Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: CT Villan on September 26, 2015, 07:15:42 PM
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I was going to post this in the 'get rid' thread, but thought it deserved its own platform...
We have been suffering for so long with many different sets of players, coaches, managers and CEO's. There seems to be a bigger issue here that I can neither identify or solve...
Houllier, McLeish, Lambert and now Sherwood all struggling in the Villa job - they can't all be crap...but for the life of me, I don't know what it is that is constantly holding us back, the easy answer is Lerner, but I don't see that as the root cause. Even if we got Mourinho or Ancelotti would they suffer the same fate too ? Is it the lack of a winning mentality or the club ethos ? Is it the fan's weight of expectation ?
Who knows...any ideas ?
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Employing shit managers is probably a good place to start looking.
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Martin O Neill and Randy Lerner's ex-wife? I hope they're very happy together.
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Houllier was a good manager once, but past his best when he rocked up at Villa Park. In fairness he had us playing some good football, but his health history was always a risk.
McLeish was a professional relegator who should never got a look in for the Villa job. That's without even considering the identity of his previous employers.
Lambert was a chancer who had one good season at Norwich when he took people by surprise. He then spent 3 years peddling a string of half truths and boring football.
Sherwood is starting to resemble an English version of Lambert.
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Randy Lerner.
Paulie has been banging on about it for yonks but he's right....ultimatedly the leadership, ambition and direction comes from the very top. It's the same at Newcastle and Sunderland.
You can change managers as many times as you like and spend god knows what but if there's not a sensible strategy like you get at Swansea and Southampton you're swimming against the tide attempting to win games regularly.
We need new owners. Fresh ambition, direction etc.
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I said it years ago when Lerner bailed out. The whole culture Of the club is of ?? No direction, ambition, hope, confidence . How Lerner had the audacity to rock up at wembley after years MIA is a piss take.
The ultimate issue is Randy Lerner.
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Lerner is the issue. Not been to game this season I believe? Disinterested bored billionaire. You need a proper leader to be at least enthusiastic. Until he's gone, the club won't progress. Useless, that's him!!
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I'm pretty sure the players aren't thinking about the owner during training or on match days. The problem is management and coaching of the players. It really is that simple.
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I'm pretty sure the players aren't thinking about the owner during training or on match days. The problem is management and coaching of the players. It really is that simple.
That's simply not true. Their is no leadership from the top.
Even sherwood is free to come out with lame targets as he did today with no repercussions .
Imagine if wenger said this season is all about staying top 8 !!??
Club is a rudderless shambles
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So your blaming Lerner for the shite that TS comes out with in post game interviews?
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The lack of leadership from the top is not the only problem, though, it is just one of them.
Houllier - I thought - was an understandable appointment. McLeish was so mental I can still barely believe we ever appointed him. Lambert was sensible at the time, but we left him in place for way, way too long.
Sherwood was a nuts appointment from the start. This is someone who had a career of four months in charge at spurs - where he was given a 1.5 year contract, incidentally, and where he managed to annoy the shit out of everyone associated with the club.
I do think, though, that when you look at the likes of us, Newcastle, Sunderland, and how spending money or changing manager changes very little, certainly not for the positive, it is hard not to conclude that there is a bigger, more permanent problem at the club which is causing the real problems.
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the underlying problem is
a settled,happy ship
and MONEY
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I heard Sherwood earlier on talk sport he said something along the lines of we wanted to bring in Kids and sometimes with kids you get these kind of results, now him, Lambert, Mcshit have all said similar and I'm wondering if Randy is obsessed with the "Ajax" model and insists on young hungry kids so he can sell them for profit?
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Even Tom Fox is part of the problem . What's his motivation ? He's not a football man, he's a a marketing man who has marketed himself into a great pay cheque.
The club needs to restore some of its core values as a great football club and we need some continuity and link with the past to try and see that through.
The club had lost its way in short.
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is doug not at a bit of a loose end silhill?
