The Centre Cannot Hold

[hawkeye]

I am in the looking forward to a new manager, new players and a new attitude. If RL gets this summer right we could be looking at having a great season. My enthusiasm might be dented if we appoint the wrong manager though.

[jembob]

. Houllier inherited a bit of a mess from MON that needed cleaning up

Sorry but what exactly do you mean?  I'm tired of hearing that argument.  Houllier inherited a top 6 squad that had been to Wembley twice just months earlier.  The way some make it out is as if we were bottom of the Championship when GH arrived.

MON left a squad that was capable of a top 4 finish but finished 6th. Much of this was due to his single dimension style and lack of tactics - I recall the last half of the season with MON and the shocking home performances which dropped a lot of points against some mediocre teams. At the end of season we needed a clear out of some of the deadwood but all that happened was that we sold our best player and failed to sign anybody new at all. Things had gone very stale under MON and I'm sure that the players would have felt that too.

So, with our player of the season gone, more deadwood that was healthy and a stale atmosphere, I would call that a bit of a mess but compound that with the management team walking out with less than a week to go before the start of the season, I would call that a real mess.

[adrenachrome]

What is all this about we will be crying into our cereal again at the end of the season?

The season just gone ended in two of the most memorable Villa games I have ever attended.   The Arsenal experience was magical and the Liverpool game atmosphere was electric.

When being a Villa fan can lift you as high as we were lifted at those two games I do not give a monkey's if Young and Downing go or if we get Kevin Keegan as our new manager.

That is righteous, Brian.

And if the centre cannot hold, we can surely still fiddle with our middle or arrange to have our slenders tenderly cupped.

[DR PETERS]

Some people see problems, others see opportunities.

Indeedy. The old 'glass half empty/glass half full' scenario.

I would appear ATAL doesn't even have a glass !
Lets trust the board, I think Houllier was a bit left field when appointed but things were looking better. The fact that some of the players didn't like having to train a bit harder and couldn't cope with being asked to pass to people in the same shirt rather than just lump the ball anywhere says more about them than the manager.
The board will get it right, there will be money to spend as they proved in January. The reason they wouldn't give it to MON was because he wanted to spend it on players like Robbie Keane.
None of the players who have left will be missed. Friedel was past his best, NRC wanted more money than he is worth.
Young will go, which will be no great loss - he has never been the same player since MON said he was on a par with Messi after that Everton game (we should have spotted then that MON was losing it !).
If we appoint Curbishley and sign players like Curtis Davis, Wayne Routledge, Shaun Maloney and Marlon Harewood then I will get worried !!!

[Mellin]

Biggest summer we've had for a very, very long time. Hopefully we'll get it right.

[AsTallAsLions]

Everybody still more excited than ever? Hang on to your hats.

[Ger Regan]

Well I'm cautiously optimistic, yes. But don't let that stop you being smug about apparently predicting the club's demise.

[brian green]

We have lost a manger through ill health.   We are taking sufficient time to identify and engage a suitable manager.   We are about to cash in on Ashley Young who has suddenly become the flavour of the month.   That justifies a claim that the club is in a state of collapse?   Not in my book.