• Former Liverpool manager could link up with Kevin MacDonald
• Caretaker would stay on as first-team coach

Gérard Houllier could make a surprise return to football with Aston Villa after it emerged last night that the Frenchman is under serious consideration for a director of football role that would see him work alongside Kevin MacDonald.

Villa have been interviewing candidates for the vacant manager’s position this week, including MacDonald, who has been in charge on a caretaker basis ever since Martin O’Neill resigned five days before the start of the season, but Houllier is now the leading contender. Houllier has not been involved in management since he left Lyon in 2007 but he has extensive knowledge of English football, following the six years he spent in charge of Liverpool, between 1998 and 2004, and is highly respected within the game.

The 62-year-old has, however, suffered heart problems and it seems highly unlikely that Villa would want him to take over as manager and expose him to the considerable pressure that would accompany that position. A much more plausible scenario would see Houllier work in tandem with MacDonald, who is regarded as an excellent coach but has failed to convince that he is management material during the five games he has spent in charge.

Graham Taylor, the former England and Villa manager, suggested such a structure would work well when he recently held talks with Paul Faulkner, the club’s chief executive, to offer advice about O’Neill’s successor. Taylor believes that MacDonald’s skills are on the training ground and Villa appear to have accepted that is the case. MacDonald , who was interviewed by Randy Lerner, Villa’s owner, on Wednesday, has indicated that he would be receptive to working in partnership with a more experienced figure.

There were suggestions last night that Villa would make an appointment today but club officials have indicated a decision is not imminent.

Although Houllier’s time at Anfield will be remembered by many Liverpool supporters for the poor signings that were a feature of the latter years of his reign, he also achieved considerable success, most notably in 2001, when the club won three major trophies. His responsibilities at Villa would be wide-ranging and include setting up a worldwide scouting network to address weaknesses in that area.

Villa’s search for a new manager has already led to Sven-Goran Eriksson and Alan Curbishley being interviewed for the post. Eriksson is not in the running but Curbishley has yet to be ruled out. Houllier, however, is top of the shortlist and has held positive discussions with the Villa hierarchy.

Aston VillaStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk

• Lack of top-flight experience counts against Bob Bradley
• Caretaker Kevin MacDonald will be considered if he applies

Aston Villa are stepping up the search for Martin O’Neill’s successor and will begin interviewing candidates this week. Ideally a new man should be installed by the end of the international break but no deadlines have been set.

The Villa Park board believe previous Premier League experience is imperative, effectively ruling out Bob Bradley, the USA coach who has expressed interest in the post. Villa are understood to have made no approach for David Moyes, the Everton manager, and are not thought to be interested in Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Kevin MacDonald, the Villa caretaker, had been in pole position but it seems a 6-0 hammering at Newcastle United followed by defeat in a Europa League qualifier against Rapid Vienna prompted Randy Lerner, Villa’s owner, to widen the hunt.

It is understood no other candidates had been approached before the European exit last Thursday but a statement from Villa Park indicated this has now changed. “We have thoroughly researched potential candidates and have reached out to a variety of contacts we have within the game for advice and guidance,” it said. “Two of the traits we believe are of crucial importance are that candidates have experience of managing in the Premier League and a strategy for building on the existing strengths in our current squad.”

Villa have made it clear that, despite a shortage of top‑flight managerial experience, the much admired MacDonald – who steered his players to victory over Everton yesterday – will still be considered for the job should he want to enter the interview process. He was due to meet Lerner to discuss the future today and his intentions should shortly become clear.

The former Villa defender Gareth Southgate, out of work since his dismissal by Middlesbrough last autumn, could be another candidate, while it is not inconceivable that Lerner may attempt to prise Martin Jol, the former Tottenham manager, away from Ajax.

Luke Young, the scorer of the winner against Everton, hopes that Villa will opt for MacDonald. “I am pleased we got the result for Kev. He has not had much luck this last week but he is very good at what he does and I hope now he is given a chance of being the manager,” said the full‑back, who was frozen out by O’Neill.

“As a squad of players we need to know who it is going to be, whether it is Kev or someone else. I have worked with Kev and know he knows football inside out. He knows tactics and formations and can see what is going right and what is going wrong. I have played under a few people who don’t know half as much as Kev.