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Excellent question.
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I was going to post this in the 'get rid' thread, but thought it deserved its own platform...
We have been suffering for so long with many different sets of players, coaches, managers and CEO's. There seems to be a bigger issue here that I can neither identify or solve...
Houllier, McLeish, Lambert and now Sherwood all struggling in the Villa job - they can't all be crap...but for the life of me, I don't know what it is that is constantly holding us back, the easy answer is Lerner, but I don't see that as the root cause. Even if we got Mourinho or Ancelotti would they suffer the same fate too ? Is it the lack of a winning mentality or the club ethos ? Is it the fan's weight of expectation ?
Who knows...any ideas ?
The only expectation I have is that some "professional" footballers show up once a week and give me something to watch. Actually winning is just a pipe dream.
I don't know what is wrong, but it's just so sad and pathetic now. I really thought we'd have the talent to wriggle ourselves out of the relegation scrap this year but that seems to be the case every offseason.
I can't see any way out unless some uber-rich foreigner just buys us some stability. Let's be honest, while we may be of large(r) stature, we're lucky to still be in the league. Meanwhile, Palace, Swans, Leicester and West Ham are seemingly LIGHT YEARS ahead of us.
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I can't see any way out unless some uber-rich foreigner just buys us some stability. Let's be honest, while we may be of large(r) stature, we're lucky to still be in the league. Meanwhile, Palace, Swans, Leicester and West Ham are seemingly LIGHT YEARS ahead of us.
...and how Gold & Sullivan can do that but we can't makes it criminal.
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I am very disappointed that they did not follow through with getting an experienced director of football. One of them could really help Sherwood and also set a strategic footballing direction for the club. Les Reed does it brilliantly at Southampton. We need something like that to see any progress.
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This part of the year was always going to be open season for negativity. Enjoy it while it lasts you miserablists.
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is doug not at a bit of a loose end silhill?
Cheap joke. Doug is fine but frail and old but still makes most games and should have some respect for that.
I'm talking more the Sid's, KMac's , Even your Kenny Swains .
Sadly we don't have a great footballing dynasty to call upon as your liverpool and Yaniteds do. But employing chancers like sherwood leaves me feeling cold.
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This part of the year was always going to be open season for negativity. Enjoy it while it lasts you miserablists.
This ongoing never ending struggle is not being enjoyed by anybody is it? I was optimistic 6 weeks ago but it's evaporated now.
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This part of the year was always going to be open season for negativity. Enjoy it while it lasts you miserablists.
This ongoing never ending struggle is not being enjoyed by anybody is it? I was optimistic 6 weeks ago but it's evaporated now.
The table doesn't look very good but Sherwood is right in saying we've been unfortunate.
How many goals have been down to individual, inexplicable errors. How many deflections?
We could just as easily have nine more points on the table.... What if Ayew had scored when he came on against Leicester?
Small margins.
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This part of the year was always going to be open season for negativity. Enjoy it while it lasts you miserablists.
Silly short sighted post.
We've had 5 years of this blight .
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...having Americans running your football club for a start. The fuckwits just love a bullshitter. Randy gobbled up all of MON's 'I'll get you in the Champions League Randy! Just give me a shitload of cash to buy Nigel Reo Coker/Emile Heskey/Curtis Davies' (and any of the other shit English players we paid massively over the odds for. just so we could leave them on the bench). Now Randy doesn't really give a toss after MON and the Financial Crisis took him to the cleaners, we've now got Fox in charge and making the decisions...Enter bullshit artist number 2, I bet Timmeh! is great at giving all that positive thinking nonsense, Americans love all that shit, that's why they thought they could invade a country torn by religious divide, without a post invasion plan, and run it with just a few thousand technocrats, the promise of democracy, and a fucking Burger King, the wankers.
