markavfc40

**** Chelsea. I like the fact we are one of only 4 English clubs to have won the biggest trophy there is and the fact that no London club has ever won it. In fact I love that fact. Bayern to win 3-1.

Craig Gordon has had some terrible luck with injuries. Still only 29 so still has time on his side I guess. However he looks like going the same way as Chris Kirkland who never reached the heights expected due to being scuppered by injuries.

Hopefully we will get to interview him. It would be madness not to if he is interested. What the guy has achieved at Norwich is remarkable especially given he has had very little to spend.

Well if he is going to make a statement it certainly won't be to announce he is becoming manager of Aston Villa. It would be us that would make an official announcement. It will either be to reaffirm what he has already said that he has spoken to us out of respect and it was just an informal chat or it will be to say that he will be staying with Molde.

Whilst this is an exciting appointment it is still a very risky one. I don't think the fact that he hasn't managed above a level of football equivalent to league one can be totally ignored. He may have great experience as a player but in managerial terms he has very little and the step up from where he is now to managing a Premier League club, and one rightfully with expectations of finishing as one of the top half dozen teams in the country, is a huge step up. Apart from him managing in a foreign country and being a big name from his playing days in terms of experience and the level he has managed at he is no less a gamble than having gone for the likes of Lee Clark, Eddie Howe, Gus Poyet. I am certainly not against this appointment though and I am happy we appear to be thinking outside of the box in terms of a manager having to have Premier League experience. Randy has gone down that route twice and it has been a disaster. I do think there were much stronger gettable alternatives to Ole and there is no doubting there is a certain amount of the unknown as to what he will bring to us, the kind of players he will go for and how he will mould us as a team. That in itself makes this appointment an exciting one though and that is something we have lacked at VP for too long. I can also see the media and other fans viewing us in a more positive light than we have been over the last couple of years. At the very least this appointment should initially bring a buzz back to Villa Park and hopefully we can gain some forward momentum from that and if that is the case this appointment could hopefully be the start of something pretty special.

Her hey day was slightly before my time but always seen her as a bit of a legend and had a few boogies to her stuff back in the day. She'll long be remembered through her music. RIP

Very good post Briny.

If it is to be OSG then I'll be happy. Its a bit left field and a risk but we've gone with the tried and tested experienced appointments and its got us pretty much nowhere. This will either be an inspired appointment or a complete failure. Either way I think it'll be an exciting time and I'm looking forward to the ride.

Agree with all that Julie. I agree. Nice statement from him one he obviously didn't have to make. The job was clearly too big for him, one he should never have been offered, but I don't blame him for taking it on. Good luck to him.

I'd say he is now drinking in last chance saloon alongside Randy. They make another poor managerial appointment and you'd then have to say the finger definitely needs pointing at them. He came in to this role lacking in experience but I'd like to think that may now have been gained on the job and he should have learned a lot over the last couple of years. He certainly spoke a couple of days ago about lessons being learned. We are about to find out if that is indeed true.

I think we will hear something today as I'd like to think we have someone identified and the wheels are already well in motion in getting them. From what Faulkner said it seems we have known since the Bolton game that McLeish would be going and the swiftness of his sacking would suggest that the decision was made some time ago. Therefore they have had around a month to decide who they want. I hope we are much more ruthless than we have been in the past and go all out to get the man we want and step on a few toes and upset a few people if need be. The priority has to be Aston Villa football club and if it means upsetting a chairman/chief executive of another club then so be it. There are some very good managers around and Aston Villa really shouldn't be a difficult club to sell to the likes of Lambert, Rodgers, Martinez. I really hope Randy and Faulkner don't let us down again. This is a massive appointment and will tell us everything about where Randy wants to now take us. Make the wrong choice now and we could well be relegated next season. Make the right choice though and this club will take off again. The fans are desperate for an appointment they can believe in, one that we feel we can get right behind and go forward with as a club.

I wouldn't worry too much about what O'Neill will say to Lambert. I think he'll be very complimentary about the size of the club and what a fantastic club it is just as he was when interviewed before we played Sunderland a few weeks ago. He is also I believe still on very decent terms with Lerner.