“It is whether he wants to take the stress of what comes with being a first‑team manager but he has an edge about him that makes you want to please him. If Kev tells you you have played well you know you have played well. He knows his stuff.”

Young has clearly found MacDonald a better communicator than O’Neill, who apparently failed to explain his sidelining. “I am not sure what the reasons were,” he said. “It was a confusing time for me. I didn’t really get an answer to anything.”

Aston VillaLouise Taylorguardian.co.uk

Aston Villa’s caretaker manager prefers quiet perseverance to brashness or bragging

Mention Kevin MacDonald’s name at Aston Villa and the word “humility” crops up time and again. Villa’s caretaker manager is a man without ego and you suspect he would not be bothered in the slightest that his is the name people often struggle to remember in football quizzes when they are asked to reel off the Liverpool side that won the FA Cup in 1986 without a single Englishman in the team.

MacDonald was an unsung hero as a player at Liverpool and the same words might easily be applied to describe his work at Villa over the past 15 years, where the thousands of hours he has spent on the training pitches at Bodymoor Heath coaching the next generations have always been appreciated within the club but often overlooked outside. His car is usually one of the first through the training ground gates in the morning and more often than not the last to leave.

“I was at Bodymoor Heath at the end of last season,” Brian Little, the former Villa manager, says. “I popped in to see everybody, as I do from time to time, and it must have been five o’clock in the afternoon, and Kevin was still there coaching with a group of young professionals. If you are still doing it like that after 15 years in the job, it shows you how much he is into his work. He’s a very, very, good coach.”

Little knows MacDonald well. He gave him his break at Leicester City in the early 90s, when MacDonald looked after the club’s centre of excellence, before taking him to Villa Park, when he became manager in late 1994. MacDonald has been at Villa ever since, coaching the academy players, the first team and more recently the reserves, as well as spending 21 months working as the Republic of Ireland assistant when Steve Staunton was in charge.

He has, however, never pursued a job as a manager, prompting someone to ask him last week whether he was not particularly ambitious. “I’m not one of those who pushes his name forward,” MacDonald replied. It was an answer in keeping with the image of a man who has always quietly gone about his work, whether playing or coaching, earning huge respect from his colleagues along the way but never seeking any praise. “Kevin was never brash and he was never a bragger,” says Jim Beglin, who played alongside MacDonald in the Liverpool side that won the Double in 1986. “He was always someone who just got on with his work in a very loyal and diligent way. He may not have been one of the glamour players at Liverpool but there was nobody who wanted to win more than Kevin MacDonald. He was highly competitive and extremely determined.

“I also remember him as someone who always had an opinion. There were one or two guys who I never thought would have gone into coaching from the Liverpool team that I played in, but Kevin was someone who I always thought might because he was always ready to discuss something.”

MacDonald was at Anfield during a golden era but the football values and principles that are such a feature of his coaching and have shone through in his two matches as caretaker manager at Villa were formed long before he joined Liverpool under Joe Fagan in 1984. The 50-year-old pointed out last week that it was Jock Wallace – the Leicester manager who signed him from Inverness, where he was combining part-time football with working as a civil servant – who had the biggest influence on him.

He talked about Wallace as being “tough” but someone who also “loved his players”, which sounds more than a little like the man in charge of Villa at the moment. Softly spoken and extremely personable away from the training field, MacDonald has a reputation for being a tough taskmaster on it, where he has an eye for detail and demands high standards. “He wants everything done right and with his style of management he gets everything done right,” says Marc Albrighton, who played regularly for MacDonald in the reserves and is now excelling under him in the first-team.

Interestingly, Albrighton also describes MacDonald as “more of a man-manager” than Martin O’Neill, which perhaps helps to explain why the 20-year-old’s Villa team-mates are so keen for him to be given the job on a permanent basis. Another positive result at Newcastle tomorrow, to follow up a convincing victory over West Ham and an impressive draw at Rapid Vienna, and MacDonald’s credentials will be almost impossible to ignore.

The question then is whether the man who felt he “was not a big enough name” a week ago wants to take a leap of faith and embrace the 24/7 world of Premier League management. “Kevin’s spent all his adult life in professional football so he’s not blinded to what the job entails,” Little adds. “He knows the game inside out and I don’t think there is any reason why Kevin can’t be a successful football manager. He doesn’t lack on any front.”

Aston VillaStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk