Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: dave.woodhall on October 28, 2014, 12:05:22 AM
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And topical with it.
http://thebirminghampress.com/2014/10/taxi-for-mr-lambert/
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The last statement says it all, we all want to be challenging for the top positions but are realistic to realise that only a multi billionaire owner has any chance of achieving this, but to be constantly out thought out and played against what is deemed inferior opposition is not acceptable.
What is it about Villa Park that successive managers have failed completely to put a competative side on the pitch, there is a huge black cloud hanging over Aston at the moment and we desparately need a manager with enough gusto to blow it away. O'neil had the best chance but squandered the money the ones that followed were and are out of their depth. Get Moyes now and we have a decent chance of staying up Lambert has had too many escapes already.
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The words nail and head spring to mind when reading that piece. Well said Dave.
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Good article and your last paragraph is very true and the most frustrating thing
"This isn’t a top six squad, and for that you can blame the chairman. But it certainly isn’t a bottom six squad either, and for that you can only blame the manager".
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Spot on Dave
Luckiest man in football to have a job, chance upon chance & he still gets away with it
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At best he should have been offered a one year rolling deal, take it or leave it. It's not like we'd be batting-off clubs who want him in charge. Lerner seems to have been deeply burnt and embarrassed by how the three previous managers left and has no doubt befriended Lambert to the extent that a sacking just doesn't enter the realms of possibility.
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Good article.
He has to go. I am sick of the humiliation.
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I'm still flabbergasted that Lerner gave this man a 4 year contract after what he's put us through these last 2 and a bit years. We really are a car crash of a club and there's only one person to blame for it all, and that's Randy Lerner.
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Good article Dave and spot on.
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I'm not so sure about it not being a bottom 6 squad to be honest. There's a lot of players in that squad who aren't up to the standard in my opinion.
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The four year deal is a gift to Lambert should we be taken over in the next year or two to ensure he gets a reasonable pay off.
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Thank fuck for that. Dave, you rarely seen to criticise the hierarchy or knee jerk so for you to have crossed over tells me everything I need to know. Lerner needs to sell up and fast, but if as appears nothing is immenent it is vital that the management changes to best utilise the squad we have.
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The last paragraph sums things up perfectly.
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I said it on here a while ago, our squad is 6th -10th all day long, put Lambert in charge of it and it's 14th - 20th.
I used to feel sorry for him, promoted above his ability and struggling with little or no support from his absent parent, now I just hate everything about him and just want him gone.
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The four year deal is a gift to Lambert should we be taken over in the next year or two to ensure he gets a reasonable pay off.
Why do you think we are going to be taken over Ads? No sign of it up to now and that applies to more than one club.There is no profit in running a football club unless your team is around the top of the league table. The days of Doug,Dave Whelan even Ashby have gone.
Unless you can find a foreign investor with far too much finance in his funds you cannot hope to get anywhere. Our one hope is to stay in the Prem albeit playing dreadful uninspiring football which is totally down to the dreadful manager.
Who has been given a new four year contract!
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The last paragraph sums things up perfectly.
Very much so.
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I'm still flabbergasted that Lerner gave this man a 4 year contract after what he's put us through these last 2 and a bit years. We really are a car crash of a club and there's only one person to blame for it all, and that's Randy Lerner.
I forgave Lerner after to employing McLeish but giving this man a new contract , shows he has not got a clue.
Lambert should have gone in the summer with moyes in.
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Well said Dave.
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Sums the situation up perfectly.
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I said it on here a while ago, our squad is 6th -10th all day long, put Lambert in charge of it and it's 14th - 20th.
I used to feel sorry for him, promoted above his ability and struggling with little or no support from his absent parent, now I just hate everything about him and just want him gone.
Sorry but i can't hand on heart say we have a squad better than ten other sides in the division.
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The last paragraph sums things up perfectly.
Very much so.
Yes it really does, while Lerner might be the disease that is corroding the club, Lambert is certainly doing nothing to ease any of the symptoms.
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I said it on here a while ago, our squad is 6th -10th all day long, put Lambert in charge of it and it's 14th - 20th.
I used to feel sorry for him, promoted above his ability and struggling with little or no support from his absent parent, now I just hate everything about him and just want him gone.
Sorry but i can't hand on heart say we have a squad better than ten other sides in the division.
Nor can I. First 11 maybe when most or all are fit.
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We have a 25 goal a season striker up front for us, something nobody outside of the top six do. Everton paid £28 million for a player that will score 15 at most in a good season.
