Comment: Villa can't afford to get this wrong

With Remi Garde gone, the club's new-look board have turned their attentions to finding his successor.

Regardless of what other changes might be made during the ongoing reshuffle at Villa Park, no other decision will be more important. It is one they simply cannot afford to get wrong.

While undertaking the review, which has already seen numerous high-profile departures, chairman Steve Hollis claims to have visited several other clubs to learn about their structures.

He will surely have concluded that, in spite of many changes in the sport over recent years, the position of manager remains the single most important to success.

Find the right man and everything else can flow from there. For that reason, it is reasonable to presume Villa's search will be relatively risk-free.

This is no time for the kind of gamble they took with Garde. Bottom of the table with just four points from the opening 10 games, the club had conceded their right to try and be clever.

Yet, cocksure to the last, chief executive Tom Fox believed he knew best by deciding to appoint someone with no prior experience of managing in England was the right move.

The consequences, for the club, Garde and Fox himself, are now there for all to see.

Bringing in someone with experience of managing in the Championship will, therefore, be the key requirement for David Bernstein and Brian Little, the two men heading the search.

In that respect, it is of no surprise to see Nigel Pearson and David Moyes, two out-of-work managers who possess the requisite CVs, currently topping the betting lists.

Villa, of course, may choose to pursue either Sean Dyche or Steve Bruce.

Yet neither will agree to come while embroiled in a promotion race which could conceivably tie them up until the end of May.

Even then, it is questionable whether Villa would prove enough of a draw should either, or both, take their respective clubs back to the Premier League.

Dyche, or Bruce, might conclude they will have taken Burnley and Hull as far as possible yet the counter to that argument currently sit at the summit of the top flight.

Leicester's journey this season is proof that, if you get the structure and the blend right, success need not be limited by wealth or tradition.

That in turn creates a problem for Villa looking to still sell themselves as one of English football's recognised giants.

Of the men available immediately, Pearson can claim a fair slice of the credit for Leicester's dream campaign.

Yet there are understandable concerns over the manner of his exit from the King Power Stadium and a number of high-profile clashes with players, media and fans.

Some will also muse on just how successful he might be without Craig Shakespeare and Steve Walsh, his trusted lieutenants.

They have remained with the Foxes and recently signed new long-term deals, meaning he would certainly arrive at Villa Park without them.

On the flip side, the 52-year-old's headstrong personality may be just what is needed to bring under control a volatile dressing room, which so decisively defeated Garde.

Pearson cannot, however, match the experience and profile of Moyes.

Irrespective of the Scot's failures at Manchester United and Real Sociedad, there is no question his arrival at Villa would be viewed in the wider football world as something of a coup for a club perceived to be on its knees.

Would he see it as too much of a risk? Perhaps, yet success in football management can often be determined more by when you join a club than which club you join.

Moyes might well conclude Villa are presently about as low as they can get and confident he can be the man to return them quickly to the elite.

It is such factors each candidate will weigh up in the weeks ahead, as the club's board look to snare the right man to lead a revival.