It is our understanding from Aston Villa Life sources that the club are currently waiting for a reply to a second attempt to persuade Roberto Martinez to take the role as manager.
Aston Villa went public last season in their pursuit of the affable Spaniard only to find their approach thwarted by Dave Whelan’s media engagement where the Wigan Athletic manager was promised the earth by the wealthy sports retail owner.
However, with a year passed and little of the wishes Whelan spoke of granted, it appears Martinez is ready to sever the 15 year relationship with Wigan in favour of pastures new.
This season, however, the club’s pursuit of Martinez has been complicated by Liverpool targeting the Wigan manager for talks with a potential view to hire him as Kenny Dalglish’s replacement, with other suggestions placing him under a new director of football, rumoured to be Louis van Gaal.
With Wigan’s manager now the current number one choice for Villa, and Martinez clearly wanting to see how the situation pans out with Liverpool, it explains why the process for appointing a manager at Villa Park has slowed down. The concern for the Midlands club is that if Liverpool can make a suitable offer that takes Martinez off the market, then they are back to square one.
Ok, square one may well be a tad extreme, but it would be the second manager approached who may potentially shun them in favour of a different project, or due to staying home.
Perhaps the fact that Martinez’s pursuit is being conducted in a slightly less public manner is Villa’s way of trying to avoid getting egg on their face, possibly because it would show any candidate approached thereafter is only the club’s third choice.
With Villa trying to make positive steps to the fans in order to make next season run smoother than the last one, fans would ideally like to believe that their target is both achievable and, in some way, one of the better choices that the board could make.
However, with many fans concerned about the fact that the board’s choices in the past have been less than perfect, perhaps taking a “secondary choice” in the eyes of the board may not be as bad as it seems.
So it’s another attempt to get Martinez, hopefully with a slightly grander vision than last season, and especially in light of Whelan’s public suggestion he will be putting his hand in his pocket to provide for the young Spanish manager. However, with Martinez disillusioned by the failure for Wigan to push on to the next level of his own plan, it may well be his time to leave the club in Greater Manchester.
For Villa fans, the hope is that Martinez’s exit will illustrate the start of a new era at Villa Park and not, as may be the case, indicate another manager seeing a different club as more attractive than the one that plays in B6. Time will, invariably, tell.
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