The Players

[SheffieldVillain]

Have I missed something about Richards? I know he's been crap and his positioning is shit, particularly at centre back, but people speak as if he's been deliberately sabotaging the club.

Honestly not sure if I've missed a scandal? Or if people are getting a bit carried away?*

*Id say that it's a given that too many of our players lack the motivation/ability necessary to compete at the top level and that is a huge problem, and this almost certainly applies to Richards too but that's something different to being a ring leader in a mutiny.

I think it doesn't take a great leap of faith to think he is one of the players Garde was talking about who was a problem. He seemed to disappear from automatic first team selection very quickly after that. That allied to the Delph comments, the comments about the French players and his latest Twittering is a pretty fair start to tosserdom. Also, he's laughably meant to be captain.

[django]

Yeah but the most likely scenario is that he's simply an imbecile. In which case a manager/someone else in authority at the club who could come  in and lay down some instructions on what people should or shouldn't tweet or say in the press might be a good idea. Because these players are not up to thinking for themselves.

It could be that Richards has plotted to relegate Remi Garde as part of a Machivellian plot, or simply that his career has bottomed out and he's lacking the motivation to perform at the next non elite rung down at which he found himself at Villa. I'd say it's a place that our entire squad found themselves at the point that Mcleish was appointed. They realised they hadn't just underachieved for a season under Houllier but that they were now at a club where the ambition was to survive. They thought that that was easily within their abilities and they have been coasting. A poor squad, stripped of its quality and coasting is a recipe for relegation.

Better managers than we've had might have been able to arrest the decline, probably Lambert did the best job of managing the decline but it went tits up when he abandoned the young and hungry theory and imported the dross of his last summer transfer window. Although most of his signings lacked quality at least when they were on their way up in their careers their was some positive momentum.

[django]

To expand on my previous post, I doubt that all the players at other clubs are all
Choirboys or James Milner style honest pro's. I remember when James Collins signed for us there was an interview where he said he didn't even like football. He still did pretty well for O'neill, Allardyce and brilliantly for Bilic. But we know he was completely unprofessional under Houllier.
I doubt McGrath would be viewed as the perfect professional either.

[SheffieldVillain]

I doubt McGrath would be viewed as the perfect professional either.

I don't see how comparing Micah Richards to any other player makes his behaviour, lack of effort or performances any more excusable.

And you've answered your own point anyway. McGrath earned the latitude he got off the pitch by his performances on it. Collins got less stick than he deserved for his unprofessionalism because by and large his performances were steady if not spectacular. Richards has acted like a twat and played like a twat and therefore is mostly considered to be (judging by the majority of comments on here) a twat. If you're going to act the big shot, put in the performances to back it up.

[django]

Yeah you're not wrong. It's what they do on the pitch that matters (although there are certain standards of behaviour that are more important for me than success on the field) And I don't know why I was trying to excuse their behaviour. I suppose I just expect players to be dickheads these days. I imagine we'll be stuck with most of these clowns next season but if we replace them with better players they'll probably be dickheads too.

What I couldn't understand was the increased vitriol towards Richards I've seen over the last couple of days when he hasn't even played for weeks. But now having seen his latest tweeting twattery it does show he's unusually gifted at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. I'm amazed he's allowed to engage with people on social media in that way without consequences from the club.

[Quiet Lion]

Yes I also missed the memo where this evil cabal of players has been caught trying to bring the club down.

I just think they are shit, collectively not anywhere near good enough to keep us up.

[Villa in Denmark]

Richards was openly briefing against the French players just before Sherwood got the boot.

There's been a constant stream of leaks alluding to cliques and a split dressing room all season long.  That's completely unnecessary and whether deliberate or done out of sheer selfishness or dumbass thick as pigshitedness it can only have a negative and destabilising effect on the club.

Re Richards and "he's unusually gifted at doing the wrong thing at the wrong time."  When that kind of shit happens repeatedly the chances of it being coincidence diminish rapidly

[dave shelley]

Can anyone with more interest/knowledge of other clubs' players tell me, has there ever been a club that has so many players that are hated/despised by their own fans at the same time as the Villa has now?  It seems almost unthinkable.

[django]

Can anyone with more interest/knowledge of other clubs' players tell me, has there ever been a club that has so many players that are hated/despised by their own fans at the same time as the Villa has now?  It seems almost unthinkable.

We're the first big club to relegated for a while, who hasn't had a recent experience of the championship, and in this era of obscene player salaries and social media buffoonery. I'd say if we're not at the top we'd certainly be in the champions league places.

[Boz]

It's a condemnation of the modern player and the structure in football that players can be sh*t, lack any sense of responsibility to the club paying their wages and be the cause of a manager losing his job without any comeback at them.

[dicedlam]

I am not one to defend a player like Agbonlahor, because I think he has been shit for years, but could some of his and the others behaviour be down to the breakdown of trust with management in general?
The reason I ask this is that it seemed to escalate after it was revealed that there was bullying going on at the club under Lambert. 
I am not saying for one minute that this is the reason, but you can understand where cliques would have been created, if only to defend themselves.

I'm sure most of us have come across this in our own careers, where a lack of communication with senior management, may it be on working conditions, or direction, creatives a spiral of negativity that it is very difficult to stop once it has begun.

[AV89]

Interesting that managers can be sacked with a payoff for not performing, but not players.

Not really. If we wanted to offer Gabby the appropriate level of compensation to terminate his contract we could, there just wouldn't be any point.

i think it would send out exactly the right message

the bloke is toxic along with a couple of others, his attitude is appalling and he has bought sod all to the party for years

Precisely.

Sadly he's practically been allowed to run the dressing room for the last six years.

Seven managers in the time he's been here.  Time to get rid.

[DaveD]

Pictures of Gabby smoking shisha starting to emerge. What a dope.

[AV82EC]

I fucking hate them all. They're either shit, unprofessional, big headed, thick, ignorant, feckless, out of shape, lacking in talent, lacking in application or a combination of the above.

I've never felt like this about our players before.

[PaulTheVillan]

I fucking hate them all. They're either shit, unprofessional, big headed, thick, ignorant, feckless, out of shape, lacking in talent, lacking in application or a combination of the above.

I've never felt like this about our players before.

I felt like this about Collins, Heskey & a couple of others under McLeish, but I'm with you on this. I hate every single one of them.