OK let's start this off by introducing myself, I’m Ashley proud loving family man and Villa through and through, well apart from the time I flirted with Forest as a second team when I was a wee young boy. But that’s a whole different story as I flirted quite a lot anyway, or so I’m informed by my friends and wife! I’m a lovable chap who doesn’t take himself too seriously, so what can I say. Anyway my love for Villa stems back to my Granddad being Villa born and bred but I became truly hooked when Trevor Francis gave me complimentary tickets to Villa v QPR. He played that day and scored a hat trick against us......Not cool Trev, Not cool! My next game was against Sheffield United where Vinnie Jones scored for the blades but we won 2-1. Yes my football memories are random. Anyway I can be found floating around on Twitter and Tinder. OK I joke, just tinder I mean twitter.

Who would live in a house like this?

Let's go through the Keyhole...... Outside is a For Sale sign which seems to of been up for a while. The house despite looking nice seems to have that forgotten about feel to it. A trophy cabinet with many trophies, but nothing recent. A lion skin rug on the floor, some bottles of claret wine in the decanter, a big old antique four poster bed. Now moving on! There’s a distinct 80s feel to this room with a picture of the Ocean and a fantastic Shaw line. Obviously this person is very religious as well as there’s references to God everywhere. The wall’s in the hallways are a very distinct Gray Colour and if you look closely you can see Platts in the curtain tassels.  A collection of Gregory Peck movies line the study and lastly the box set of Only Fools and Horses. So just who would live in a house like this???

OK so jokes out of the way (for now) how do I start a piece on a club that if it was a rowing boat would be going against the tide with two broken oars? Because that’s how it feels when looking at Aston Villa.

Every year is a new start, every year is a transition, managers come and go, plans change but the end goal just hasn’t been achieved despite everybody’s best intentions. Fans bemoan the club, fans bemoan the manager, fans bemoan the players and all that we get back is the odd sound byte from the manager at the time. We all know Lambert couldn’t fault us, and we would go again etc which became a tired old line, and now we have Sherwood who is contradictory week in week out which is also tiring. Fox etc all stay very quiet which is nothing new. Basically I think we all realise the significance of this week’s game against Swansea for club and manager. Now the last few weeks I’ve bashed Sherwood’s ineptness and said it's time for him to go and I stand by that however I’m not stupid enough to not realise he isn’t trying, or that he wants us to be in the bottom 3 as of course he doesn’t. He wants to succeed as much as we want to be free from danger for once. I’m also not stupid enough to believe it’s all his fault or that he’s had things 100% his way as I don’t think any manager since O'Neill could say that the goal posts didn’t move on them during their term as manager. We all know O'Neill jumped as soon as Randy changed the rules. All said and done though, a manager's job is to get results or its fans up in arms. Sadly for me his reign has consisted of two wins against the baggies and a great game in the FA semi final.

Everything else has been way short of what I’d expect from a new manager or good manager. Short of maybe winning the next 3 or 4 then Tim will be on his way after Saturday I feel. That brings me to the point of this........Who should/could/would replace him??

Bearing in mind he’s still employed this may be a pointless task! So right, the first three choices should be Sir Alex Ferguson, good record at club level has had a break and could be ready for a challenge. Jose Mourinho! Under pressure and strikes me as a man that wants to work on a budget not a cheque book, and finally Arsene Wenger. Arsene is rumoured to be fed up of pretty football and goals and fancies working with a squad currently not capable of that. None of the aforementioned managers want European football yet either so we can tick that box too. Hope you enjoyed this piece and can see the research time that went into it.

THE END........

OK that was the other universe so back to ours!

Sunderland made the move a few weeks ago and appointed Allardyce so that removes him from the running. Few would have wanted him but I would wager he will keep them up. Sam has lost most jobs through perhaps not entertaining the fans, certainly not because he has dragged them into relegation fights. Sunderland have done what was needed to stay up and acted quickly to help that cause. I’m going to go by names people have spoken about on Social media so let's go. I’m not going to bore you with stats here either. Just some common sense, I think.

Garry Monk – Swansea
Good young manager and well respected down there despite reports. He may not have excited the Swansea fans after Laudrup left and to be fair it was slow to pick up for him but he halted their rot at the time by grinding out some draws and keeping them up, before then taking them to 8th. Now I read months ago that he should turn down any overtures for a top job but people wouldn’t be surprised to see him at a United etc in years to come. High praise indeed! That being said he is again an untried commodity really. He’s been safe in the Swansea bubble, former player, captain and then manager. A club that has risen at a fast but steady pace, built themselves a nice platform to push on from. Compare that to Aston Villa and I know if I was him I'd not even look at it and if I was us I would not look at him either. For me that’s perhaps following the route we’ve been trying and sadly failing at in the type of manager we have hired. Monk needs time to grow before putting himself into the snake pit we have here.

