O’Neill favourite for Villa job as Lerner bid likely to prevail

RANDY LERNER’S re-emergence as a major contender to buy Aston Villa could pave the way for Martin O’Neill to be appointed manager sooner rather than later.

American billionaire Lerner had been expected to tie up a £64 million deal last week with Villa chairman Doug Ellis, only for talks to break down.

Sources claimed O’Neill was understood to have been “shocked” by the apparent collapse of the bid by Lerner, owner of NFL side the Cleveland Browns.

Lerner has made it clear he sees O’Neill as the ideal candidate to replace David O’Leary, who left Villa a fortnight ago.

His representatives have reopened talks with Ellis this week and a formal offer for the club is expected to be tabled in the next 24 hours.

O’Neill is the overwhelming choice of Villa fans to take over from O’Leary and ideally Ellis would like him in place for the nine-day preseason tour of Germany and Holland, which gets under way on Friday.

Ellis has been having talks with former Leicester and Celtic boss O’Neill for the past two weeks since it became apparent O’Leary’s days at Villa were numbered.

Lerner’s bid may appear to be in the driving seat with Villa but another consortium — AV06 — fronted by deputy judge Nicolas Padfield QC, is still in the hunt.

It is understood they are ready to make £30m available immediately to O’Neill for new players, with more to follow in January if they take control.

They have spoken with O’Neill and assured him of their support after it was initially thought they would prefer Michael Laudrup and John Jensen as their ideal managerial team.

The consortium fronted by Sven-Goran Eriksson’s agent Athole Still remains in the frame, although they have kept a low profile for the past week.

But lifelong Villa fan Michael Neville’s consortium appear to be slipping down the order even though they made the first formal bid a week ago.

Leading shareholder Ellis has stipulated all interested parties must have the funds to provide £20m for new players on top of the £64m asking price to buy the club.

Villa have failed to bring in any new players during the summer and lost the services of on-loan James Milner who has returned to Newcastle.

O’Leary had been told to adopt a sell-to-buy policy before his three-year reign ended.