For once, Villa have to stop the clock ticking on a manager... Smith needs backing, not binning!
EVERY successful football club has its constituent parts working in harmony. like the manager (Alex Mcleish and Steve Bruce).
Or... well, you get the picture.
Very fleetingly, such as when Martin O’neill was being allowed to benefit from the size of Lerner’s wallet, has Villa Park been a haven of peace and tranquility.
Just over one decade ago, the manager was at the top of his game.
The players were at the top of theirs. The chairman of the day was enthusiastic, monied – gullible – and the supporters lapped it up.
When the Irishman walked out on the eve of the 2010 season, the club imploded – and it’s only thanks to the generosity of the current owners that it is back on the radar once again.
Since Nassef Sawaris and Wes Edens rode into Birmingham on their white chargers 16 months ago, more than £250million was spent on Aston
Villa. Yet this morning Villa sit on the fringes of the relegation zone after more than one-third of the season. But this time, it’s different.
There are no calls for the owners to dig deep, as there were with Ellis.
The manager isn’t agitating with the owner. The players are finding their feet and will improve – and the supporters are back onside.
Yet the sight of the top-flight table will be unsettling the owners and chief executive Christian Purslow.
But what they must be told from the lessons of history is that changing the manager isn’t the way forward.
They tried that once with Garde. It didn’t end well.
Villa play Newcastle tomorrow, then a rapidly improving Man United and upwardly mobile Leicester City.
It could get worse before it gets better. But keeping faith with the
‘FRANK Lampard’s Chelsea’ now have a rival – ‘Jose Mourinho’s Spurs’.