rafa benitez to become aston villa manager.

it's understood that rafa benitez will enter talks with aston villa this week over the spaniard taking over the manager role from gerard houllier

I wont be to happy with Benitez, would have preferd Hughes, Ancelloti, might have been a far stretch.

Jol, now at Fulham.

Moyes.

I would have liked Houllier to stay, but understandably his health must come first.

Great, yet another bodies behind the ball manager, wheres the radical ambition?

He'll be at your club for a couple of years before falling out with the owner, probably over transfers, and leaving. As he has done at Valencia and Liverpool.

Apparently Steve McClaren was going to be interviewed but there was such a negative backlash in the fan forums that the meeting was cancelled and he has been told he won't get interviewed for the job, which puts Benitez in pole posititon.

Surely McClaren would have been a good option, he's a bit of time abroad where he was successful with FC Twente, had a hard time at Wolfsburg, but Benitez's last job was hardly a roaring success. McClaren also did an excellent job with Middlesbrough.

Sky sources and local radio saying Benitez isn't going to become Villa Boss.

Are they saying who is?

Nope,Just saying that Benitez is out of the running/not in consideration.

I've seen them linked with the USA coach before(Bob Bradley I think),I think he'll probably be one of the front-runners for the job.

I'd love to see them look at Paul Lambert, Brenden Rogers, Brian McDermott, Mark Robins or Malky McKay, guys who haven't got the Premiership experiance but are young managers with fresh attacking ideas, first choice though would be Owen Coyle

They've been given permission to talk to Roberto Martinez.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13704421.stm

You know I was writing all those names last night and thinking I'd left someone out, Martinez would definitely be a very ambitious and ballsy appointment

Lets hope we get someone in soon, so we can sort out signings, people leaving/staying.

Apparently Benitez's transfer funding expectations differed dramatically from those of Aston Villa.

No suprise there. You would have thought the Fat Waiter would have learnt his lesson by now. Who in their right mind would give the man access to substantial funds after seeing how he screwed up at Liverpool.

He did make some good signings as well though Norfolk. Garcia, Crouch, Alonso, Torres, Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Aurelio, Sissoko, Mascherano, Benayoun, Riera, Johnson. None of those players could really called be a failure IMO.

Obviously he made bad signings as well, but what manager hasn't? We needed to spend big to try and push on for the title, and Benitez gave it a good shot I thought.

I hate managers like Rafa Benitez who will only take jobs if they have lots of money to spend, how about being a 'Manager' and show your worth by getting the best out of the players and money at your disposal.

fantantonio wrote:I hate managers like Rafa Benitez who will only take jobs if they have lots of money to spend, how about being a 'Manager' and show your worth by getting the best out of the players and monery at your disposal.

The thing that is most annoying is that I actually think that's what Rafa is good at, look at the Champions League run in 2005, he got the best out of a weak squad. I think he's a good manager on the pitch, not so good off of it, although I think he gets more stick for it than he deserves, probably because he defends himself too much. Although he's a very likable guy, it's very hard to fault him as a person, and he has connected with Liverpool really well, as shown by his work for the Hillsborough disaster charities and when the fans chanted his name at the Hillsborough service.