As the old saying goes you can not make "a silk purse out of a sows ear"!! Our squad is woeful with not a great number of exceptions. We need a signifcant influx of players to turn the club around and the old guard have to go. I think Mike is pretty much right. You look at the squad compared to the end of last season and it simply doesn't compare in terms of quality and depth. We have lost three significant players in Ash, Downing and Friedel, a good player in Luke Young and a decent player in Reo Coker. The only one of them to be replaced with like for like for like quality was Friedel. You can now add to the above the loss of Petrov and Cuellar and to a lesser extent Heskey. As things stand today regardless of who is manager the best we could do with the current squad would be around 13th and even that is perhaps a tad optimistic. It lacks both high end quality and strength in depth. Significant money needs to be spent in the summer and around 4 or 5 players that can go straight into the team need to be brought in and perhaps a couple of squad fillers. The new manager needs to come in asap, I'd like it to be by early next week,and ship those out that he doesn't fancy and get on wit the job of rebuilding this team. It is a very big task for whoever takes it on.

He may well be. He was just painfully out of his depth managing this great club so being a nice guy or not was irrelevant. Now he has gone I wish him well and am just thankful that we didn't pay the ultimate price of relegation while he was here. In all fairness though nice guy or not he doesn't need or warrant our sympathises. He has had the pleasure of managing this fantastic club, one his record didn't warrant, has failed miserably, taken a bit of stick and walked away with a few mill in his back pocket.

Maybe many of the players know it's not ALL down to McLeish, they take some of the responsibility. I wonder how fans would feel about players donning the claret & blue shirt when they are sniggering about being hung over to their team mates & bragging about the night before an important game. What kind of influence on youngsters say I? Allegedly of course! If what you are suggesting were true then surely that kind of behaviour should be stamped out by the manager. A good manager would not stand for that on his watch and would stamp it out immediately. In fact under a good manager who players respect they would simply not behave as you suggest. The only person to blame for McLeish's failings this season is Alex McLeish. In terms of preparing the players and sending them out with a positive professional attitude then the buck has to stop with the manager. Its what he gets paid a couple of mill a year for ffs. You can't statistically be one of the worst managers in the history of this great club and then hide behind the players.

I agree the easy part was in getting rid of McLeish similar to getting rid of Houllier. The worrying thing is that at the end of last season he only got half the job right and **** up the other part by hiring McLeish. I sincerely hope he has learnt some harsh lessons and gets it right this time.

What he knows about football you could write on the back of a first class stamp. For that reason I'd rather we didn't hear anything from him regarding Aston Villa again. The man spoke absolute tripe and much of it was insulting the fans intelligence.

Sacking McLeish was a no brainer and the easy part. Now the hard work begins as Randy needs to get this managerial decision right after the last two **** ups. I am not convinced he will but I hope he does as another **** up will see us relegated. We have slid rapidly backwards over the last 2 years and Randy has to carry the can for that. Its time to repair the damage.

Yep, Collymore championing Lambert on TalkShite because he is like you know who.... Heaven help us if we have a return to all that.... I know how would we all cope. Top 6 finishes, trips to Wembley average crowds of 40k. Of course it came at the expense of the 6th highest wage bill as you'd expect and hopefully Randy can sort the club finances so as to sustain it if we get there again.

Likewise. I can't imagine O'Neill giving the job a glowing reference either. Fortunately people in the real world really don't give a toss what the M-essiah thinks.... You guys really will be buggered if they do hire Lambert though...... What's with the you guys bit? as a fellow Villa fan wouldn't we all be in the same boat when it comes to what's happening at Aston Villa. I also think you need to get over O'Neill. He left almost two years ago ffs.

He hasn't been helped the last two seasons by the useless **** managing him. Houllier didn't really fancy him, under used him and played him out wide. McLeish has **** him out wide more often than not and simply doesn't have a clue how to get the best out of a team attacking wise. If McLeish stays and/or Lerner makes his third managerial **** up in a row then I expect to see Gabby head up north back to the manager that could get the best out of him.

This is the major issue isn't it. Aston Villa should be a big enough draw for the vast majority of managers in this country and certainly the managers of Norwich, Wigan, Swansea etc. Aston Villa without a pot to piss in though who have been on a rapid descent for two seasons constantly flogging their best players and not supplying the funds to replace them doesn't look too appealing. Paul Lambert strikes me as a very ambitious man. Sadly I think those ambitions and the lack of ambition of Randy Lerner will sadly mean that he won't be joining us. I think he could be a perfect fit for us though with a more ambitious owner.

The same MM that said McLeish wouldn't be manger and then a few days later was appointed? That guy knows pretty much as much of the rest of us - **** all.

Well done to all involved. Done Paddy proud.

He has shown himself to be a temperamental **** who if things aren't going his way will take the sulky route and blame everyone else for things not going right instead of manning up, looking in the mirror and knuckling down and putting a shift in. I like most Villa fans can accept a player going through poor form but I can't accept a player that doesn't give 100% in terms of effort. He either needs to show a complete turn around in attitude, which I doubt he will, or we need to sell asap and try and recoup some of the 10 mill spunked on him.