Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[pauliewalnuts]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

[West Derby Villan]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

Agree but .......Shit but not all not all shit.....Bodymoor Heath modernisation, Acorns and the renovation of the Holte pub

[TB]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

I agree with that. garde was probably who we needed either after O'Neill or Houllier. Not when he came in. Lerner made such a mess of us it was going to take him to get it back onto an even keel again, never mind getting it right.

I absolutely agree with that.

For me the pivotal moment in the last 6 or 7 years was when, after the Houllier season, we'd had a painful time, but had started to show glimpses of knowing how to play actual, proper football.

What we needed then was a manager with the ethos to take those hard earned little signs of growth and work with them, create a side that passed the ball around a bit.

They tried with Martinez, then decided to go for McLeish, which was *exactly* the type of manager we did not need.

They threw away every little bit of progress in the Houllier season and went for a mental year zero approach. Insanity.

@peter w: If you'd written someone like Garde I'd wholeheartedly agree. But McLeish was already the new Villa manager a week before Garde was asked to step up from his job as director of the Lyon training complex to become the new manager at Lyon. Imagine the uproar if an unknown Frenchman became the new Villa manager. "How low have we sunk? Etc."

@pauliewalnuts: couldn't agree more. Replacing Houllier with McLeish was an absolutely bizarre decision. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater and all that...

But that's Villa over the past few years, isn't it?. Almost Pythonesque: "And now, for something completely different...."

I'd like to see someone like Garde to manage at Villa at some point - provided that someone is sufficiently backed by the owner and the board and is allowed to have a full pre-season in order to get his ideas across to the squad. Some managers fit the Red Adair fire-fighter mould, some need to be able to teach, develop and build.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Garde doing well as a manager somewhere else in English football sometime in the future. Unfortunately, he is now spoiled goods at Villa.

[ChicagoLion]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

Absoloutely.

[pauliewalnuts]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

Agree but .......Shit but not all not all shit.....Bodymoor Heath modernisation, Acorns and the renovation of the Holte pub

Not everything shit, no, but when you balance it all up, a new training ground, some charity work and doing up a pub (and I'll throw in mosaics) versus the other stuff, it's not a very healthy looking balance.

[Ad@m]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

I actually think the McLeish appointment made more sense than the Remi Garde one when you consider that the people making the decision didn't have the faintest idea what they were doing.

It was a classic checklist appointment - they decided they wanted someone with knowledge of the Prem, knowledge of the local area and therefore the status of the Villa, someone with international experience - tick, tick, tick.  They completely missed the fact that subjectively he was obviously the wrong candidate but he met all the criteria they set out.

Garde on the other hand - no idea what the thinking was there.

[Comrade Blitz]

They completely missed the fact that subjectively he was obviously the wrong candidate but he met all the criteria they set out.

Local government and HE recruitment in a nutshell.

[KevinGage]

Garde on the other hand - no idea what the thinking was there.

European technical director +  three French and three Francophone players = let's get a French manager.  Fox's Arsenal background might also have played a part.

[cheltenhamlion]

Garde on the other hand - no idea what the thinking was there.

European technical director +  three French and three Francophone players = let's get a French manager.  Fox's Arsenal background might also have played a part.

Fox wanted a French speaking manager with modern ideas on how to play football. That is from the Horses chops.

[SoccerHQ]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

I agree with that. garde was probably who we needed either after O'Neill or Houllier. Not when he came in. Lerner made such a mess of us it was going to take him to get it back onto an even keel again, never mind getting it right.

I absolutely agree with that.

For me the pivotal moment in the last 6 or 7 years was when, after the Houllier season, we'd had a painful time, but had started to show glimpses of knowing how to play actual, proper football.

What we needed then was a manager with the ethos to take those hard earned little signs of growth and work with them, create a side that passed the ball around a bit.

They tried with Martinez, then decided to go for McLeish, which was *exactly* the type of manager we did not need.

They threw away every little bit of progress in the Houllier season and went for a mental year zero approach. Insanity.

Totally agree, for the life of me I still dont understand the McLeish appointment

Even after the McLeish appointment there was still a chance to turn things round. We'd had a poor season but plenty of teams have finished bottom half and then bounced back strongly, Everton this season for example.

Appointing Garde would've made a lot more sense the summer we got in Lambert who for all the hype had only managed for one season in the premier league.

[SoccerHQ]

McLeish was very much a little effort / 'lazy' appointment.

It also largely coincided with the point at which Randy decided to stop giving a fuck.

That's what sticks in my craw about the Lerner era. All that time General Krulak telling us they'd be here through thick and thin, and the first instance of thin, they were off like a rat up a fucking drainpipe.

Fucking chancers. I appreciate he spent a lot of money, but it was largely wasted through his own stupidity, and they cultivated fan approval right up till the very moment at which it started to become difficult for them.

He was a dreadful owner for us, and surrounded himself with utterly average people who had not the first idea what they were doing.

We are paying the price for it now, an extended spell not in the top flight, and meanwhile he's probably found some other sparkly rich kids toy he prefers to obsess about.

The fact General Krulak got himself a new job at a University and lifted the 'Proud History, Bright Future' slogan tells you all you need to know about their sincerity.

I actually think the McLeish appointment made more sense than the Remi Garde one when you consider that the people making the decision didn't have the faintest idea what they were doing.

It was a classic checklist appointment - they decided they wanted someone with knowledge of the Prem, knowledge of the local area and therefore the status of the Villa, someone with international experience - tick, tick, tick.  They completely missed the fact that subjectively he was obviously the wrong candidate but he met all the criteria they set out.

Garde on the other hand - no idea what the thinking was there.

When you think back to that summer the three candidates we were going to appoint were at various stages Steve McClaren, Martinez and then eventually McLeish.

Yet again not even scouring europe and seeing if there was a decent manager out of work on the level of say a Bilic or Pochettino.

At that point our 4 premier league finishes had been 6th, 6th, 6th and 9th so it's not even as if we were percieved as just relegation strugglers at at that stage.

I shake my head when Hull can be all but relegated and then make a genius appointment like Marco Silva coming in. Maybe they just got lucky but example of owners not just taking the obvious domestic option.

I just hope when we eventually get back in the prem Xia can make an inspired managerial choice or two. RDM was a bit of a left field choice that didn't work and SB was a very obvious appointment anyone on the Holte End could've made so jury still out.

[LeeB]

I thought the McLeish appointment was to try and get a tune out of the likes of Dunne and Collins rather than go throughthe expensive process of fucking them off, like we should have done.

[Toronto Villa]

Our old mate Remi is about to resurface as coach of the Montreal Impact.

[Hookeysmith]

These managers really do get some lucky breaks with these gigs

[Drummond]

At least he speaks the language.