Please Randy sack Houllier

[ronshirt]

Randy gambled his £250 mil on MON

Don't understand.  Talisker has been taken - but £250 mil?

[ronshirt]

I'll do it. I'm cheap and have a successful track record at U-11 level.

I'm phoning the police now.

[old man villa fan]

I'll do it. I'm cheap and have a successful track record at U-11 level.

I'd like to have a go but I remember my last attempt when some of our supporters standing on the opposite side of the pitch started chanting "Cox out, Cox out" when we were losing.  The problem was, they didn't realise other people thought they were wanting people to drop their trousers and get their tackle out!

[MELIKEVILLA]

I suggest a sacrificial sacking of Gerard on Good Friday, when if current form s anything to go by we will be teetering on the brink of the drop zone. Then on Easter Monday the stone will roll back from behind the Holte....arise Big Ron, sunglasses firmly affixed , with Andy Gray as his returning number 2 (gven that all the players are transfixed with Sky they'll know who he is)

[ronshirt]

Thank you for that Robbo, your views are much appreciated.   Like you I missed a great deal of the glory years.   There was a brief window of opportunity to go on and stamp our authority on football at the highest level but Doug Ellis wanted to go into cruise control and maximize the benefits of the then recent past and the great team crumbled to dust.

Over the years I have followed them I would estimate five percent of the time we have been a great side twenty five percent of that time we have been moderate but good on our day and seventy percent of the time we have been rubbish.

Based on what I have seen with my own eyes, in the flesh, not on television or read about in the Daily Mirror I truly believe that the appointment of Gerard Houllier has ushered in another rubbish phase.

If I could do one thing and one thing only to try to deflect what I dread is going to happen I would like to get everybody who makes top level decisions at Villa Park and the coaching staff and the players in one room together and with a mutually respected figure to keep order - say GT for example - have it all out once and for all so that the new year can be a new start for everybody.   It ain't going to happen.   It's Gunfight At The OK Corral.   Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday versus the Clancey gang.   Last man standing gets to say we we will win promotion in our first year.

Our next door neighbour, Geoff Garrett, was a long time Villa fan. After each game he would drop in the  match programme:  maybe he was trying to recruit us (we weren't from Brum) - and it worked.

He told me about Trevor Ford and Tony Hately and Derek Dougan and lamented the fact that the Villa never ever seemed to be able to hold on to a goal-scorer. He also told me across the hedge about the Villa player that had batted the ball into the net with his hand - I refused to beleive him (this was before that bloody Maradona sod turned up).

One day he told me that he had had enough with the Villa and wouldn't be going again.

Madness I thought.

But there comes a point I think when the scales fall away and you look at a thing and you call a thing for what it is. And if it's rubbish you say it's rubbish and if it's shite you say it's shite.

Maybe you just need to be old.

[damon loves JT]

I blame Brigada1874. If there's one thing that could have averted this crisis it's a flamboyant, high energy fan dance-off.

[brian green]

I forgot the legend which is Tony Hateley from my list of opiate strikers given to the fans.   He was useless at everything except being bought and sold.   We bought him from Chelsea I think (don't forget i work without a safety net) for £100K and sold him having done nothing for us for the same sum to Liverpool.

The most memorable thing about Tony Hately was his ugliness.   I was with a bunch of Villa fans roaming around London prior to a Chelsea or Fulham game.   Anyroadup we were all walking across one of the bridges over he Thames when this really ugly bird with billiard table legs, jet black flattened hair and a face like a half cooked nan bread walked past on the other side of the bridge.   As one our lads burst into "One Tony Hateley".

[OzVilla]

I seem to recall that last Summer there were plenty in the anti-MON brigade going on about getting shot of MON.  Apparently, they'd be loads of big name applicants just desperate to manage Aston Villa, you'll see they said, they'll be queing up.

Turned out that the best we could come up with was a hugely uninspriring shortlist of Houllier, Curbishley, Bradley etc.

This anti- MON brigade: I seem to recall two, possibly three posters at most actively wanting him out. Many more (like me) were critical of various aspects of his management but wanted him to be given at least another year to deliver.  Quite a few others believed he could practically do no wrong.

In my lifetime he was possibly one of the most popular managers we've had, more popular even than the likes of Sir Brian and BFR who delivered far more than he did.

Does  2/3 people constitute a brigade, a major movement against the bloke? I dunno. Or are we including anyone who was at any time critical of the bloke during his tenure here? In the law of absolutes I guess if you question you must be anti. If you're not with us, you're against us and so on.

On your final point, I guess if he had done such a fantastic job and left the club in such rude health it could be argued there would have been plenty of top managers willing to walk out on their clubs too on the eve of the season to land such a coveted role.  Are you saying that his time here didn't  improve the status of the club?

Well I actually disagree with you KG, it was a lot more than just 2 or 3 that wanted him gone.  As has been quoted a 60/40 poll on whether he should get another year suggests that. 

Either way, one of the reasons provided was the inferrence that we could get somebody better - that we would have options, which turned out to be totally false. 

I'd agree that MON absolutley improved the club from where he found it, as has RAL, which makes it all the more galling that we pissed about interviewing the likes of Alan fecking Curbishley and a bloke out of Premier League football for 5 years and whilst working for a FA whose team were described as a national disgrace by their own PM.

And the fact that we lost him so late shouldn't massively of mattered, plenty of teams lose Managers mid - season, that doesn't mean they take a left field punt like we did for lack of decent applicants.

[hawkeye]

bewildered why GH is getting the blame for France in the WC

[WikiVilla]

If it's true GH has handed out the olive branch to Dunne, ireland & Carew, then fair play
Takes a big man to do that

[OzVilla]

bewildered why GH is getting the blame for France in the WC

He's not getting the blame but you cannot get away from the fact the the FFA, where Houllier had a senior role, had about as shambolic a World Cup preperation and campaign as it's possible to have.  Have we imported that 'Culture' here.

Maybe i'm being unfair, but considering our disorganised performances of late, the injury list (maybe it's luck or maybe it's poor training procedure) and GH's knack of alienating players it's hardly surprising when this link gets pointed out.

[peter w]

Let's get Holloway.

[LeeB]

I think we're all missing the obvious. We have dozens of experts on this forum who try to show us every week what a piece of piss managing a football club is, we just hold a raffle and let one of them do the job.

I'd give it Blackcountry Villa, he'd bring some 'passion' to it.

[LeeB]

I forgot the legend which is Tony Hateley from my list of opiate strikers given to the fans.   He was useless at everything except being bought and sold.   We bought him from Chelsea I think (don't forget i work without a safety net) for £100K and sold him having done nothing for us for the same sum to Liverpool.

The most memorable thing about Tony Hately was his ugliness.   I was with a bunch of Villa fans roaming around London prior to a Chelsea or Fulham game.   Anyroadup we were all walking across one of the bridges over he Thames when this really ugly bird with billiard table legs, jet black flattened hair and a face like a half cooked nan bread walked past on the other side of the bridge.   As one our lads burst into "One Tony Hateley".

"..face like a half cooked naan". Cheers Brian, I'm using that one

[Mac]

bewildered why GH is getting the blame for France in the WC

Me too.  Especially as it was David Ginola that killed French football.