This season; can GH turn a slightly parched landscape into a greener haven...

[JJ-AV]

My prediction based on seeing him at Liverpool think we'll see 4-4-1-1. Petrov, Sidwell, Ireland, NRC and Downing in midfield and Ashley off Gabby.

I think it'll be narrow and hard to beat first and foremost.

Of course that was based on him around 8 years ago with different players and expectations, so who knows?

[Chris Smith]

The Moxley article linked elsewhere seems well informed..

I take it you agree with him about MON's departure being "spiteful"?

No, that's just an opinion.

[PeterWithe]

Could someone provide a link to this article please?

[Chris Smith]

I suspect that GH will be a failure this season in that he will not keep the club at its current level.

Villa stand in fourth spot at the moment, but there's virtually no chance they'll be there come May

I don't think we have any realistic chance of fourth, either, but really we can't expect GH to perform miracles in one season, having been parachuted in today.

It's going to take him a while to assess the squad, start getting them used to getting trained again (miaow!), and to get them playing the way he wants to. Any manager would need to do that.

I also agree that he needs to give players a fair crack of the whip. That includes those who, personally I'd rather we never saw again, such as Heskey and Sidwell, because no matter what we think of them, he as the manager has to form his own opinion.

On a broader point, I hope the board support him in the transfer market, to put to rest some of the hysterical wailing on here the last month or two about our chairman.

Surely if it was hysterical wailing you don't need to hope as that support will be there regardless. The Moxley article linked elsewhere seems well informed and suggests that he will need to wheel and deal which supports the view that we still have to get players out in order to bring others in presumably as the wage bill is still an issue. Sell to buy by any other name.

Or sound financial management by another name.

How many people would whine and moan if the next set off figures  show wages as 90% or 100% of turnover? You can't have it both ways.

I agree it's the right way to work. You can't just keep adding to the wage bill. However, we should be hoest about it. In the short term at least, players have to leave to enable others to come in. The shorthand way of describing a policy of that sort is 'sell to buy'.

[Chris Smith]

Could someone provide a link to this article please?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1310418/Aston-Villa-fans-support-club--new-manager-Gerard-Houllier.html?

[PeterWithe]

Could someone provide a link to this article please?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1310418/Aston-Villa-fans-support-club--new-manager-Gerard-Houllier.html?

Ta, not a lot to take issue with there.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

The Moxley article linked elsewhere seems well informed..

I take it you agree with him about MON's departure being "spiteful"?

No, that's just an opinion.

A "well informed" opinion according to your good self.

[pauliewalnuts]

I agree it's the right way to work. You can't just keep adding to the wage bill. However, we should be hoest about it. In the short term at least, players have to leave to enable others to come in. The shorthand way of describing a policy of that sort is 'sell to buy'.

That's where we disagree.

We don't actually know that.

We could, for example, work on the wage bill (selling off high earning under used players) whilst adding other players. In other words, an acknowledgement that there is no bottomless pit of money, and we need to rejig the way we're allocating resources accordingly - like you said, working on the wage bill.

That's not the same as "sell to buy" which has the connotation of "sell FIRST buy after". I suspect the reason "sell to buy" gets used is because it sounds far more dramatic and throws up images of the spending being blocked entirely.

If GH tells RL he'll do something to reduce the wage bill, but asks RL for money to buy a striker in January, for example, is RL going to insist that he moves players on first before spending?

Or will he take GH's assurances that he will do something, get the striker in, and not insist it happens first?

Those are two totally different ways of looking at it, but both involve "doing something about" the wage bill.

[Reality]

Hope he doesn't take Downings shit. Sick of that little prick jumping out of tackles and standing there looking around him. £12m..lol.

[pauliewalnuts]

Chris:

re this sell to buy / wages bill thing, we could probably go on and on about our intepretations, so we might as well not bother, as we're not going to agree.

I think what disappointed me so much was that - regardless of which slant on it turns out to be right, yours or mine - at the first real signs of some financial prudence, and slowing things down a bit, so many people decided to turn against the board and take it as some sign of slamming on the anchors full stop.

Surely all clubs have stages where they have to watch their spending? I notice Spurs spent pretty much sod all this summer, at least uintil they'd reached the CL group phases and had some more money guaranteed.

I guess it comes down to whether we're prepared to think that we might be in a phase like that, where we're being a bit more circumspect in terms of the global picture of the club's finances, or if we prefer to think the worst and that Lerner has put his wallet away for good.

[sfx412]

It's amazing how all our expectation levels have dropped through the floor now, from Champions League to mid table mediocrity seems to be the general concensus, perhaps that's what this uninspiring appointment was designed to do.
Sorry but I'm underwhelmed.

Perhaps not but then perhaps some people are being realistic and taking into account the shit we were left in when the previous manager quit so late in the day, and how long it may take to recover from that.
I doubt Houllier has a magic wand and can get the squad up to his speed in 3-4 months, let alone 3-4 days.

[sfx412]

Chris:

I think what disappointed me so much was that - regardless of which slant on it turns out to be right, yours or mine - at the first real signs of some financial prudence, and slowing things down a bit, so many people decided to turn against the board and take it as some sign of slamming on the anchors full stop.

Do you not think many if not all of those thinking that way are from those who were most upset by the previous managers exit and looked to push the blame for it towards the Board.
Seems many of the same ilk have little time for Ged either.

[PeterWithe]

Chris:

I think what disappointed me so much was that - regardless of which slant on it turns out to be right, yours or mine - at the first real signs of some financial prudence, and slowing things down a bit, so many people decided to turn against the board and take it as some sign of slamming on the anchors full stop.

Do you not think many if not all of those thinking that way are from those who were most upset by the previous managers exit and looked to push the blame for it towards the Board.
Seems many of the same ilk have little time for Ged either.

You seem to believe that everyone must hold strictly black & white opinions and that those of us who thought MON's presence was a positive one must therefore wish ill on the board following his departure. Its far to simplistic to think that way.

 

[Chris Smith]

Chris:

I think what disappointed me so much was that - regardless of which slant on it turns out to be right, yours or mine - at the first real signs of some financial prudence, and slowing things down a bit, so many people decided to turn against the board and take it as some sign of slamming on the anchors full stop.

Do you not think many if not all of those thinking that way are from those who were most upset by the previous managers exit and looked to push the blame for it towards the Board.
Seems many of the same ilk have little time for Ged either.

You are, as ever, talking bollocks. 

People like me, JohnM and Toronto who were all behind the previous manager have also been positive about the new appointment.

[Brend'Watkins]

It's amazing how all our expectation levels have dropped through the floor now, from Champions League to mid table mediocrity seems to be the general concensus, perhaps that's what this uninspiring appointment was designed to do.
Sorry but I'm underwhelmed.

It's amazing that with the arrival of MON the expectation was so high.  We all pretty much thought that this was the man to launch us into the elite.  All on the basis that he'd succeeded in a two horse race and had relative success at Leicester. 

More than that, I think we all believed in MON, believed that his intelligence and TV personality was all that was needed to break the top 4 monopoly.  We were wrong.

GH has a track record in the Prem that a club such as ours should be chomping at the bit for him to be our manager.  This is based purely on the fact that he has won shit loads with clubs that he has managed in the past.

Rather than being underwhelmed we should be overwhelmed that he is now our manager.  We should be excited that he has secured the services of a coach who was in his team that produced that treble at Liverpool.  We should also be excited that we will be linked with young up and coming hardly known French/European strikers instead of the limit of our expectations being Robbie Keane on a final big pay day.  I am any way.