Yet we have no plan beyond hoping he does something magical. We don't put enough crosses in, when we do, we put them from deep and we don't get players in support of him.
Organise this squad right and it is capable of finishing in the top half.
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I confess to having been a wobbler. I've been in favour, been disappointed, wanted him sacked, been impressed, been disappointed, wanted him sacked, and wanted to keep him by turns.
Sacked is my current state, and it'll take something momentous to wobble me back in his favour.
Good article btw.
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We have a 25 goal a season striker up front for us, something nobody outside of the top six do. Everton paid £28 million for a player that will score 15 at most in a good season.
Organise this squad right and it is capable of finishing in the top half.
Benteke is potentially a 25 goal a season striker, but only potentially. Lukaku the same. Can add the likes of Berahino, Bony and a few others to that list.
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Echo the comments on the last section , we are not a bottom 6 squad but right now I doubt Lambert would get midtable in the championship with this squad.
We all know about the cut backs and lack of funds but after 2.5 years should be some improvement but we have gone backwards his tactics have been found out and he has no plan b.
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Can't disagree with any comments here.
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Succinct and forthright Dave.
Like a few others, I have been sitting on the fence regarding Lambert...but another tactically clueless showing, another unwanted record and further humiliation for our beautiful football club...shows he is not fit to be running team matters at Aston Villa and he needs to go.
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The club was in better hands under McLeish, and that's saying something!
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A depressingly good article Dave. I really wish the subject matter could rouse a little more positivity but it just ain't happening for me and thousands like me.
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The day we lost 2-1 to a then struggling Sheffield United in the cup was when I started to go off Lambert. It's not improved that much since then.
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The part about having hope after the team came back so strongly at the tail end of the seaon before last struck a chord with me. For this reason I clung on grimly to the hope that Lambert would work things out last season. But in the end the sheer weight of records that he's breaking (in a bad way) make you say enough is enough.
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2014 has been a wretched year for us so far.
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Another good read Dave spot on as usual.
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Good Article.
I remember when BFR was sacked and one of his last games was a away defeat to QPR. Although i was sorry to see him go i was delighted to that we had BL in the pipeline to take over.
Diffrence here is that the club have given a underperforming manager a new contract and i do not see a BL type of manager in the distance. Think we will just have to face the fact that this season will be the same as last season. A few bad results then something to give us hope then a bad result or two and a battle to stay in the league.
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Very good read, watching us last night all I could think was that we were going to be relegated. Normally I am overly positive, but now it almost feels inevitable.
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Good Article.
I remember when BFR was sacked and one of his last games was a away defeat to QPR. Although i was sorry to see him go i was delighted to that we had BL in the pipeline to take over.
Diffrence here is that the club have given a underperforming manager a new contract and i do not see a BL type of manager in the distance. Think we will just have to face the fact that this season will be the same as last season. A few bad results then something to give us hope then a bad result or two and a battle to stay in the league.
Ellis had many strokes of luck and one of them was that whenever things were bad a manager miraculously became available. He didn't work at it, they seemed to do the running.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
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I still go back to the Bradford debacle. The inability to beat a league 2 team over 2 matches with the second at home was astonishing. Even worse the throw as many strikers on whilst taking off the supply line 'tactic'. Absolutely bonkers. The defeat accepting culture with the shrug of our shoulders has to stop.
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I just don't get why Swansea are able to put together a squad that plays excellent passing football year in, year out, whilst we are consistently dull as ditch water and struggling to stay up.
We must have more resources than they do?
They don't seem to have spent tonnes of money.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I'd never criticise him for Venglos, but if a manager ever appointed a club it was Sir Graham, then BFR.
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Good Article.
I remember when BFR was sacked and one of his last games was a away defeat to QPR. Although i was sorry to see him go i was delighted to that we had BL in the pipeline to take over.
Diffrence here is that the club have given a underperforming manager a new contract and i do not see a BL type of manager in the distance. Think we will just have to face the fact that this season will be the same as last season. A few bad results then something to give us hope then a bad result or two and a battle to stay in the league.
Ellis had many strokes of luck and one of them was that whenever things were bad a manager miraculously became available. He didn't work at it, they seemed to do the running.
For me his best managers were SGT, BFR and BL. Wether or not they fell in to his lap i just can not see the current chairman finding some one like one of the above to take over. Ellis had luck but could you say he had more of a feel for the mood of the fans and would have changed things by now?
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Good Article.
I remember when BFR was sacked and one of his last games was a away defeat to QPR. Although i was sorry to see him go i was delighted to that we had BL in the pipeline to take over.
