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Since Gerard Houllier was released as manager of Aston Villa Football Club, the club have been linked with a number of names for the vacant position. They have included people ranging from Ancelotti to McLeish, from Martinez to Moyes. However, there’s absolutely no reasoning, not in any solid sense, for half of the links that have occurred.
As any supporter of the club will be aware, our club likes to do our business in private. Behind closed doors, and with very little communication.
Looking at it from two different angles, my views of the situation are totally different. As someone having run businesses bigger in turnover than Aston Villa, I fully understand the rationality of the board. Employing someone in a senior role at a large organisation is not the same as employing a cleaner or office junior. Having had to go through processes involving multiple interviews, presentations, extensive references, as well as dissecting CVs with a microscope, it is safe to say that these processes take time. You don’t get a director of a company employed in a short period of time and, to that end, you don’t therefore get a football manager employed quickly either.
However, looking at it purely as a fan, we obviously will get frustrated. After all, with 24/7 coverage of sport available from a number of areas there is always some newspaper, some website, some TV channel that will list this manager or that manager as in talks. It is frustrating, but we have to accept it as part and parcel of the recruitment process – it isn’t going to take five minutes.
The search has begun
I don’t think that anyone here should think, not even for a second, that the shortlist of who to take over at the football club began being written at the time of Gerard’s contract expiry. It is obvious that the board had sounded out potential successors between themselves culminating in a list of names who were to be approached. The contents of this list are largely unknown, with only one name publicly known.
We know for a fact that Roberto Martinez was sounded out as a potential candidate for the role. To clarify, this would have meant being approached as one of a list of candidates who the board were interested in finding out more about. There is one thing seeing a particular manager in action, and another completely in having them in charge of your club. Just because Martinez was on a shortlist of names, it doesn’t mean he was going to be offered the job. In fact, it doesn’t even mean he would get to a final interview. It just means that he was on a list of people who Aston Villa were interested in. Villa aren’t going to just tell the public their list of manager, the same was as you don’t scout a player through your network and tell the opposition that so and so is a great player. All it does it create a bidding war.
The above is a solid fact. It is a fact because it has been absolutely clarified by the club as such, and therefore is about the only solid shred of evidence that exists. Beyond that, it is total conjecture. It is fair to assume however, that the approach for Roberto Martinez would have been made at exactly the same time as the approach for all other managers on that list, however many there are.
Rumour – the thorn in our side
What has made this situation far more tumultuous is the amount of rumour, “in the know” people on Twitter, fantasists, and dramatists. In the aforementioned 24/7 world of news, outlets have to find stories to sell their papers. They may, in some cases, base their stories on fact. However, and for the most part, they base their stories on sensationalist lying.
Why? It sells papers. Every Villa fan on the planet wants to know who the next manager of our club will be. Some of the names mentioned are met with elation, others with disgust. Some managers are viewed by the objective as overly ambitious, other managers are viewed by the Villa faithful as totally derisory. “Ancelotti”, they’d say “is a great choice”. McLeish or McClaren, on the other hand, seems to have been mentioned as a disaster.
It all comes down to journalism. I could sit here, like many other sites, papers, or other media outlets, and spend my time telling you that I know exactly who the manager is, and I know exactly when they will be appointed. The truth is this: I don’t. I could lie to you, I could fabricate a web of nonsense that details this movement and that movement, that tells you where Randy’s plane is at any moment of the day, that talks of secret meetings between the board and manager x.
I could, but I’m not going to. I’m not going to because I have more respect for fans that read this site, and because it would just make me look like a liar. Liars you see, they get a reputation for lying, and it isn’t easily shook off. Especially when, like me, you have your real name at the top of your articles, and not a strange pseudonym.
What I do know for certain is this: The club are conducting a full and extensive search for the next manager of the football club. It will culminate in a well thought out appointment that will benefit Aston Villa. So my final message is this: Don’t panic. It’s easy to when you see the rumours flying but trust me, getting sucked into the rumours will just get you down. It will be ok in the end.
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