The recent shake-up at Aston Villa has seen their entire management structure broken up and rebuilt.

They're wanting a fresh approach to managing the side, working with a Head Coach and Director of Football, not a situation with one man overseeing all as they had under Steve Bruce.

It is an approach that has worked well for Brentford and is also taking shape at Barnsley, which nods to the continent as much as anything. It means more roles for football people outside the dugout.

Former Villa striker Stan Collymore has been speaking in his Daily Mirror column (23 October, page 51), about the man he feels should have been given a role in the Villa set up, preferably as Director of Football. Instead of Jesus Garcia Pitarch, he feels the answer lay closer to home.

“I don’t know what Mark Hughes brings to football clubs as a manager – I can’t pigeonhole him and there doesn’t seem to be a unifying thread between all his clubs. What I do know is that, as a very bright guy who understands the game as a player and a manager, he’d make a very good Director of Football and I’d have loved to have seen him taking that role at my club, Aston Villa.”

54-year-old Hughes is currently managing Premier League side Southampton, having previously been in charge at Stoke, QPR, Fulham and Blackburn as well as looking after the Wales national side for five years.

The Verdict

Come on Stan, do you really think Hughes would have given up a Premier League job to sit upstairs in an office at Villa? Not a chance.

He's a hands-on man, he always has been and he's perfectly happy on the south coast right now. He would be right for the job, granted, but he would never have taken it.

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