A long shortlist of potential candidates to succeed O'Neill at Villa

Having walked out on Villa, Martin O’Neill has created a manager shaped hole at Aston Villa that urgently needs filling if the club are to maintain the heights that the Northern Irishman took them to during his tenure.

Many Villa fans would be hoping that a large queue would be forming outside Villa Park of top class managers, desperately clutching their CV and trying to catch the attention of Chairman Randy Lerner.

Lerner though could have trouble luring such candidates to the job, as he himself admitted the club has a sell-to-buy policy in operation and even if a manager is quickly installed, they will little time to bring in any fresh faces before the close of the transfer window.

Despite the jobs increasingly narrowing appeal, some gluttons for punishment of varying repute have reportedly expressed an interest, but who would be mad enough to take the position?

Gareth Southgate
Having bored football fans to tears with his tedious punditry on ITV that was only marginally more exciting than that of Edgar Davids, it’s questionable whether Southgate would be a welcome appointment, especially after he accused his former club of lacking ambition on his departure nearly ten years ago. After leading Middlesbrough to relegation he was sacked and is currently unattached, but the morose morbid expression that Southgate favours would fail to lift the gloomy spirit around Villa Park. It could be worse though, it could be the other ITV pundit Andy ‘it’s a game of two halves’ Townsend.

Alan Curbishley
The former Charlton manager performed wonders during his 15 years at the Valley and also helped West Ham avoid relegation, before his resignation in 2008. His appointment would signal a change of emphasis at Villa Park though, away from top of the table battling to mid-table consolidation, because as able as Curbishley is to steady a ship and perform wonders on a budget, he doesn’t have the adventure to manage a team hunting for glory at the top of the table.

Sven-Göran Eriksson
The mild mannered lothario would be a marquee signing if Lerner managed to tempt the Swede to Villa Park, but his arrival would worry many Villa fans as it’d reunite him with his favourite substitute Emile Heskey, who he regularly used with minimal effect during his England tenure. His Mr 10% Athole Still has unsurprisingly expressed an interest in the job though, after seeing an opportunity to add another wing to his house “of course Sven would be interested in this job,” he clucked. Sven himself is a lifelong fan and said so to an unscrupulous Arab businessman four years ago in a sting featured in The Sun.

Bob Bradley
Probably just because he’s American, or at least I hope so, as a repetition of the frighteningly dull football displayed by USA in the World Cup would not be a welcome sight at Villa Park. I’d even prefer Gareth Southgate’s punditry over this.

Slaven Bilic
At the relatively tender age of 41 for a manger, Bilic has already helped guide the Croatian national side to the knockout stages of Euro 2008 and denied England a place at the tournament in the process. His reputation took a bashing though when in qualification for this summers World Cup, England soundly destroyed his side over two legs. As a young manager though with great potential, who has learned the hard way, his arrival at Villa Park would be an exciting prospect and a could also prove to be a welcome reunion for Everton and West Ham fans, who remember him as a combative player testing the referee’s patience every week.

Gianfranco Zola
He’s a lovely man isn’t he? Always warm toward to players and rational in post match interviews, but his inexperience as a club manager showed during his mixed spell with West Ham and he could do with earning his stripes in a lower league, before returning to the big time.

Other names carelessly thrown in the hat include The Wolly With A Brolly despite his appointment as Wolfsburg manager and Martin Jol who is contractually tied to Ajax and was denied the opportunity to leave for Fulham earlier in the summer.

Also Mike Bassett, PM and Villa fan David Cameron and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar have reportedly been seen frantically waving their CV at the window of Lerner’s office, if wild speculation is to be believed.

Tags: Aston Villa, Martin O'Neill