KMitch

Unfair to Lambert... He guided Norwich from League 1 to the Premier League in back to back seasons, then finished 12th in their first season back in the Prem, with a squad of nobodies he put together on a shoestring budget. He was not a flavor of the month manager. Safe to say the Villa job was too big for him and shattered all his confidence. He has since been a shell of the manager he was before we ruined him.

Same... TBH, they haven't made a bad move yet in the past 3 seasons, even as painful as it is right now to lose Smith. I'm hoping we'll look back at this decision 3 years from now and say it was a correct one as well. I'll back whoever they decide to bring in, regardless of my feelings on them, but I'll start to lose the faith if we go for someone inexperienced with management, like JT, Lampard, or Gerrard.

Precisely. If your only reason for not wanting Gerrard is to avoid being embarrassed when he leaves us for Liverpool in a few seasons, you're out of touch with reality. When was the last time we had a manager who wasn't sacked and was actively recruited to a bigger job? Graham Taylor when he took the England job in 1990, 31 years ago? If Gerrard comes, and actually does a good enough job for Liverpool to actually want him to replace Klopp, he'll already have reached legend status here. I don't want Gerrard here because of his lack of experience as a manager, but automatically thinking someone is only coming to Villa to bide his time until a better job comes around has never happened for any of our managers in my lifetime... I understand Houllier was extremely unprofessional during his time here when we played Liverpool at Anfield (eg. touching the sign, cheering on the home crowd when we were losing, "forgetting" to go into the away dressing room, telling the press he "doesn't mind losing to Liverpool, because [he] likes Liverpool", etc.), but that doesn't automatically mean Gerrard is going to do the same thing. Smith didn't do it when we visited Brentford, Terry didn't do it at Samford Bridge, and Lambert didn't do it at Norwich.

He's still one of the top 3-4 managers in the world, regardless of what's happened to him recently. He requires a dressing room of 3-5 very strong leaders and a lot of money to bring in the players to make his style work, which is why he failed at Man United and Spurs. If he gets strong consistent backing in the transfer market and patience from the board/fans, he would make us into an established European side. That said, there is no way in Hell we'd be able to convince him to join us at the moment.

No chance. Mourinho would be the most meltdown signing of all time... Roma played well today, despite the score line. Historically, the Roma manager's position is one of the biggest poisoned chalices in Europe. You'll always be under intense scrutiny, regardless of the results on the pitch. He's going no where.

This... Southampton's owners have been asset stripping the club. Meanwhile, Villa's owners have done nothing but dump more and more money into our squad. His style suits us and is a realistic appointment. I'd prefer him more than Potter, Nuno, or Fookin' Gerrard.

If it was Potter, I don't see Brighton letting him go until after we play them... They have no reason to. We would have appointed someone to be a caretaker manager until then, which leads me to believe it's someone else who will be announced on Monday or Tuesday.

He has 2 years of managerial experience, all of which are at Rangers and hasn't done enough to prove he's ready for a step up to the Premier League.

Since we're talking about fantasy managers, my choice would be to bring Sir Alex Ferguson out of retirement...

He doesn't rate him anymore... He's on the Potter train this season...

For everyone suggesting Fonseca, have a read of some Roma fans' reflection on his time at the club... Doesn't fill me full of confidence. Average reviews across the board, but the consensus is that he'll be successful somewhere else. https://www.chiesaditotti.com/2021/5/24/22436382/an-appreciation-for-paulo-fonsecas-time-with-roma

I'm gutted as well... By far our best manager of my time supporting the Villa.

Welp... Percy has spoken. Looks like this is the end of the line for Deano. As sad as I am to see him go, it will be interesting to see who we offer the position to in the next two weeks. The Realistic Candidates: Potter - Meh... Probably the most realistic signing of the list. We have a bigger budget/payroll than Brighton, but it took him 3 years to get Brighton playing his way. Not sure he'll be given the same amount of time here. Nuno - Would he want to jump back into the fire so soon after getting the axe at Spurs? Not sure Villa supporters will take to kindly to his 532/343 systems, now that we've just seen a poor run of games with 3 at the back. That said, I'd rather have him than Potter. Gerrard - Unlike JT and Lampard, he's actually won something as a manager. Way too much of a gamble at this point in his career to leave Rangers for us, but I can see Purslow giving him a call at least. Personally, I'd be disappointed if we sacked Smith to roll the dice on him. I'd seriously start to question Purslow's decision making if this happened. Frank - He has a connection with Lange and seemed to be a much better tactician at Brentford than Smith was. Would be the most sensible choice from this list, given our new org structure and actual step up in opportunity in the Villa manager position. I wouldn't mind this one. Scott Parker - My Fulham supporting mate still raves about him being a fantastic young manager who will go on to win titles somewhere, and doesn't blame Fulham's relegation on him at all. It also looks like Bournemouth are running away with the Championship already this season, under his watch. Would be a gamble like Gerrard, but another realistic candidate. Exotic Johnny Foreigners we might get linked with: Fonseca - Please no... Only has been successful in a 2 horse race in the Ukraine. Roma fans considered him to be extremely average and glad to see him go. AVB - Available, but also no. Resigned from Marseilles because he disagreed with the transfers being made without his consent, but I remember their fans absolutely evirating him for his tactics on their forum when we signed Sanson. Klinsmann - God no... As an American, I watched him slowly alienate the good American players from the squad and replace them with half-German, 2nd division players, purely because they didn't play in MLS... Resulted in us missing the last World Cup. Favre - Don't see the appeal, other than the fact he has Dortmund on his CV. Was sacked in the middle of a bad run like Smith was here and hasn't held down a job since. I honestly see us going with someone from the first list, or someone completely out of left field and not even discussed in the media. All the up and coming German managers all took new jobs this season and there aren't any realistic out of work managers with Premier League experience at this point in the season.

