The Fear
A Wise Man (once sat next to him)
This is a great illustration why I get so angry when people talk Aston Villa down. Even on here it happens. Comparing us to Burnley, or Bournemouth, even Leicester. Look at the attendances for a start.
But we continually, and have for decades, brought in middle of the road managers. Even now, why with so much money did we not get a manager with top pedigree, if the ambition is to get us back to the top? Instead we have another, Villa fan and top bloke aside, learning on the job. That isn't ambition. Neither is buying young players who will have a sell on value really.
Maybe this is stage one of the plan. Not slating the new regime whatsoever, as you know, met the owners and got a great vibe from them. But they aren't here for charity and although they 'saved' us from going to the wall, for a club this big, and I know this for bang on fact as I still talk to the people involved in many of the big football takeovers (one became a good friend of mine at the Ellis out/Randy in time) no way would we have not had someone to come in and take us on. We are too big a concern, unlike the poor people at Bury.
It is decades now we've seldom acted like we should be, as a big club. The last manager we attracted with true pedigree was Houllier. Right idea, right ambition, wrong man due to his heart issues (and so it proved sadly)
Before that. GT mark 2 but that was awful, due to Doug not backing him (had a chat with GT, he said he knew he shouldn't have come back when he took his list of player targets to the board meeting and Ellis left without it) And then Big Ron Atkinson.
Some of the others were great, John Gregory and Brian Little, but they weren't top pedigree appointments, they just proved great once in operation (and the theory of appointing from within I liked)
Ramble over.
Big club, massive potential, nowhere near acting like it though and that is, as said, for decades and was the reason for the Ellis protests all those years back. Since then, we've had massive money, just not the right decisions.... fingers crossed that changes with the new, hopefully very ambitious, owners.
But we continually, and have for decades, brought in middle of the road managers. Even now, why with so much money did we not get a manager with top pedigree, if the ambition is to get us back to the top? Instead we have another, Villa fan and top bloke aside, learning on the job. That isn't ambition. Neither is buying young players who will have a sell on value really.
Maybe this is stage one of the plan. Not slating the new regime whatsoever, as you know, met the owners and got a great vibe from them. But they aren't here for charity and although they 'saved' us from going to the wall, for a club this big, and I know this for bang on fact as I still talk to the people involved in many of the big football takeovers (one became a good friend of mine at the Ellis out/Randy in time) no way would we have not had someone to come in and take us on. We are too big a concern, unlike the poor people at Bury.
It is decades now we've seldom acted like we should be, as a big club. The last manager we attracted with true pedigree was Houllier. Right idea, right ambition, wrong man due to his heart issues (and so it proved sadly)
Before that. GT mark 2 but that was awful, due to Doug not backing him (had a chat with GT, he said he knew he shouldn't have come back when he took his list of player targets to the board meeting and Ellis left without it) And then Big Ron Atkinson.
Some of the others were great, John Gregory and Brian Little, but they weren't top pedigree appointments, they just proved great once in operation (and the theory of appointing from within I liked)
Ramble over.
Big club, massive potential, nowhere near acting like it though and that is, as said, for decades and was the reason for the Ellis protests all those years back. Since then, we've had massive money, just not the right decisions.... fingers crossed that changes with the new, hopefully very ambitious, owners.