Are Aston Villa too ambitious in their search for a new manager?

Steven Gerrard became the fourth Premier League manager this season to lose his job.

A 3–0 defeat at Fulham, which leaves the club just outside the relegation places, proved to be the final straw for the club’s directors and he was relieved of his responsibilities after just 11 months in charge, having won just two out of the 11 Premier League games they have won this season. They did win their third match of the season against Brentford last night after Gerrard’s sacking.

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He joins Scott Parker, Thomas Tuchel, and Bruno Lage in the list of managerial casualties so far this season, but he may not be the last. Jesse Marsch at Leeds, Brendan Rodgers at Leicester and Ralph Hasenhuttl at Southampton all know that they are living on borrowed time unless their own club’s results pick up.

Whilst both ex-Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino and Thomas Tuchel have been linked with the job, is it too ambitious for the West Midlands club to aim for men of their calibre to fill the empty seat at Villa Park?

In the first place it should be noted that neither man has given any indication of wanting to take the job.

Pochettino has been out of work since he became the latest PSG manager to pay for a lack of success in the Champions League. Meanwhile, Tuchel was an early – and, to some, surprise – casualty of the change of regime at Stamford Bridge, with the consortium led by Todd Boehly taking over from Roman Abramovich.

The German is reported to have already turned down several Premier League jobs, seeming to prefer to wait for a better opportunity to present itself.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with Villa wanting to go for a top manager. They regard themselves as an elite club, so it is reasonable they should try and attract somebody commensurate with that status.

The reality may be somewhat different. Although they used to be one of the biggest teams in England, their glory days are long in the past. They have not won the league title since 1981, and their last silverware of any kind was the League Cup in 1996.

Since then they have even spent some time back in the Championship and only came up again in 2018/2019 season via the play-offs.

Under Dean Smith they managed 17^th in their first season back, before improving to 11^th the following year. Gerrard was meant to maintain that upward trajectory when he was appointed, but, instead they went backwards again, and ended the last campaign 14^th in all.

In other words, in terms of results, this is a lower mid-table team at best

It is not that the club did not spend any money under the Englishman. Nearly £100 million was spent on the likes of Diego Carlos, Lucas Digne, Leander Dendoncker and to make Philippe Coutinho’s loan move permanent. Whether the club has received value for money is another question. Carlos got a serious injury shortly after joining the club, and Coutinho has only shown glimpses of his Liverpool form.

Whilst the club owners have shown willingness to back their managers, are they prepared to match the expenses of the bigger clubs in the division and bring in the type of players that a Pochettino or Tuchel might want? And, even if they were, would those players want to join a club where there is no immediate prospect of European football?

There is also an issue of cultural identity. For all his achievements as a player with Liverpool and as a manager with Rangers, the Villa fans never really took for Gerrard, who seemed sometimes aloof, whilst the manner in which Tyrone Mings was deposed of the captaincy alienated some.

Dean Smith, for all his faults, was much closer to them as an ex player for the club, who came from the area.

As an example of what happens when a so-called elite manager joins a club in the lower reaches of the Premier League, then Rafa Benitez and Everton provides perhaps a salutary lesson of a bad fit.

All this suggests that Villa would be better going for a man who can accept the limitations of the club and is prepared to work with them. They need somebody who can bring through some of the young players that the Villa academy continues to produce and gets the best out of some of the established stars that they already have on their books.

And a young and upcoming manager, in the mould of a Graham Potter (who recently switched to Chelsea) or Thomas Frank, would also be more ready to scale their ambitions, accepting that it will take time for Villa to be in a position where they are able to compete at the top end of the table on the regular basis.

As for Tuchel and Pochettino they are content to bide their time for now. Despite Tuchel being sacked by Chelsea, his stock remains high, having steered them to Champions League success, and a top job will surely come his way soon. It has even been suggested that me may be in line to take over from Gareth Southgate as England boss after the World Cup.

Southgate is under contract until 2024, but may not see out his tenure if England fail to get to the latter stages of the tournament.

The case of Pochettino is less clear. Although in his Tottenham days he was regularly linked with clubs such as Real Madrid and Manchester United, some of the mystique surrounding him has been dispelled by his time in Paris, and his inability to control the dressing room at PSG.

He, too, has been linked with the England job recently, and has made it clear that, if he were offered the job he would seriously consider it.

For both men, there would be a serious reputational risk involved in accepting the Villa job, and, for that reason alone, both can be ruled out as serious candidates.

Given that, in the first match after their sacking, Villa beat Brentford 4–0, with first team coach Aaron Danks in charge, perhaps they have found their solution closer to home.