Steven Gerrard has until Wednesday to make it known that he is interested in the vacant manager’s job at Aston Villa.
Dean Smith was sacked at lunchtime on Sunday leaving Villa with a fortnight to appoint a replacement to turn things round after five successive defeats sent them hurtling towards the relegation zone and Smith out of a job.
Villa CEO Christian Purslow was Managing Director of Liverpool from June 2009 to October 2010 which seems to be the main link with Gerrard.
Over the last couple of weeks Newcastle, Spurs, Norwich and now Villa have sacked managers with the Villa job the one that seems the best fit for the one trophy out of nine Ibrox boss.
Keith Jackson in the Daily Record reports:
Sources close to Villa Park have confirmed Gerrard’s name has already been discussed as one of a handful of frontrunners along with others such as Belgium boss Roberto Martinez, Southampton’s Ralph Hasenhuttl, Graham Potter at Brighton and former Roma manager Paulo Fonseca.
We have learned no official moves will be sanctioned until a final shortlist has been compiled and approved by the club’s billionaire owners.
Purslow is likely to spend much of the next two days engaged in a period of intense back channelling in order to establish the level of interest among his list of possible targets before deciding which names should be put forward into the final process.
He is keen to avoid the highly-public farce which developed at Newcastle, where preferred choice Unai Emery turned down a job offer before the new owners turned instead to one time Celtic target Eddie Howe.
The key phrase there is ‘intense back channelling’ with the links between Gerrard and Purslow going back more than a decade to the Villa CEO’s time at Anfield.
With half a dozen names mentioned Villa will be looking to see who send them the strongest signals over wanting the job. Only Paulo Fonseca of the names listed is currently out of a job.
Gerrard recently highlighted the lack of money spent at Ibrox during the last two transfer windows with that situation unlikely to change after announcing losses of £23.5m for the year to 30 June 2021.