Diffrence here is that the club have given a underperforming manager a new contract and i do not see a BL type of manager in the distance. Think we will just have to face the fact that this season will be the same as last season. A few bad results then something to give us hope then a bad result or two and a battle to stay in the league.
Ellis had many strokes of luck and one of them was that whenever things were bad a manager miraculously became available. He didn't work at it, they seemed to do the running.
For me his best managers were SGT, BFR and BL. Wether or not they fell in to his lap i just can not see the current chairman finding some one like one of the above to take over. Ellis had luck but could you say he had more of a feel for the mood of the fans and would have changed things by now?
Again, to repeat an oft-said belief, Ellis had an instinctive feel for what fans thought. I think the only time he read the mood wrong was when he got rid of BFR. I'm not sure he would have got rid of Lambert in his first two seasons - Doug wasn't as trigger-happy as he liked to be portrayed - but he'd have gone either last summer or this morning.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I'd never criticise him for Venglos, but if a manager ever appointed a club it was Sir Graham, then BFR.
Venglos was certainly a brave appointment, and you could say trying an overseas manager first that he was paving the way for others, but I still think it was the wrong one for the time and especially for a side that had just finished 2nd.
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Good Article.
I remember when BFR was sacked and one of his last games was a away defeat to QPR. Although i was sorry to see him go i was delighted to that we had BL in the pipeline to take over.
Diffrence here is that the club have given a underperforming manager a new contract and i do not see a BL type of manager in the distance. Think we will just have to face the fact that this season will be the same as last season. A few bad results then something to give us hope then a bad result or two and a battle to stay in the league.
Ellis had many strokes of luck and one of them was that whenever things were bad a manager miraculously became available. He didn't work at it, they seemed to do the running.
For me his best managers were SGT, BFR and BL. Wether or not they fell in to his lap i just can not see the current chairman finding some one like one of the above to take over. Ellis had luck but could you say he had more of a feel for the mood of the fans and would have changed things by now?
Again, to repeat an oft-said belief, Ellis had an instinctive feel for what fans thought. I think the only time he read the mood wrong was when he got rid of BFR. I'm not sure he would have got rid of Lambert in his first two seasons - Doug wasn't as trigger-happy as he liked to be portrayed - but he'd have gone either last summer or this morning.
BFR was a hugely popular manager and i loved him managing our club. As you yourself said in your book about Villa managers he gave us a Big club feel. However since March 1994 we had been having a slow decline and then we started badly in the league the following season.
Doug probably felt the fans would turn on him but BL arriving and him being a Villa legend did help. He was the last manager Doug sacked although i am sure DOL did not leave off his own making.
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I just don't get why Swansea are able to put together a squad that plays excellent passing football year in, year out, whilst we are consistently dull as ditch water and struggling to stay up.
We must have more resources than they do?
They don't seem to have spent tonnes of money.
I've been thinking exactly the same thing.
The difference being................. they have been well run.
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BFR was a hugely popular manager and i loved him managing our club. As you yourself said in your book about Villa managers he gave us a Big club feel. However since March 1994 we had been having a slow decline and then we started badly in the league the following season.
Doug probably felt the fans would turn on him but BL arriving and him being a Villa legend did help. He was the last manager Doug sacked although i am sure DOL did not leave off his own making.
Going off-topic I think the decline started at the end of 1993 when from memory we had a run of home defeats against Wimbledon, Sheffield United and Matt le Tissier FC in front of sub-20,000 crowds.
The week before he was sacked a Mail letters special had all but one in favour of getting rid of him. The week after he was sacked all but one letter was against it.
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BFR was a hugely popular manager and i loved him managing our club. As you yourself said in your book about Villa managers he gave us a Big club feel. However since March 1994 we had been having a slow decline and then we started badly in the league the following season.
Doug probably felt the fans would turn on him but BL arriving and him being a Villa legend did help. He was the last manager Doug sacked although i am sure DOL did not leave off his own making.
Going off-topic I think the decline started at the end of 1993 when from memory we had a run of home defeats against Wimbledon, Sheffield United and Matt le Tissier FC in front of sub-20,000 crowds.
The week before he was sacked a Mail letters special had all but one in favour of getting rid of him. The week after he was sacked all but one letter was against it.
True, I picked March 1994 because that is when we won the League Cup.
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BFR was a hugely popular manager and i loved him managing our club. As you yourself said in your book about Villa managers he gave us a Big club feel. However since March 1994 we had been having a slow decline and then we started badly in the league the following season.