How is that not a peno??? Most blatent shirt tug I've ever seen... Isn't that the point of VAR to catch stuff like that???

Am I watching a different game from everyone else? This doesn't look like a team that isn't playing for the manager... They're all busting a gut pressing, trying to do something. They're playing like a team with no self confidence at all. Poor touches, poor short passes, misjudging how much time they have on the ball, etc. They're a team which needs a goal to get them some belief back in them again. Take El Ghazi off and put JPB on. We also need to take one of Bailey/Buendia off and bring on AAron to bring some youthful energy/fearlessness to try to get something going.

VillaTalk/Twitter isn't a good representation of the fan base. I'm willing to bet the overwhelming majority of us back Smith to turn things around. Example: Just look at r/avfc on Reddit. All the top upvoted comments in the threads discussing the manager situation/next situation are supportive of Deano and think he should get more time to stop the rot.

This. Brilliant film. Villaneuve's style fit the book brilliantly... The bleak, foreboding doom you feel building up slowly throughout the film was fantastically done.

The Lions have a bye week, Villa play today, and the Pistons only play tonight this weekend... What the Hell am I going to do with my Saturday & Sunday??? I might actually have to find something to do with my life...

Mourinho is a good manager... What a shocker! Spuds fans would have you believe he's done after "under performing" there for less than a full season.

He was also slowly working towards making Arsenal mid-table and winding their fans up well before that was par for the course there. What a trend setter...

As someone who has dated several women way out of my league before, you never know how she'll respond until you ask for her number. You'd be surprised to know just how little extremely beautiful women actually get approached, because of the fact that most guys already assume they have no chance to begin with. Pretty sure the same thing applies to recruiting footballers. Teams below the Top 6 in the table have signed some fantastic players over the years and ESR/JWP were definitely within our capability of buying this summer. Ambitious, but not out of our reach. I don't think the negotiations between Arsenal/Southampton and Villa went as well as Lange/Purslow had hoped to make a transfer fee within our budget possible, plus Jack himself was a huge draw for potential signings. I'd much rather go after players like we signed this summer (Buendia, Ings, & Bailey) vs just paying a premium for the best non-promoted Championship players each summer.

You mean the same guy who knew fook all about our summer transfers now somehow has the inside line on the inner dealings at the club? Come on...

4 months ago we were smugly bragging to ourselves how fantastic our club is being run on NSWE's watch and how far we've come in the past 3 seasons. Now? VillaTalk is on suicide watch with all kinds of baseless claims/conspiracy theories everywhere. Go to the Purslow thread and see baseless posts on how he's meddling in football business and that Lange is just a scout with a DoF title... Go to the Lange thread and see people calling for his head because he signed Ings instead of a DM and masterminded pushing out Terry and ROK... Go to the Smith thread and see all kinds of Villa versions of chemtrails and flat earth theories about bust ups with Mings, losing the dressing room, and bumbling coaching ineptness suggesting that ROK and Terry were the real brains behind the operation (conveniently forgetting that most of them blamed Terry for our defensive woes 2 seasons ago)... VillaTalk really has become a depressing place again. I'm probably disappearing until our form improves and the next transfer window rolls around, or Smith actually gets the sack. My blood pressure can only go so high.

I for one would be angry if Deano lost his job, just to be replaced by Terry, Lampard, or Stevie Fookin' G. That's not sound business, it's panicking at best... Who were the previous names we were linked to after Bruce, besides Henry? Wasn't there apparently communication from Purslow with one of Mourinho's old assistants and a Spanish manager that Suso recommended?

I don't buy that. We spent the past 3 seasons building a DoF/Recruitment/Analytics team and system for scouting/signing players who fit the same system we've put in place from the U18s up through the 1st team. I don't care who we have as the manager now, the club won't sanction signings that aren't vetted and endorsed properly by all parties within the team. Now, the one thing a world class manager would bring to us is possibly being able to tip the scales in our favor when signing some highly sought after talent. Someone might not be really interested in playing for mid-table Aston Villa, but would be interested in playing for the manager, regardless of the club. I still think expecting European footy this season, without Jack, was not even a realistic expectation barely anyone had before the season even began. Now, I'm seeing Deano getting criticized for bad recruitment and for missing out on Europe by some here, which wasn't even a discussion this summer.