On the icy morning of January 3rd, 1990, John Gregory became the first manager of the 1990s to suffer the most traditional fate in football. Although Ray Harford had resigned a few hours earlier that day, after being described as "a dour character" by his chairman at Luton, Gregory was sacked by Portsmouth.

His blunt dismissal came with a familiar surge of inevitability. It was Gregory's first job in management and, after a year in charge, Portsmouth languished near the bottom of the old Second Division.

Almost 10 years on, Gregory is in danger of completing a grim managerial loop. He takes a disjointed and downcast Aston Villa to Goodison Park this afternoon, knowing that defeat against Everton would slash the odds on him also becoming the last manager to be fired this decade.

The chances of Gregory surviving another seemingly inexorable demise have not been helped by a terrible week, which worsened yesterday when the FA issued a 28-day touchline ban against him. They also fined Gregory Stg£5,000 after he was found guilty of verbally abusing a fourth official, Andy D'Urso, during a match against Leicester City in September.

Gregory, who declined to attend the hearing, has been instructed further to provide a written undertaking to guarantee his future conduct, as he was fined £2,000 earlier this season for remarks he made to the referee Uriah Rennie.

Far more damaging, however, was the revelation on Wednesday that one of his players, Ugo Ehiogu, had reported him to the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA). After Monday night's 2-1 defeat at Coventry, which meant that Villa had earned a meagre two points from their last seven matches, Gregory criticised Ehiogu's continued absence.

"I think Ugo would have played," Gregory said of his injured defender, "if it had been a cup final. I'll try to convince him that Saturday's match at Everton is at Wembley. It might just waken him from his slumbers."

The PFA instantly rebuked Gregory, despite the fact that Ehiogu had cast doubt over the club's ambition in the summer. Since then, Ehiogu has joined the dismal line of Villa players who have been either alienated or discarded by Gregory. Attacking your team in public rarely inspires improved performances, and Gregory's criticism of Ehiogu merely deepened a rift which was already apparent last season.

When Villa started to slide down the table in March, after their earlier heady rise to the Premiership summit, Gregory suggested that "some of the players have started looking for excuses . . . it has got to the point where they say the ball is too round or the grass is too green."

There was, however, a wry note of fatalism in Gregory's voice after the loss to Coventry. "Robbie Keane scoring the winner against us on Monday," he sighed, "was always likely to happen. The script and the headlines were there to be written."

Keane's seventh goal in 12 games not only lifted a resurgent Coventry above their miserable neighbours, but focused attention on Gregory's dealings in the transfer market.

While willing to pay £5 million for Keane, he refused to stretch his offer higher - allowing Gordon Strachan to sign the teenager instead. If Alex Ferguson also scoffed at the idea of paying £6 million for a 19-year-old striker, Keane's goals for Coventry have given Gregory's critics additional ammunition.

But Gregory's management of the players currently in his squad throws up far more awkward questions about his future.

"There is a lack of confidence running through the side," he admitted, "but we just need a win. Saturday's game is even bigger now. We are either going to try and finish in the top half of the table or have a relegation fight on our hands."

While he revived Villa last year with a Keegan-like burst of adrenalin and his preference for "honest British players", Gregory has since offered his own unfortunate analogy with the bemused national coach.

"I listened to Kevin Keegan after England lost to Scotland at Wembley," Gregory said, "and it was me talking about Villa. He said England had some very good players and he couldn't understand how England had lost. Kevin also said he couldn't understand why the team didn't gel. That was also me talking about Villa."

While such candour is often refreshing in the monosyllabic world of modern football, it has widened the gulf between Gregory and his rejects. On Wednesday afternoon, on a raw and barren pitch at Loughborough University, Villa's reserve team included three players who had cost the club almost £18 million.

As the trio scuffed the ground in disconsolate disbelief while students with nicknames like Smurf swaggered past them and into a 2-0 lead after half an hour, Stan Collymore, Paul Merson and Mark Draper appeared again as definitive symbols of Gregory's troubles with his team. They may yet mark his undoing.

If Draper's exclusion is regarded as inexplicable by most Villa supporters, they turned on Gregory with even more derision when Merson was replaced during the recent home defeat by Southampton. Their "you don't know what you're doing!" chant would not have been missed by the watching Ellis - whose own desire to see Collymore's rehabilitation is well known.

In the end Villa pulled off a 2-2 draw with mighty Loughborough, but even Merson's equaliser could not silence the student wags.

"Hey Dazz," someone shouted to the Loughborough coach, "Doug Ellis will be calling you next . . ." The grinning Darren looked ready to step into the breach, as if he also knew that the ominous silence of Deadly Doug will not last much longer if Villa again fail at Everton.

It is a scenario bleak enough to unnerve any manager; and yet exactly a year ago this week, when I interviewed him with Villa leading the Premiership, Gregory insisted that, "I'm not a worrier. I never have been - and never will be."

It was striking then how he was even more keen to discuss his latest Bruce Springsteen box set than the footballing heights he had just scaled. I liked the fact he seemed as mad about an old but previously unreleased Springsteen song called Sad Eyes as Villa's gleaming title dream.

It can only be hoped, for his sake, that Gregory's passionate detachment from the crazy whirl of football will reappear today to rescue him and his ailing team.