Steve McClaren over Villa snub and ecstatic to be at Nottingham Forest

Steve McClaren described himself as hurt and disappointed after Aston Villa rescinded his interview appointment last week, only to be overwhelmed by messages of support from within the game culminating directly in the approach from Nottingham Forest he has just accepted. Villa are believed to have been put off the former England manager at the last moment by adverse fan reaction, yet in a twist even more ironic than the backlash the club are presently experiencing for talking to the former Birmingham manager Alex McLeish, several Villa supporters have used Forest message boards to congratulate the Championship club on their appointment while Forest followers are publicly thanking Villa for allowing McClaren to remain available. "I think 95% of people know what Steve McClaren has done in football, maybe the other five per cent will always be hard to convince," the new Forest manager said. "There was an approach from Aston Villa, an appointment was set up that wasn't fulfilled. You would have to ask Villa why but I have had many highs and lows in football and you learn to move on quickly. "For one or two days afterwards I felt very down, very disappointed, but I've got to say the reaction afterwards was very interesting, eye-opening even. I had fantastic support from people within the game, from managers, players and owners. I appreciated people like [Middlesbrough's] Steve Gibson and [Wigan's] Dave Whelan speaking well of me but almost everyone else I encountered was incredibly supportive too. "What happened with Villa was not something I could control but I drew strength from the knowledge that only a small minority of people were against me," McClaren said. "Then, on Sunday, the Forest chairman and his chief executive phoned me as soon as they saw what had happened and said exactly what I wanted to hear. They said they wanted me because they believed I was the man to take the club forward. That's something every manager needs to have. I always say that the best advice Sir Alex Ferguson ever gave me was to be certain to join a football club with good owners. "History and tradition is nice, and there's plenty of that here, but the main thing is to make sure you share the same aims as the people at the top. The owner here [Nigel Doughty] is a lifelong fan who has put a lot of money into the club and the supporters should never forget that. He wants Forest in the Premier League and, after speaking to him for four or five hours, I bought into everything he wants to achieve. I believe I can do it, he believes that, too, and that's why we've come together."