If, as the bookies are suggesting, Paul Lambert becomes the next manager of Aston Villa then prepare for some déjà vu.

Why? Have a think. Compare him to Martin O’Neill.

Won the European Cup as a player? Check. Managed Wycombe? Check. Managed Norwich? Check. Played as a midfielder in his career? Check. Likes signing players from the British Isles? Check. Has a Celtic connection? Check. So quite a few similarities then.

Without trying to get too far ahead of ourselves – the man hasn’t even been approached never mind appointed yet – will Aston Villa fans be happy with this plan long term?

Yes, I know and understand that after Alex McLeish, fans will consider Lambert a massive step up – many would consider appointing a balti pie a step up – even if his appointment stops short of the fever pitch welcome that a once loved Ulsterman got on his arrival.

However, will his style and strategy, whilst undoubtedly effective, be seen as too dated, too bland, too boring in the long term? After all, objectives and desires change in football as a team develops as we know all too well.

I ask this because Lambert has a lot in common with O’Neill. In many ways, this is a positive because, despite O’Neill’s sometimes errant spending, he gave many of us optimism and pride in the club, even if some started to question him in his final season. If only we knew what was to come, hey?

Hindsight is, of course, always 20/20, and I think many fans were guilty of demanding more than the club was able to deliver back in the O’Neill era. Again, whatever your thoughts on the man after his unexplained exit, few can doubt he turned the club round iteratively after David O’Leary’s woeful final year. Another potential similarity to Lambert again should he get the job.

Still, if there is one thing I know about football fans, Villa or otherwise, is that there will always be people who argue the case for doing something different to what didn’t work after the event and, more amazingly, using that impossible-to-be-proved set of “facts” to build an argument.

I believe they colloquially call that “Ruben-de-la-Red-itis” or the more well known term “talking out of your hat”.

Anyway, like it or not though, winning isn’t as simple as having a definitive “will win” formation contrasted against another “won’t win” one – football isn’t about binary logic on a minor facet of tactics.

It is easy to take such a viewpoint, largely because it means having no responsibility for one’s own actions, but secondarily that it can’t be proved wrong. However, it can’t be definitively proved right either.

Getting back to Lambert, short term I have no doubt he would do well as a manager. My concerns are that, when fans see a return to picking home grown players, the long term isn’t as exciting.

Of course the other front runner, Roberto Martinez, has the exactly reverse view for me as an appointment – his long term prospects excite me, but I fail to see how he would relate to our current squad without massive surgery.

So, for me at least, this rules out Martinez as a suitable candidate without some provisos that would guarantee him a platform he could start to build on. I have no doubt the man himself would want said reassurances too if he was to reconsider the job.

Which may sound a tad contradictory when I suggest Gus Poyet as my own personal pick if I was Randy Lerner, although it isn’t. For Martinez, going from Wigan to Villa would indicate a drop in playing quality, or at least flair, when comparing squads. For Poyet, the step would only be upwards.

Still, if the board are to stick to their own self-imposed Premier League experience guidelines, all of this is largely irrelevant anyway as Poyet doesn’t sate that particular criterion. Short sighted and self-limiting as a decision making process? Yes, for me at least, but then I don’t own the club.

What is the only definite about the next appointment is that the new man will be given a honeymoon period which is, if we are honest, more than McLeish ever got. Well unless we hire Steve Bruce. Or Trevor Francis who, as one person was keen to point out fits two characteristics of former managers – managing Blues and having heart problems.

But still, that won’t happen. So drink it in while you can because, for now at least, it appears the only way is up.

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