Villa ‘speaking to one or two’ candidates – MacDonald

Mark Holmes

Aston Villa caretaker manager Kevin MacDonald has urged the club to make a permanent appointment “sooner rather than later”.

Wednesday night’s 2-1 Capital One Cup defeat at Southampton represented Villa’s first fixture since Sunday’s sacking of manager Tim Sherwood and MacDonald replacing him on a caretaker basis.

The latter at the least appeared to inspire improved morale – for the opening 45 minutes they were the superior team and were undermined only by striker Rudy Gestede’s poor finishing – but MacDonald believes securing Sherwood’s successor should be done as quickly as possible.

“It has been quite hectic,” he said. “I got a call at 10.30, 11ish Sunday (evening) to be interim.

“I was disappointed because Tim brought me in. Tim was very good to me.

“(It’s) probably better for the club (to get a new manager) sooner rather than later so we can get back to doing what we are doing. That’s down to the club.

“They have gone down the road of speaking to one or two. Good luck to whoever comes in, but sooner rather than later would be better for the club.

“If they ask me to stay on for Monday’s game (in the Premier League at Tottenham) then that’s fine by me.”

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