After Gerard Houllier left Aston Villa due to ill-health back in June 2011, it left Villa searching for a new manager, a position that Villa would be in regularly for the next few seasons. As we can all recall, despite our best efforts to forget such a horror, Villa went on to appoint ex-Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish as Houllier’s replacement. But he wasn’t always the frontrunner to the job at B6, some of you may remember that the early favourite to take over was at the time Fulham manager Mark Hughes, and with Villa facing Hughes’ Stoke at the weekend I thought it was a perfect time to mourn the one that got away.
The Welshman already had a record of taking the previously relegation threatened Blackburn to league finishes of 15th, 6th, 10th and 7th across a 4 season spell at Ewood Park, which is a remarkable achievement. Then in the 2010/11 season he led Fulham to an eighth-place finish and Europa League qualification via the Fair Play League. This great finish meant Hughes was a man in demand again, with Fulham wishing to extend his two year contract with the club and the managerless Villa eyeing up the Welshman. Just days after Villa parted ways with Gerard Houllier; Hughes had resigned as Fulham manager. Initially to the Villa fans it seemed Hughes’ appointment was imminent, but such hopes were dashed with the media reporting the Villa board were unimpressed with the manner of Hughes’ departure, and thus they would not be offering him the role at Villa Park.
Hughes instead went on to manage QPR and Stoke. His record at QPR was not exactly fantastic, but he did save them from relegation in the 2011/12 campaign although he was sacked the following season after a run of 12 games without victory. Yet at Stoke Hughes’ record has been extremely good. Two consecutive 9th place finishes with more attacking, dynamic football to boot has seen Hughes’ stock rise considerably, while at the same time Villa have got progressively worse, with relegation to the Championship likely to be the latest symptom of their demise. 3 managers have come and gone since Villa were last seriously linked with appointing Hughes as manager, and yet it could have been so different.
By all accounts Hughes seemed like the perfect match for Villa at that time. Sure, Villa’s squad is rubbish now, but back in 2011 we had the likes of Darren Bent, Stiliyan Petrov and Stephen Ireland (who always performs under Hughes) in our squad. Had we appointed Hughes, a man who has taken a Tony Pulis side and turned them into a strong attacking outfit, we would undoubtedly have performed better than the relegation battle ordeal we suffered under McLeish. Instead we appointed McLeish, a man known for ugly football and not exactly great results to compensate for it, which is testament to the terrible judgement of Randy Lerner.
So when Villa plays Stoke on Saturday, let us all remember it could have been us finishing 9th. Instead we’ll be relegated, and Hughes will always be for me; the one that got away.
