish. ex player - and in the case of dalglish and little "legendary" ex players coming back to their home club. they are always going to get given more leeway and goodwill from the fans than someone who is just a hired hand. if sid was given the job tomorrow people may be concerned at his lack of experience but we would all want him to succeed and give him every chance to do so. it wouldnt be the case if it were say, steve mcclaren - or gary waddock!

totally agree. to be honest i think generally half of what he says is very true, honest and forthright but the other half displays a total lack of knowledge and respect of the game, the club, the area and fans. unfortunately this is pretty inevitable when you have hired "professionals" brought in to a business that are not in any way shape or form from that background. lets face it, for all the good work the general does - and he does do a lot - he probably couldnt have found birmingham on a map 5 years ago let alone tell you what a balti pie is.

you are just looking to argue any point i think. when you were under the mistaken impression i was saying we were in the same position as chelsea you point out that we are actually in a very different situation. when i correct you and point out that you misunderstood my point and that in fact us and chelsea are very different you tell me that it isnt true and we are both the same. the bottom line is fulham and villa were in a very similar position a week ago and they have moved decisively and appointed a well respected manager. villa havent.

my point was made to prove that you CANT compare villa with chelsea. i didnt bring them up, it was in reply to someone saying that chelsea must be as clueless as villa because they havent appointed anyone yet.

yeah and what have they won in that time? what is their average league position? they can go and get almost any manager they want, we cant. thats why they can take their time.

the difference being of course that chelsea didnt use 4 different managers last season, and deemed a second place finish not high enough so sacked their manager. they have champions league football to offer and a squad that won the double the previous year. in my opinion that means that chelsea are in a position to take their time and have proved fairly conclusively that they are quite good at selecting managers...

re the generals comments: fulham lose manager unexpectedly, sign jol in no time. villa lose manager perhaps not expected but certainly a known possiblity for a couple of months. have we appointed anyone? are we close? we dont know, but we DO know that several possibles have knocked us back. the general has to realise that regardless of what is going on behind the scenes the way the club is doing things is making them look like they are dithering/indecisive/slow to react etc the general has also claimed thet they wont be doing anything purely to get a thumbs up from the fans - but they did cancel mclarens interview purely because the fans werent up for the idea... for me, there is a bit of a contradiction there.

to be honest there has been so much speculation and build up that i reckon we could announce mourinho and a lot of us would go "uh, suppose its ok..."! i reckon as a leftfield bet - scolari...

Bit hard on Big Fat Ron this article! i thought that too, but other than playing down the last 30 years efforts, the article does make a valid overall point in my opinion, despite how unpalatable that may be for most of us to accept. although it perhaps appears to be a veiled attack on us i think it is actually more of a good summary of all that is wrong with the premier league and football in general. if it had been written only slightly differently it could really focus on how absurd the league has become when a huge club like aston villa have been pushed out of the billionaires club. as a result, they now cant attract quality managers to the club because every manager in the country knows he will never be able to pierce the bullet proof bubble that uefa has created around the full time members of the "european super league" as it has effectively now become.

they keep their managers for a long time because they are doing well, they dont do well just because they have been at the club for a long time. and anyway - chelsea change manager every 5 minutes and win a whole lot more than ar senal

yeah a different f*ckin manager! NURSE! we got another one...

nice avatar steve b'stard mclown

well lets hope its in a good way...

good shout - that bloke at leicester maybe?

maybe hughes isnt interested in us - and to be honest coyle might feel he is better off where he is too.

good shout but i think he's bin laidout

glen hoddle?