Harewood interview

[old man villa fan]

Oh dear what a fuckin' shame. I have no sympathy whatsoever if sidelined players were unhappy, it's tough. Yes, MON played favourites, but overall it worked given the year on year progress. Harewood, for all his effort was only ever a squad player and while the argument is valid that MON didn't utilise his squad to it's full extent I'm fed up of hearing about how unfair his treatment was to various players. A manager stands or falls on his team selection, it is his call and his call only and if the team prosper then marginalised players can hardly claim to deserve a place in the side.

We will never know whether using the squad more would have improved us, been much the same or made us less effective.

If things were really as bad as made out about the fringe players then it was no wonder MON didn't bring on many substitutes as they probably wouldn't have been in the right frame of mind.

[usav]

You could have named the team for the next four weeks, irrespective of results.

Says it all, really.

[PaulTheVillan]

I always liked the bloke.

I wish him all the best for the season.

[myf]

I only found out last week that he has a famous brother who is an actor - a Brummie who went to the same school as Ian Taylor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harewood

[villa1]

Couldn't fault his attitude and effort when he did play, especially in that one match at Anfield. He'll get a good reception from me when he returns with Blackpool.

[eamonn]

Wow, his business has had to register for VAT! Ie it's made about two weeks of his Aston villa wages!

No need to be such an accuntant about it
Good on him for using his spare time, of which there was a lot, to get a little business going.

As for on the pitch, I think MON completely lost any faith he had in him (and he must have had some to spunk £4m on him) when he gave away the penalty at Spurs in the 4-4, which got their Lazarus-like comeback going. Less than 3 months after signing him sadly.

[pauliewalnuts]

Comes across as a nice enough bloke, but was never, ever going to be good enough for us. If only the manager had spotted that, we'd have saved ourselves 4 million pounds plus, what, 5m in wages over three years.

[usav]

Comes across as a nice enough bloke, but was never, ever going to be good enough for us. If only the manager had spotted that, we'd have saved ourselves 4 million pounds plus, what, 5m in wages over three years.

Correct.  Let's really think about that for a minute, 9 million quid for one premiership start.  Ivo Stas, eat yer heart out.

[pablopicasso_10]

i would rather harewood play than heskey...

[Lee]

You could have named the team for the next four weeks, irrespective of results.

Says it all, really.

It does ..  he knew it, the players knew it, the Supporters knew it and so did the bloody opposition.

[pmk1981]

"But it wasn't like that at Villa. You could have named the team for the next four weeks, irrespective of results.""

thank the lord and his mrs that oniell has now gone if this is what it was like in the dressing room

[themossman]

Thing is, if all your fringe players fillers feel like this you haven't really got a squad at all. For all MON's supposed tactical nouse and tabloid psychology, it sounds like he hamstrung himself by ending up in a vicious circle where regular players were complacent because they had no competition, but they couldn't be replaced because their backup's confidence was shot.

[Villafirst]

Felt sorry for Marlon. MON is a nasty piece of work at times it seems to me. Ask Luke Young, NRC, Curtis and several others. Truth is, Randy gave him a decent squad after all his 'small squad' moans but he hadn't a clue how to rotate it  resulting in fatigue at the end. Glad to see the back of MON! His exit timing still angers me now.

[Pete3206]

I thought Harewood was a crap signing. Nothing he did in a Villa shirt apart from decent 2nd half performances against Newcastle and Liverpool did anything to change my mind.

[Dave Cooper please]

I only found out last week that he has a famous brother who is an actor - a Brummie who went to the same school as Ian Taylor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harewood

Wow! He played Theseus in Welcome to Thebes.
If only he had played wine-addled Pentheus, then I'd have been mildly impressed.