If you were a Villa fan

[Michigan Blue]

More seriously i would be pretty upset to loose a quality manager who seemed to be getting the best from a thread bare squad.The biggest problem for Villa has been the lack of strength in depth.

He did bolster the squad though with purchases like Sidwell, Shorey, Delph, Heskey, Guzan, etc. The problem is those "depth" purchases were either shit or he did not have the guts to rotate them in.

One thing that stuck out to me when looking at MON's signings at Villa was his lack of nous in plundering Europe for talent. You would have thought his scouting network never left Britain. He got lots of credit in the media for building a heavily British/Irish team but to go as far in that direction as he did strikes me as a little naive in this day and age. Even Hughes for instance seems to have a better knowledge of the European leagues.

[Green & Blue]

More seriously i would be pretty upset to loose a quality manager who seemed to be getting the best from a thread bare squad.The biggest problem for Villa has been the lack of strength in depth.

He did bolster the squad though with purchases like Sidwell, Shorey, Delph, Heskey, Guzan, etc. The problem is those "depth" purchases were either shit or he did not have the guts to rotate them in.

One thing that stuck out to me when looking at MON's signings at Villa was his lack of nous in plundering Europe for talent. You would have thought his scouting network never left Britain. He got lots of credit in the media for building a heavily British/Irish team but to go as far in that direction as he did strikes me as a little naive in this day and age. Even Hughes for instance seems to have a better knowledge of the European leagues.

But was he ever actually increasing the depth of his squad?
Villa were always selling players at the same time.Melberg,Laursen,Barry have all left for one reason or another when being key players at Villa and have never really been replaced with players of a decent standard.Of course he has signed players but the list you have given of Sidwell, Shorey, Delph, Heskey, Guzan are hardly ambitious big money signings.Easily his best signing was Dunny.Compared to any of the the top 6 sides he has effectively had a very tight budget to work with and although his signings have not been great he has for sure got the best out of the squad hes working with.Deffo credibility in what you have said about his nous for talent in the european market,little to none really.