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...having Americans running your football club for a start. The fuckwits just love a bullshitter. Randy gobbled up all of MON's 'I'll get you in the Champions League Randy! Just give me a shitload of cash to buy Nigel Reo Coker/Emile Heskey/Curtis Davies' (and any of the other shit English players we paid massively over the odds for. just so we could leave them on the bench). Now Randy doesn't really give a toss after MON and the Financial Crisis took him to the cleaners, we've now got Fox in charge and making the decisions...Enter bullshit artist number 2, I bet Timmeh! is great at giving all that positive thinking nonsense, Americans love all that shit, that's why they thought they could invade a country torn by religious divide, without a post invasion plan, and run it with just a few thousand technocrats, the promise of democracy, and a fucking Burger King, the wankers.
I almost clapped then...
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...having Americans running your football club for a start. The fuckwits just love a bullshitter. Randy gobbled up all of MON's 'I'll get you in the Champions League Randy! Just give me a shitload of cash to buy Nigel Reo Coker/Emile Heskey/Curtis Davies' (and any of the other shit English players we paid massively over the odds for. just so we could leave them on the bench). Now Randy doesn't really give a toss after MON and the Financial Crisis took him to the cleaners, we've now got Fox in charge and making the decisions...Enter bullshit artist number 2, I bet Timmeh! is great at giving all that positive thinking nonsense, Americans love all that shit, that's why they thought they could invade a country torn by religious divide, without a post invasion plan, and run it with just a few thousand technocrats, the promise of democracy, and a fucking Burger King, the wankers.
Can we please have less of this.
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Totally agree, what a load of nonsense
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Totally agree, what a load of nonsense
At least he's consistent
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...having Americans running your football club for a start. The fuckwits just love a bullshitter. Randy gobbled up all of MON's 'I'll get you in the Champions League Randy! Just give me a shitload of cash to buy Nigel Reo Coker/Emile Heskey/Curtis Davies' (and any of the other shit English players we paid massively over the odds for. just so we could leave them on the bench). Now Randy doesn't really give a toss after MON and the Financial Crisis took him to the cleaners, we've now got Fox in charge and making the decisions...Enter bullshit artist number 2, I bet Timmeh! is great at giving all that positive thinking nonsense, Americans love all that shit, that's why they thought they could invade a country torn by religious divide, without a post invasion plan, and run it with just a few thousand technocrats, the promise of democracy, and a fucking Burger King, the wankers.
Can we please have less of this.
But I thought the stereotyping of different religions and other nationalities was the American way?
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I am very disappointed that they did not follow through with getting an experienced director of football. .
We did. Well, a slightly different job title but very similar, anyway. Hendrik Almstadt.
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This part of the year was always going to be open season for negativity. Enjoy it while it lasts you miserablists.
Genuine question - why shouldn't we all be miserable?
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The underlying problem is pretty clear, really.
You can see it in this quote from Sherwood today:
"Our performances have merited better than one win in seven games but I said from the start it would be an uphill struggle. We need to stay in the division and if we do we will be stronger next year.
The immediately obvious point is that that contrasts immensely with what the very same Tim Sherwood said at the end of last season, ie this:
"We gave the fans nothing to cheer about today but I promise them it will get better," Sherwood told BBC Sport.
"We've stayed in the division but we have a losing mentality. We don't want to be scraping relegation next season."
Followed by this at the start of the summer:
'I am allowed to sign whoever I want in the summer as long as I can justify it, but I believe even if we didn't make a signing we wouldn't be in this position again,'
So, there's a clear change of tack from Sherwood there, but that isn't the problem.
The problem is that the Aston Villa manager - yet again - is saying this:
We need to stay in the division and if we do we will be stronger next year
That's the problem.
We had a kit marketing campaign a few weeks ago telling us that we're a massive club, we have had - till recently - Sherwood talking about what a big club we are all the time, we have Fox with his routine doing the same, yet here we are, hearing the same shit as we've heard the last four or five years - we have to stay up, that's what it is about.
