The Power of Footy Forums!!!

[Sluffy]

Steve McClaren has been ruled out of the running for the Aston Villa manager's job, BBC Sport understands.

"McClaren has been told that at no point will he be interviewed," said BBC Radio 5 live Midlands football correspondent Pat Murphy.

"Owner Randy Lerner was influenced by the negative reactions of some Villa supporters on various fans' forums and cancelled Thursday's meeting with him."

Rafael Benitez is favourite to take over from Gerard Houllier.

Villa are looking for a new manager after Frenchman Houllier quit in early June citing health reasons. The 63-year-old, who was in charge for only nine months, had missed the final month of the season because of heart problems.

"I understand Benitez is firmly in the frame for the Villa job but [former Fulham manager] Mark Hughes isn't," added Murphy.

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

[Manny]

It's a shame the Bolton boards had no influence when Megson took over.

[traf]

It's a shame the Bolton boards had no influence when Megson took over.

Yes, we might have got somebody else and got relegated.

[Sluffy]

We very likely would have been relegated that season if they had.

[Le God]

Yes, we might have got somebody else and got relegated.

Or we could have ended up in Europe again.

Who knows cos it's all total speculation.

[Sluffy]

It is I agree but if you look at the players he inherited from Allardyce and Lee and examined their subsequent careers, and the players Megson signed in the January window and how they performed for us for the remainder of that season - then I tend to think he kept us up - and I didn't think anyone could have achieved that with what they had to work with at the time.

[Le God]

I bet Paul Jewell or any other scrub could have done a bog standard job like that.

Megson did well to keep us up but i don't think he worked miracles or anything.

[Sluffy]

I bet Paul Jewell or any other scrub could have done a bog standard job like that.

Megson did well to keep us up but i don't think he worked miracles or anything.

Paul Jewell was appointed Derby manager just one month after we got Megson and it took him TEN months to win his first league game!

(Don't forget which team we were under when Megson got his job!).

So no, I don't think Jewell would have kept us up.

Oh, and just for the record - Steve Bruce / Alex McLeish could keep Birmingham up that season either!

[Weststander]

What were we, 10 games in and about 3 points behind 4th bottom? We had Anelka, a trained chimp could have kept us up that season. Apart from which Eddie and PG shoved £40m at Meggo so that probably helped a bit.

[Sluffy]

Anelka had to be sold to raise the funds for Cahill, Steinsson and Taylor.

The £40 odd million or whatever people say it is came from the increase in the Sky deal that only started at the beginning of the following season 2008/9.

We had no money when Allardyce demanded it when we were in 3rd place at Christmas, no money when Lee took over - that's why we ended up with clowns like Braaten and no money in Megson's first season until Anelka was sold.