Gerard's tactics

[Ad@m]

Is it too early to start worrying about GH's tactics?

When we appointed him there were Liverpool fans telling us he was ultra-defensive and I took that with a pinch of salt, but the past week has seen us start at home against Burnley with no recognised striker on the pitch and then follow that up with today where we had a central midfield consisting of a centre-half playing behind two defensive midfielders and our least prolific forward up front on his own.

I'm not sure what Ireland and the Fonz have done to piss GH off already either - my only fear is that he thinks they're too creative for his style!

I know we've got to give him time and make a judgement when he's had the chance to bring in the players he wants to use but today was tediously boring and I'm genuinely not looking forward to a season of that!

Excluding the West Ham match, we've scored 6 goals in our last 9 league games and only Wigan and West Ham have scored fewer in total.

I can't see attendances getting much better if we're serving that up...

[barrysleftfoot]

  You have to give him at least 2 years for me.

  To be honest he has'nt got a lot to work with.3 strikers, 1 who is injured, another who works hard but does'nt look like scoring, another who has a poor touch, does'nt run, does'nt work, but has a good goal scoring record.

  A midfield who does'nt score goals, and does'nt know its best formation.Possibly 2 who want to leave, 1 who the jury is still out on, and 2 who can't pass more than 5 feet.

  1 LB, and 2 RBs, neither brilliant, 4 reasonably good CHs, 1 who is off form.

   1 Goalie.

   God i'm fed uptoday.


  FWIW, i could'nt work out the playing of Clark today, he played ok, but hes never going to make a central midfielder is he.

  We just have to perservere with Ireland.

[JJ-AV]

He's learning his team and players, throw in the disarray his predecesor put us in and the fact we're in the middle of the worst injury crisis we've had for years and he's not doing too badly.

Today was poor, but we had three chances (Bannan, Clark and Ashley) to win it at the death.

[The Man With A Stick]

I just think he knows what our limitations are at the moment.  Carew is either unfit or can't be arsed and Gabby is injured.

The big plus for me is that he's not afraid to give the likes of Clark and Bannan a chance, something that wasn't happening under the previous regime (unless it was one of those unimportant "European" games, obviously).  It'll pay off in the end.

[BedsVillain]

I think the inclusion of Clark in the midfield was a good choice, earlier in the week I thought that maybe Collins would have been an option in the same role. I think with the height in Bloose team, we needed that extra protection for set pieces etc.. What was a funny choice was keeping with Sidwell, who I'd never class as a defensive midfielder by the way! Clark and NRC would have worked alot better if Bannan had started or Ireland. I think Ireland isn't settled and maybe GH didn't want to risk him going missing. I think with the injuries we've got, coupled with the fact we're not playing too well, he was right to play the formation he did today. Just didn't make for a very good game, but we didn't lose, which is what I feared before the game.

[taylorsworkrate]

He's done okayish in general. 

Today's tactics were pretty unfathomable.  I know we have a couple of injurys, but it wasn't chelsea or arsenal we were playing was it.  Fans will not put up with that approach for long.  Its all well and good being calculated, but you have to give yourself the chance to win a game.

He definitely needs to stick with Ireland, get Gabby back fit asap and persuade Randy to part with some serious cash in january.

[AV82EC]

Too negative for me today, we didn't ask enough questions in the final third.  NRC and Sidwell didn't get close enough to Heskey at any time and they very succesfully blocked our wide men out of the game.  I think we missed Petrov very badly today, I hate to say it but he's the glue that makes a lot of the parts come together for us.

[avfcpg]

Not worried. I think he is struggling for options and tried to win the midfield today to get Young and Downing on the ball more. Didn't work out that way but maybe that says more about the players than the formation....

[Dribbler]

Yes of course it's too early to judge him on the current situation. He has to work with what he has available and i think it was imperative that we didn't lose our last two games and so put out our 'strongest team' rather than possibly our most creative. As it is we're in the quarter finals of the Carling cup and we got a draw in the local derby. It certainly wasn't pretty but we did what we needed to do. Before that i think we have seen some quite creative attacking play in phases.  I think most of us know what Houllier wants to do with the team, but it will take time, we will need our best players to be fit, and we will need to see several additions to the squad.