Doug probably felt the fans would turn on him but BL arriving and him being a Villa legend did help. He was the last manager Doug sacked although i am sure DOL did not leave off his own making.
Going off-topic I think the decline started at the end of 1993 when from memory we had a run of home defeats against Wimbledon, Sheffield United and Matt le Tissier FC in front of sub-20,000 crowds.
The week before he was sacked a Mail letters special had all but one in favour of getting rid of him. The week after he was sacked all but one letter was against it.
True, I picked March 1994 because that is when we won the League Cup.
That's a fair point - the cup run masked our league form.
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BFR was a hugely popular manager and i loved him managing our club. As you yourself said in your book about Villa managers he gave us a Big club feel. However since March 1994 we had been having a slow decline and then we started badly in the league the following season.
Doug probably felt the fans would turn on him but BL arriving and him being a Villa legend did help. He was the last manager Doug sacked although i am sure DOL did not leave off his own making.
Going off-topic I think the decline started at the end of 1993 when from memory we had a run of home defeats against Wimbledon, Sheffield United and Matt le Tissier FC in front of sub-20,000 crowds.
The week before he was sacked a Mail letters special had all but one in favour of getting rid of him. The week after he was sacked all but one letter was against it.
True, I picked March 1994 because that is when we won the League Cup.
That's a fair point - the cup run masked our league form.
Off topic again and you are right but i also think that BFR going to the world cup and signging John Fashuna did not help his cause.
He was a big game manager and that is why we beat Inter Milan but threw away a lead at Wimbledon.
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Off topic again and you are right but i also think that BFR going to the world cup and signging John Fashuna did not help his cause.
He was a big game manager and that is why we beat Inter Milan but threw away a lead at Wimbledon.
It certainly gave Doug the ammunition he wanted. I wonder if Beloved Leader had grown long-tired of the BFR persona and wanted to remind the world that there was only room for one Mr Aston Villa, so got rid at the first opportunity. Dennis Mortimer's comments about Tony Barton's sacking might provide a clue.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
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This was our results after beating Sheff Utd, we'd only lost 2 of the first 15.
24.11-H Southampton 0-2
28.11-A Liverpool 1-2
04.12-A Queen's PR 2-2
08.12-H Sheffield W 2-2
11.12-H Wimbledon 0-1
19.12-A Manchester U 1-3
29.12-A Norwich 2-1
01.01-H Blackburn 0-1
15.01-H West Ham 3-1
22.01-A Chelsea 1-1
06.02-H Leeds 1-0
12.02-H Swindon 5-0
22.02-H Manchester C 0-0
02.03-A Tottenham 1-1
06.03-A Coventry 1-0
12.03-H Ipswich 0-1
16.03-A Leeds 0-2
19.03-H Oldham 1-2
30.03-H Everton 0-0
02.04-A Manchester C 0-3
04.04-H Norwich 0-0
11.04-A Blackburn 0-1
16.04-A Sheffield U 2-1
23.04-H Arsenal 1-2
27.04-A Newcastle 1-5
30.04-A Southampton 1-4
07.05-H Liverpool 2-1
And then the following season
20.08-A Everton 2-2
24.08-H Southampton 1-1
27.08-H Crystal P 1-1
29.08-A Coventry 1-0
10.09-H Ipswich 2-0
17.09-A West Ham 0-1
24.09-A Blackburn 1-3
01.10-H Newcastle 0-2
08.10-A Liverpool 2-3
15.10-H Norwich 1-1
22.10-H Nottingham 0-2
29.10-A Queen's PR 0-2
06.11-H Manchester U 1-2
09.11-A Wimbledon 3-4
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.
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That Southampton game was one of the coldest ever. I think 16,000 is a ground of nearly 50k didn't help.
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That Southampton game was one of the coldest ever. I think 16,000 is a ground of nearly 50k didn't help.
Some of the gates that season home and away were incredible. A certain team in London got 17,452 against us. Without looking it up, guess who.
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Off topic again and you are right but i also think that BFR going to the world cup and signging John Fashuna did not help his cause.
He was a big game manager and that is why we beat Inter Milan but threw away a lead at Wimbledon.
It certainly gave Doug the ammunition he wanted. I wonder if Beloved Leader had grown long-tired of the BFR persona and wanted to remind the world that there was only room for one Mr Aston Villa, so got rid at the first opportunity. Dennis Mortimer's comments about Tony Barton's sacking might provide a clue.
I think that is right. The results of the team helped him in sacking him. He did not front to the camera's that evening if i remember rightly giving the impresion that he knew it was a gamble on his part as the manager was a popular figure.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.
I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.
