Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: martyn ellis on July 16, 2011, 11:37:12 PM
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Just heard an ad for Sunday morning's BBC 5 Live sports show from 8.30 am tomorrow - Gerard Houllier's first interview since he left VP. May be worth a listen.
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Expect lots of Liverpool references.
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I still find it hard to believe he was our manager. It just never seemed right from day one, did it?
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I still find it hard to believe he was our manager. It just never seemed right from day one, did it?
And that is my mindset
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A case of what we were look forward to.
Not what we are to expect.
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Hope he's making a full recovery. The amount of fires he had to put out at VP last season (some of his own making), and the fact that he's so into his football...I can imagine him being quite restless regardless of his health.
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Good interview with GED, he is still not fully recovered and the doctors have told him not to work until the end of Sept @ the earliest and even then then may not be fit enough to go back to football management He said there was an option to leave McAllister in charge until he was fully recovered but Randy wanted to go in another direction and he left Villa on good terms
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...and he left Villa on good terms.....
....and considerably richer.
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...and he left Villa on good terms.....
....and considerably richer.
Well if you sack them you pay up the contract and obviously Randy didnt want to drag it out
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...and he left Villa on good terms.....
....and considerably richer.
Yep, the terms weren't bad !
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Main points were:
*Still not recovered (he didn't sound well) but 75% better
*Illness was due to hereditary condition, not stress of the job (though he did later say high bloodpressure doesn't help it)
*He wanted to stay, but wasn't able to return before September. Gary Mac would have been in charge. There is also a possibility that the specialist might have said he's not ready in September- Or might not have been able to return at all. RL didn't want to risk this, but no acrimony
*If he had remained he would have done everything to keep Downing, but accepts it's difficult if a player wants out
*Happy with the McLeish appointment
*6th/7th should be the target this year
*If he can't get back into management, he'll still stay involved in the game in some way
Good to hear from him, spoke positively about the club and fans and seems genuinely disappointed that he couldn't continue.
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well at least he was one of the past managers I actually liked ..
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well at least he was one of the past managers I actually liked ..
Who wants managers we like ?
We nearly all liked genial Uncle Jo Venglos (loser) but I am sure more than a couple of fans were not so keen on Ron Saunders the person (winner).
I would say the best we have ever had in terms of combining being likeable and winning was Big Fat Ron.
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I hope he is helping Alex to identify new players to buy :) as they are good friends.
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*6th/7th should be the target this year
6th? Isn't that above our station? When GH joined didn't he mention something about us being a 7th to 12th club? He must be still ill!
Thank goodness he's not our manager anymore.
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It was a good interview and it appears Randy made the right decision despite it costing us lot of money in compensation.
He made no references to Liverpool even though talking about Downing transfer I expected a "there is no better club club for him".
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Good luck on your recovery GH.
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I still find it hard to believe he was our manager. It just never seemed right from day one, did it?
No more unbelievable than McCleish.
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I liked him.
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I didn't
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I wonder if the the targets he had identified were there because of his presence as manager and that they disappeared of the radar when he left?
Hence plan B....I wonder who they were, Nzogbia probably one beacuse of the French connection?
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*6th/7th should be the target this year
6th? Isn't that above our station? When GH joined didn't he mention something about us being a 7th to 12th club? He must be still ill!
Thank goodness he's not our manager anymore.
I don't think he said that. He said that when he was managing Liverpool his experience of Villa was that they were a club that finished between 7th and 12th. He did not say that this was where Villa should be or deserved to be. He knew the history of the club and compared us to Paris St. Germain in another early interview.
I think GH suffered from a mischievous press mis-quoting him, being hell-bent on stirring our supporters up and turning us into a "crisis club". It's a shame. I think the guy was a real gent and a great football man - a French version of Bobby Robson in many ways.
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I liked him.
And me, a healthy Houllier would have been great for Villa IMO.
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I wonder if the the targets he had identified were there because of his presence as manager and that they disappeared of the radar when he left?
Hence plan B....I wonder who they were, Nzogbia probably one beacuse of the French connection?
[/quoteI wonder if the the targets he had identified were there because of his presence as manager and that they disappeared of the radar when he left?
Hence plan B....I wonder who they were, Nzogbia probably one beacuse of the French connection?
I don't think it takes a genius to work out that a natural replacement for Young/Downing is N'zogbia to be fair.
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I'm hoping we sign a couple of players tomorrow, we really need to get moving.
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I liked him.
And me, a healthy Houllier would have been great for Villa IMO.
He was healthy for most of the season. Results only improved when he was taken ill.
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I'm hoping we sign a couple of players tomorrow, we really need to get moving.
Wrong thread!
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I liked him.
And me, a healthy Houllier would have been great for Villa IMO.