We're a big club, apparently, about the same size as Everton, but I don't remember hearing the Everton manager - any of them in recent years - suggesting their acceptable benchmark is staying up. I also don't remember hearing the managers of significantly less illustrious clubs like Stoke or West Ham saying that, either.
So how come that, for five years, has become the measure of acceptability for Aston Villa managers? Why are we still prepared to listen to this nonsense? None of us expect to be pushing for Europe at any point soon, but, really, staying up? Is that *still* the measure of what we aim for? Really? If that's the case, then I imagine the people coming up with that entire "this is a big, big club" bullshit to sell shirts in the summer will have struggled to keep straight faces while pitching it.
Sherwood is a chancer, utterly out of his depth, but he is just part of the problem. The bigger problem is that we are a club run by people who really only care about not getting relegated and missing out on the cash. The nearest comparison to us is Newcastle United.
Seriously, if the club with the closest operating ethos to yours is Newcastle, then you really are in a bad, bad place.
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He's become Lambert. Whether that is entirely him or a combination of the mysterious stuff behind the scenes is open to debate. Every game now the "game plan" is to contain in the open period, whereas last season he came and attacked and got into teams and gave it a go. That's exactly what happened to Lambert. He started to look at the end of season one as though he was developing a really attacking enjoyable style and within a few months he became a haggard old recluse, starved of sleep and all of the things he once believed in. A shell of a man preaching survival and desperation.
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I think that's fair comment, TV, but with Sherwood there is the added complicating factor that he talks himself up to be some sort of management god, which is totally at odds with what we see on the pitch.
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I think that's fair comment, TV, but with Sherwood there is the added complicating factor that he talks himself up to be some sort of management god, which is totally at odds with what we see on the pitch.
I think that's just delusions of grandeur on Sherwood's part. Lambert didn't have really have any which just goes to prove you can get to the same spot from different places. Lambert's delusion was that every game (defeat) the players were excellent, and Sherwood's is that it's the players fault and never his because could it be? FFS.
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when hearing what Sherwood said i was also taken aback. Not just because of the bigger picture issue paulie mentions but the negativity. Almost as if it was perfectly Lambert-esque in 'all I can do with these young kids is try and stay up'. Eh? since when? Since when did the club decide that? i think that Sherwood, lerner, or Fox will see the crowd turn really quickly if we're going to have another season of that shite.
Well I'd give him 6 weeks to try and do something about it.
On the other hand maybe it was a nod to his senior players in the team who are not stepping up. Giving them a public rebuke. That would be brilliant tacticly and superbly Freudian. However, I don't think that has happened. I think his starting to use excuses and that is what is worrying for me. Very worrying. If I were the Labour Party I'd watching. The present and the future of Sherwood and Corbyn are running in some just off-perfect parallels.
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It (becoming Lambert) seems to have happened a lot sooner this time, or are we just getting more impatient?
I don't think we are wrong. Tim needs to show us that his vision will work. There have been injuries to key players. He will have his choice and his plan back, against Stoke next week.
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when hearing what Sherwood said i was also taken aback. Not just because of the bigger picture issue paulie mentions but the negativity. Almost as if it was perfectly Lambert-esque in 'all I can do with these young kids is try and stay up'. Eh? since when? Since when did the club decide that? i think that Sherwood, lerner, or Fox will see the crowd turn really quickly if we're going to have another season of that shite.
That's absolutely it. The glib assumption that there's always that old chestnut to fall back on if things get bad.
The bizarre situation now is that we actually have a pretty strong squad - it isn't a top six one, but it certainly isn't a bottom six one, either. It's also not as if we are failing to score goals, we're doing ok on that front.
The problem we have is that the manager is producing significantly less than the sum of the parts of the squad.
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That's my point Lou. The fans won't have any patience because we've now had enough of the same dull turgid performances and inevitable defeats. paul bloody Lambert used up all the patience any new manager will get for the next 50 years or so. Sherwood needs to act and act fast otherwise I think he'll find himself gone. he must know that and he must know, or be actually feeling, the pressure and he's not responding too well just now. Stoke is massive.