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That Southampton game was one of the coldest ever. I think 16,000 is a ground of nearly 50k didn't help.
Some of the gates that season home and away were incredible. A certain team in London got 17,452 against us. Without looking it up, guess who.
Spuds. Chavski and Arsenal had sub 20K against us as well late 80s early 90s.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.
I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.
Exactly - a top appointment then, given the players we had and the money that was to come in over the next five years, could have got us to the top. Instead we trod water.
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Gregory should have done much better. The style of football pretty turgid.
In many ways his reign was a forerunner to O'Neill
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The attendances that I still think were woeful were Boro and Sheff Utd in the same week 93. Just under and just over 20K. We were title challengers at the time.
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I think any fans view of JG is dependent on wether you bought in to his "I love the Villa". Just makes me think of MON in that he had the money but spent it badly.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.
I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.
Exactly - a top appointment then, given the players we had and the money that was to come in over the next five years, could have got us to the top. Instead we trod water.
I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.
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I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.
Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.
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And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.
SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.
I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.
No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.
I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.
Exactly - a top appointment then, given the players we had and the money that was to come in over the next five years, could have got us to the top. Instead we trod water.
I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.
Gregory's brand of football was a delight compared to this. At least for a time he had an effective set up with Boateng and Taylor doing the donkey work with Merson offering a bit of creativity ahead. We did manage, at our best some good football under JG, between Merson, Barry, Hendrie and JPA toward the end.
We were boring with the occasional burst of quality from a few flair players. Where-as now we're just painfully boring with no spark whatsoever.
Though I'd agree, at that time, a better appointment could have taken us to the next level. JG was ultimately here too long, and SGT2 just regressed us badly.
O Leary was always likely to start brightly and fade and that proved so.
O Neill was good, but not good enough. Houllier had the right ideas but poor execution (and health). The last two were just disastrous appointments. One was expectedly horrible, the other came with great potential and hasn't delivered, and proved to be nothing more than a pretender. He's unfortunately still here.
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From January on under Houllier our form really picked up, especially after that draw at the Sty.
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6 points from Feb and March under Houllier and a shocking surrender, like Percival at Singapore, in the FA Cup just after That Lot had won something.
It was a barell of laughs losing at home to Wolves and being in the bottom 3.
The form picked up in April though we still lost to the Bitters for the first time in donkeys years.
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It was when McAllister took over we hit form. Didn't we go to Arsenal with about three games to go just above the relegation zone? Some freakish last day results saw us jump up from 14th to 9th spot as well.
As for Gregory when he first took over and his first full season I thoroughly enjoyed the football and moreso the results. It became dull after that and Gregory became more celebrity. I seem to recakll him appearing on a chat show and playing some Springsteen on his guitar.
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McAllister saw us get beat at the Shrine for the first time in a thousand years.
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The improvement was there under McAllister, but had already started prior to Houllier getting ill.
These are our results in that decent run.
The bold ones are when Houllier was in hospital (from April 21st).
Everton 2 - 2 Aston Villa
Aston Villa 1 - 0 Newcastle
West Ham 1 - 2 Aston Villa
Aston Villa 1 - 1 Stoke
West Brom 2 - 1 Aston Villa
Aston Villa 1 - 1 Wigan
Arsenal 1 - 2 Aston Villa
Aston Villa 1 - 0 Liverpool
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I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.
Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.
None of whom acheived a great deal after 1998.
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We had a good run in April and May 2011 which saw us leapfrog to the very top of the erstwhile relegation battlers. The position was helped as we played 2 teams with nothing whatsoever to play for in the last 2 games.
It also helped that we had 2 Wantaway 'star' wingers who were putting themselves in the shop window.
The fact we were in a relegation battle to start with at all and still in one going into May with that squad was reprehensible on the management's part.
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I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.
Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.
3 bullets dodged. I thought Dalglish was already at Newcastle by this time. Was he likely to leave them for us in reality?
Gullit had just been given the bullet by Chelsea IIRC prior to his Newcastle stint.
And Venables had failed to get Australia to the World Cup after in all reality needing to win only one game. Not as bad as being replaced by Peter Reid though so that Leeds could avoid relegation.
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Don't forget that El Tel replaced Dolly at Leeds with the Chairman saying after 30 minutes i his company i was left thinking we can win the League. El Tel's best days seemed to end when he left the England job apart from a brief spell when he kept Boro up.
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McAllister saw us get beat at the Shrine for the first time in a thousand years.
A feat that even TSM did not manage and TSM II has not achieved so far, despite the host of other records he has set.