Remi Garde is hotly tipped to become Aston Villa’s new manager after the club sacked Tim Sherwood on Sunday. The club are bottom of the Barclays Premier League and the former Lyon boss is the bookies’ favorite to take the Villa Park hotseat. Here, Press Association Sport looks at the ex-Arsenal midfielder’s history.

Remi Garde was born in L’Arbresle, which was also the birthplace of French composer Claude Terrasse. He started his playing career at Lyon and played for the club for six years, helping them to promotion to Ligue 1 in 1989 before joining Strasbourg in 1993.

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He won six caps for France between 1990 and 1992, making his debut in a friendly against Kuwait. He was part of France’s Euro 1992 squad under Michel Platini. They qualified with a 100 percent record but then crashed out at the group stage, with Garde not playing a single minute at the finals in Sweden.

Garde joined Arsenal on the same day as Patrick Vieira in 1996 and went onto make 45 appearances for the Gunners but never scored before retiring in 1999. He won the Premier League with Arsenal in 1998 but was left out of their FA Cup final winning squad against Newcastle. He only made one appearance in the Gunners’ successful Cup run – in the quarterfinal replay against West Ham. It finished 1-1 after extra time and Arsenal won 4-3 on penalties, with Garde missing for the Gunners in the shootout.

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As assistant to Paul Le Guen, Garde helped Lyon to back-to-back titles in 2003-04 and 2004-05 before becoming Gerard Houllier’s right hand man and then manager himself in 2011.

Lyon finished fourth, third and fifth under the 49-year-old in Ligue 1 but did win the Coupe de France in 2012 before the manager left in 2014. “The reasons are personal and family. I feel the need to take a break,” he said at the time.

While in France, Garde managed Hugo Lloris, selling him to Tottenham in 2012, Bafetimbi Gomis, Kim Kallstrom, Dejan Lovren and Villa defender Aly Cissokho, who is currently on loan at Porto. Under Garde, Gomis scored 54 goals in three seasons before joining Swansea in 2014.