Man United flop David Moyes emerges as frontrunner for Aston Villa job

DAVID MOYES tops Aston Villa’s wish list as they go in search of a no-nonsense boss to overhaul the relegation-stricken club.

Posted Thursday, March 31, 2016 by Dailystar.co.uk

Man United flop David Moyes emerges as frontrunner for Aston Villa job
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And the 52-year-old Scot is believed to be ready to take up the challenge.

Ex-Leicester boss Nigel Pearson is also a leading candidate though question marks over his temperament could be a stumbling block.

But former Everton and Manchester United boss Moyes ticks most of the boxes Villa’s new-look board have put in place.

New chairman Steve Hollis is heading the operation to bring in a new boss and Moyes is understood to be excited by the challenge regardless of the fact that it looks certain to be in the Championship.

He’ll see a traditional club like Villa with a big fan base as the ideal project to re-establish his managerial reputation after damaging brief spells at United and Real Sociedad.

Villa’s French experiment failed spectacularly with boss Remi Garde shown the door after just five months.

Two wins from 20 games convinced the new hierarchy that Garde wasn’t equipped to turn things around.

The 49-year-old left Villa late on Tuesday night expressing disappointment that he hadn’t been given the tools for the job.

He did his best to improve relations behind the scenes with some impromptu gestures of generosity and goodwill but never fully managed to win the players over.

At Christmas Garde treated staff at the Bodymoor Heath training ground complex to a night out at the luxurious Belfry golf complex and gave them a present of an expensive bottle of French wine.

But he struggled to get a number of the senior players around to his way of thinking and became increasingly disillusioned by what he considered to be their lack of professionalism.

He made no secret that if he had his way a number of the club’s high earners would be out of the door.

But when there was no money spent in January, Garde realised that the writing could be on the wall.

The fact that Villa were hurtling towards relegation wasn’t the deciding factor.

He’d taken the job on in November with the club rooted at the bottom and knowing that championship football next season was a distinct possibility.

But as the results showed no sign of improvement he began to take on the look of a man who had come up against one obstacle too many and wanted out.

He became the latest addition to the sweeping changes at Villa Park which have already led to the departure of Chief Executive Tom Fox and Sporting Director Hendrik Almstadt.