I'm not sure about all of this 'creativity' you mention from Ireland and the Fonz either, i've yet to see much of it, especially from Ireland. He's offered very little so far in the games he's played for us and i doubt he would have offered much today. Given time however i'm sure he will come good for us.

I think from now until January is going to be a bit of a battle, I think we will see what a big loss Petrov is and even when Gabby comes back he is going to have to find both his fitness and his form. I think we will go on a good run of form after January though, Houllier will have had more time with the team, our fitness will be better, we should have key players back from injury, and some exciting new faces to freshen things up.

If I have one gripe it's that under O'Neill we did some things well that I would have liked us to retain, for instance quick wing play and getting lots of crosses into the box. We seem to do very little of this now and whilst i'm glad were changing our style of play, we should still retain this element of our play at times. It should be a plan B, rather than our plan A, B and C. It's where a lot of our goals came from and possibly one of the reasons we have had problems scoring this season. Any new manager coming in has to strike a balance between the way he wants a team to play and the best way to get the players he has available to him playing well.

   

[Dave Cooper please]

We just can't judge him on this season, this is even worse than judging a manager who has taken over after a bad season, Hotlips hasn't even had a chance to buy one player. Add to that the unfortunate injuries to Petrov and Gabby and we're just treading water I feel.

[Mister E]

I thought playing Clark in MF was fine today, to counter the strength of the oppo's feisty central core. The tactical concern for me today was our lack of width.
AY - where do I start?! He played in the middle rather than stretching the poor opposition fullbacks. Crazy. I'd be relaxed about seeing him go in January, TBH. I think his material contribution to the team is insignificant.
The game could have been won on the wings; so we play narrow. Sidwell was supposed to play the attacking midfield role but because the ball was not coming in from the wings, his contribution was negligible (or maybe that was simply 'cos he's not up to P'ship standard).
Bringing Carew on was a waste of time - he made no contribution at all; why not the Fonz? - at least a bit of pace later on would have stretched Dann and Johnson.
The game was there to be won today; GH fluffed it.

[Shrek]

I'm not too worried, but am abit pissed off about Delfouneso not gettin a look in.

[glasses]

Houllier bottled it today. He was too scared to lose the game, than gamble and try to win it. You may not want to hear it, but both O'neill and O'leary have had better starts to their Villa management careers. Too many similarities to GT mk2, and I feel we are going backwards. I will give him time, i.e transfer windows to build his team, but I feel he is out of touch having been out of the game for so long, and McCallister is only with us until he can get something better. I have no affinity with them both. It doesn't feel like my club anymore.

[eastie]

Strong words glasses- have patience and give him time and I'm sure things will work out well in the end- o neill left a much worse position than many fans think he did.

Give him a year and see where we are with new signings and the deadwood gone - I think he will do a good job .

[pauliewalnuts]

Houllier bottled it today. He was too scared to lose the game, than gamble and try to win it. You may not want to hear it, but both O'neill and O'leary have had better starts to their Villa management careers. Too many similarities to GT mk2, and I feel we are going backwards. I will give him time, i.e transfer windows to build his team, but I feel he is out of touch having been out of the game for so long, and McCallister is only with us until he can get something better. I have no affinity with them both. It doesn't feel like my club anymore.

So, you say you'll give him time, then promptly go on to sound like you're not.

Today was his fifth league game in charge of us (and the two others, league cup games, we won).

It's hard to imagine what people expect from a manager parachuted in to a club which had lost its manager five days before the start of the season, with no knowledge of the set up of the club or the players.

We've a new manager, and a new management team - in fact, the entire football management of the club bar KM and TM has been replaced over the last few weeks - and such wholesale changes do not settle down quite so quickly.

The one glaringly obvious thing we have missed recently is someone who can be relied on to score goals, to put chances away. That was something we lacked for two years. Houllier hasn't had the chance to rectify that yet. It seems somewhat harsh to give him a hard time over it.