Brendan Rodgers – On Holiday/Free Agent
Move along.........not the right time full stop. He will be nursing some Liverpool wounds and it’s questionable how much he’s achieved for himself in treading the Swansea boards already in place and inheriting Suarez an Liverpool. Since then things have not gone well and he’s made some questionable purchases. Perhaps to be fair he’s sensible enough to know that moving to Villa who are second (bottom) in the Premier league, and a manager graveyard would not be the club to bounce back with.

Michael Bradley’s Dad – Don’t care
For me we need prem experience or a European coach that can get the best from a French based/styled player alongside our others. Sadly he ticks neither box and his CV isn’t spectacular as time in Egypt and US national manager seats don’t really fill me with hope and expectation. He was ranked in the top 25 managers last year around the world apparently but that needs to be shown in a top competitive euro league and not in a B country. Remember the baby faced assassin was supposed to be the next big thing too.  Cardiff proved that to not be the case. One to walk on by in my opinion.

David Moyes – Real Sociedad
Exciting? Nope, dependable? Yes. Sadly Moyes has seen his stock fall in the period of time since leaving Goodison and some of it is not his own fault. Following Fergie at United was never a good move. Ferguson had left him with an aging squad and hadn’t planned for the future. The midfield hadn’t had an addition to it in years before Moyes arrival. Transfer targets were missed which resulted in late bids for the likes of Fellaini. To be fair he did no worse than LVG in his first year who spent far more money. But that just wasn’t to be at the end of the day. Now he has chosen to do a Schteevve Mclaren and rebuild his career on foreign shores......bad move. No way are his coaching methods or styles going to translate to Spanish Football and he’s learning that the hard way. Would he be a good move for us?? Not sure as our model has changed but you can’t bash his time at Everton over 11 years. I did put a friends view on him on the forum previously. He felt he’d be good for us but who knows. I’m neither inspired nor against that idea. But once again were not a club to rebuild your reputation with currently.

Remi Garde – Job centre a’la France
OK so currently unemployed and has been for a little while. An ex Arsenal player during the early Wenger years and was most recently heavily linked to Newcastle. Talks broke down when he supposedly didn’t like the area or the level of culture! How true that is i don’t know but was genuinely reported. Now this for me and some others is the way forward. He fits the mould of coach that would work work in the system we are trying to implement. Obviously he is French which could help but the major thing was his success over a 3 year period at Lyon was during a period of cost cutting, selling the star players and bringing through the younger talent which he did superbly. Now Wenger unsurprisingly rates him very highly and I must admit he ticks the boxes for me. The only question mark would be if he could adapt to the Premier League quick enough to get us out of trouble. In the summer he would of been perfect! I’d still take a punt but would he be interested???

The also rans
Then I’ll drop in every other left field name together, Warburton, Howe, Rowett and so on and so on. None of these people for ours or their sake should be even interviewed. They don’t fit any of the criteria or have very little to no experience let alone top flight relegation steel to fall back on. Rowett is a Villa fan but let's be honest he’s been at the Blues for 5 minutes and people will quickly remind him where he came from if things turned sour. Mark Warburton is mainly known for making bread.....seriously I’ve no idea who Mark Warburton the football manager is??? Wink and finally Eddie Howe......not in a million years would we get him and as with other managers he’s a baby in his career and should concentrate on Bournemouth. Fans would again turn on him very quickly and point out he hadn’t got the experience for this job. Your Rowetts and Howes of this world will be spoken about differently in 5 years time but for now Villa is not the place for them.

Obviously people may have other ideas who they’d like or who's possible, and this is just a few that I’ve seen people talk about. End of the day Tim could still be manager at Christmas, who knows. But as a certain statement said this week “back him or sack him” I’m going with the last part and feel it will be sooner rather than later. Question is “who’s next?”

This was sponsored and brought to you by nobody, you read it because I’m great and you checked Tinder because you’re single or curious. Either way I’m grateful......peace out, Have a good day/evening Villains.
UTV

Thanks Ashley, for another insightful and entertaining read. He can be found on Twitter @starbuck19777 give him a follow, he's a great lad.