After Sunday's performance and the catastrophic scoreline to boot, Villa's fans are rightfully despairing, having gone from being a team sniffing round the top four with a progressive and highly rated manager and some of England's growing talent to being a managerless club deserted by their star player and suffering the humiliation of a drubbing by a newly promoted side. It is clear that to stop this downward slide Randy Lerner will have to act fast to replace Martin O'Neil with the right man. Why, you might ask, have I mentioned a comical flop of an international manger , Diego Maradona, in connection with the vacancy?
I would consider him because, while he may be a risk, he is the only option that does not symbolise targeting an accepting a mid-table, stable position instead of chasing after Spurs and Man City. The other names Steve Bruce, and Bob Bradley don't strike me as the sort to take the club forward, but can certainly slow their descent.
Maradona However has something special about him, hes a bit different, and will draw attention to Villa from around the world. He may be a madman, but he can attract more players and increase global support for what is not a glamourous club. When Maradona came to visit his Argentine at Melwood, the Liverpool players queued up to meet him. There are not many opposition managers who will have Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres clambering to shake their hand, as if they had taken the position of an ordinary football fan. Maradona is regarding as being as close to a god as a man can be the man on the street of Buenos Aires and by Argrentine footballers he is, god, Allah, Shiva, Zeus, Thor, Osiris and Poseidon combined - hes probably even Yoda too. While I don't see Lionel Messi Lining up in claret and blue next season, there would certainly be a draw for many Argentine players and also for other admirers of perhaps the finest ever player of the game. When they want to come it makes them cheaper. Mascherano? Aguero? If one comes the appeal grows.
The madness surrounding Diego Maradona comes with the genius, but thats the point, he is a footballing genuis, and once he gets in to his stride in the management game he may be able to prove it. Surely a player with such complete ability must have an impecable understanding of the game and will be able to spot things and change things. As a man manager he seems to have it easy, so many players have so much respect for the man that it helps him motivate them, and his passion is undeniable. While the cynics may find his touchline antics amusing there are some players who I'm sure would find this enthusiasm contagious - perhaps not those with a British mentality but some jibbering, emotional foreigners may join in in shedding tears with him and be surged to victory.
On the other hand the great player hasn't been a great manger so far, complete with his own 6-0 humiliation in Bolivia and if he can so effectively stifle Lionel Messi, what could he door to Ashley Young? It would be a sad sight to see Maradona as the villans' villan, jumping around as they struggle to retain npower league 2 status. The allure of Maradona comes from the fact that he is exotic, ellusive, never having played in England, and for many only cropped up every four years to excite and delight at the World cup. His goals had that added romanticis and his disgraces could be put at greater distance when he wasn't conducting his affairs at Old Trafford. Even his lows, scoring nothing but drug enduced highs for a time when we heard so little from him, other than the odd photo of a sad (and fat) case, far far away in a different world, made his seem more of a story and less of just "some guy". So my worry is that if he were to take up office at an familiar football club in a rainy West Midlands city, sipping pints with a fat, bald brummie, and appear every saturday desperatly clutching at anything that might inspire his mid table team to victory, then one of footballs greatest heroes and most iconic figures, would cease to be what he seemed to be and no longer represent footballing dreams.
Fuck it, what do I care? What my teams in 17th position and losing three-nil to Man City I'd gladly have the comic relief of a little man running around in suit or a gem of a press conference. Come -on Diego the premier league wants you!
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