Former Tottenham and current Ajax manager Martin Jol has emerged as the bookie’s favourite to replace Martin O’Neill as permanent manager at Aston Villa. The Dutchman has made no secret of his desire to return to the Premier League and Jol was heavily linked to the vacant Fulham job before club chairman Mohammad Al-Fayed appointed Mark Hughes as manager. If Villa chairman Randy Lerner does decide to grant Jol his wish to return to the Premier League, it could prove to be an astute hire for both manager and club.
If he did join Aston Villa, Jol would be looking to carry on the work of Martin O’Neill which saw the Northern Irishman take the club from 16th position under David O’Leary to three consecutive 6th place finishes in the Premier League from 2008 to 2010. Like O’Neill, Jol has experience of establishing and then consolidating a Premier League team in the European places during his stint as Tottenham manager.
Jol was initially recruited to White Hart Lane as an assistant to Jacques Santini who promptly resigned after only thirteen days in charge in North London. Jol succeeded the Frenchman at the helm and quickly established himself as a fan’s favourite, guiding the club to a solid ninth place finish in his first season. Jol built on this foundation in his next two seasons, with Spurs finishing 5th in 2006 and 2007, narrowly missing out on a Champions League spot. Despite his achievements, Jol was shown the door at White Hart Lane as a result of a poor start to the 2008 campaign and was promptly and unceremoniously sacked and replaced by Juande Ramos.
In his three seasons with Tottenham, Jol came ever so close to securing a 4th place finish. If not for an unfortunate bout of food poisoning, he probably would have done it. Despite steering current club Ajax to the Champions League, Jol probably feels he has unfinished business in England and has something to prove after being discarded by Daniel Levy and the Tottenham hierarchy. Unlike Ajax who are almost a dead-cert to qualify for the Champions League every season, I get the impression that Jol would relish the challenge of taking a club on the brink of Champions League qualification to actually realising their ambition and a club like Aston Villa would be an ideal project for Jol.
Even if the club loses Manchester City target James Milner, Martin O’Neill has collected a group of players at Aston Villa that have shown that they have the potential to challenge for a Champions League place. The squad has a good mix of experienced campaigners such as Brad Friedel, Richard Dunne and Stiliyan Petrov alongside some exciting young talent like Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Marc Albrighton who impressed immensely in Aston Villa’s opening day victory against West Ham. With the players at his disposal, Jol would certainly be able to mould the team to play his brand of free-flowing attacking football that saw current club Ajax score an incredible 106 league goals in last season’s Eredivisie campaign.
Jol is familiar to the Midlands having featured for Coventry City and West Bromwich Albion during his playing days and his joviality has seen him remain a popular figure on these shores. It remains to be seen who Lerner will choose as Martin O’Neill’s successor but I don’t think Martin Jol would be an unpopular choice.
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