Halfway between you: I liked him but not sure he would have been a success given another season. Clearly disliked overpaid prima donnas (good); clearly didn't know how to deal with overpaid prima donnas in the modern game (bad).
Sure, you can't argue the bloke made some PR ricks. On the other hand, you can't argue that the bloke was classy and dignified - as any Villa manager should be.
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I wonder if the the targets he had identified were there because of his presence as manager and that they disappeared of the radar when he left?
Hence plan B....I wonder who they were, Nzogbia probably one beacuse of the French connection?
One of them was the Argentinian midfielder at Valencia, Ever Banega. The other one was Saphic at Montpellier - who has now moved to Sevilla. No idea about the rest.
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He was a gent and a nice guy. I wasn't sure of how he'd do but I think it is one of the great unknowns had he continued how things would have been. It could have been very good indeed.
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I liked him.
And me, a healthy Houllier would have been great for Villa IMO.
He was healthy for most of the season. Results only improved when he was taken ill.
That's missing the points. You could just as easily argue that results improved after he had had time to change the philosophy at the club. Rightly or wrongly, Houllier's priority was never short-term results.
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He was a nice enough bloke, and wanted to move the club in the right direction, and started to do so.
Unfortunately, and this may have been down to trying to change too much too fast, but he dropped far too many bollocks over the course of a season.
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Auntie (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14177781.stm)
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He was a nice enough bloke, and wanted to move the club in the right direction, and started to do so.
Unfortunately, and this may have been down to trying to change too much too fast, but he dropped far too many bollocks over the course of a season.
Agree with this totally
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He was a nice enough bloke, and wanted to move the club in the right direction, and started to do so.
Unfortunately, and this may have been down to trying to change too much too fast, but he dropped far too many bollocks over the course of a season.
Spot on Paulie!
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He was a gent and a nice guy. I wasn't sure of how he'd do but I think it is one of the great unknowns had he continued how things would have been. It could have been very good indeed.
So could Thatcherism.
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He was a gent and a nice guy. I wasn't sure of how he'd do but I think it is one of the great unknowns had he continued how things would have been. It could have been very good indeed.
So could Thatcherism.
Not really. Thatcherism had malevolence, self interest and division at its heart. That might have been (and was) very good for some, but it was never going to be good "across the board".
God. What a boring day.
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He was a gent and a nice guy. I wasn't sure of how he'd do but I think it is one of the great unknowns had he continued how things would have been. It could have been very good indeed.
So could Thatcherism.
Not really. Thatcherism had malevolence, self interest and division at its heart.
And the difference between that and Houllier's reign?
'Tis boring isn't it? Even Midsomer Murders is crap today.
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Houllier's reign was about football, Thatcher's was about real lives.
*sombre facial expression*
I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up to find a 15 year old episode of Jonathon Creek on the telly. What amazed me most was how, nowadays, even things filmed in the late 1990s look so ancient. That just made me feel old and want to go back to sleep asap.
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Right on.
I love Jonathon Creek. Depressing to realise it's 15 years old, granted.
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I will have nothing but bad memories of his time in charge. All his fault? Maybe not.....but a lot was.
Signing Darren Bent is the only positive I can look back on. Hopefully, Makoun will prove to be also.
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It was a scarey season under GH. After that home defeat to wolves i was crapping it.
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Bet we would have a few players on board now if Houllier was in charge. Mcallister mentioned earlier that he had a list completed of who he was going for in the summer and i bet he had a few european starlets lined up ......
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Bet we would have a few players on board now if Houllier was in charge. Mcallister mentioned earlier that he had a list completed of who he was going for in the summer and i bet he had a few european starlets lined up ......
Bet he didn't. There was no sign that he had any knowledge of any starlets while he was here, the only decent players he brought in were from the Premier League.
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Bet we would have a few players on board now if Houllier was in charge. Mcallister mentioned earlier that he had a list completed of who he was going for in the summer and i bet he had a few european starlets lined up ......
Bet he didn't. There was no sign that he had any knowledge of any starlets while he was here, the only decent players he brought in were from the Premier League.
He only bought two players, one of whom came from that there Europe and is hardly worthy of deeming "not decent".
I think there are plenty of things to have a go at Houllier over, but that sounds a bit like having a pop for the sake of it.
Oh, and there was at least some indication he was looking to that market in the approach for Fofana.
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I wonder if the the targets he had identified were there because of his presence as manager and that they disappeared of the radar when he left?
Hence plan B....I wonder who they were, Nzogbia probably one beacuse of the French connection?
One of them was the Argentinian midfielder at Valencia, Ever Banega. The other one was Saphic at Montpellier - who has now moved to Sevilla. No idea about the rest.
I'd seen those two talked about, as well as Aly Cissokho (who looks to be going to Liverpool for £10m after they missed out on Clichy).
But I'd love to have seen a full list of his targets.