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when hearing what Sherwood said i was also taken aback. Not just because of the bigger picture issue paulie mentions but the negativity. Almost as if it was perfectly Lambert-esque in 'all I can do with these young kids is try and stay up'. Eh? since when? Since when did the club decide that? i think that Sherwood, lerner, or Fox will see the crowd turn really quickly if we're going to have another season of that shite.
That's absolutely it. The glib assumption that there's always that old chestnut to fall back on if things get bad.
The bizarre situation now is that we actually have a pretty strong squad - it isn't a top six one, but it certainly isn't a bottom six one, either. It's also not as if we are failing to score goals, we're doing ok on that front.
The problem we have is that the manager is producing significantly less than the sum of the parts of the squad.
And the absolute luxury this board enjoys is that because of the years of continuous garbage we as fans will accept mediocrity and mid table as a successful campaign. This is Aston Villa we're on about, yet we've been worn down to that.
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Sometimes managers stumble on the right formula accidentally. They don't necessarily have to know their best teams but the lucky managers are those where injuries, suspensions, or poor form results in a team that clicks. I do think the right-players are there and they are good enough. But I'm starting to wonder exactly what the plan was/is with all these players that would be a risk. We've gone full circle and back to a young team that Lambert had crying out for experience in the middle, to a more expensive team of kids crying out for experience in the middle? Was that the plan? Because if so that's Lerner or Fox saying, 'listen Tim you've got the same budget as Paul had and the benteke money. You'll get nothing else so you may as well buy for the future. So this season just stay up'. I'm starting to think we're going for the Lambert plan again but with youngsters from overseas rather than League one.
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It is for him, peterw, because I agree with you, there's not a lot of patience, if any, left for a manager who doesn't play his best team or make the most of what he's choosing from, on match day.
The injuries are over and he has to show us what he's got.
I know some of them are very new to the Premier League. They've been training for months, they are professional footballers, they are in our club and now is the time that they show us what they've got. And, validate the manager and his choices.
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Sometimes managers stumble on the right formula accidentally. They don't necessarily have to know their best teams but the lucky managers are those where injuries, suspensions, or poor form results in a team that clicks. I do think the right-players are there and they are good enough. But I'm starting to wonder exactly what the plan was/is with all these players that would be a risk. We've gone full circle and back to a young team that Lambert had crying out for experience in the middle, to a more expensive team of kids crying out for experience in the middle? Was that the plan? Because if so that's Lerner or Fox saying, 'listen Tim you've got the same budget as Paul had and the benteke money. You'll get nothing else so you may as well buy for the future. So this season just stay up'. I'm starting to think we're going for the Lambert plan again but with youngsters from overseas rather than League one.
yet ironically Peter, the mistakes for the most part have come from the experienced players like Lescott, Richards, Sanchez and Guzan. The young players for sure need time to adapt but the older ones have let us down massively.
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Toronto, Our Jack was taken off today. Everybody can have a less than perfect game.
But Tim hasn't been able to pick an ideal team because of injuries. Next week, training granted, he will. It would be very helpful if they all did what we know they are capable of!
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Toronto, Our Jack was taken off today. Everybody can have a less than perfect game.
But Tim hasn't been able to pick an ideal team because of injuries. Next week, training granted, he will. It would be very helpful if they all did what we know they are capable of!
Lou every team has injuries. It's not an excuse for setting up not to concede from the off then trying to get back into games when the horse has often bolted. That's his approach now and when you do that players make mistakes trying not to make mistakes. I'd rather we went at teams and made them make errors because as we saw today as soon as we took it to Liverpool they began to buckle. The players in this side need to be told from the start they can win the game and they'll be playing to win. But we have such a meek, submissive mentality at the club. Something I honestly believed Sherwood would never become affected by and he has.
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Bad managerial appointments since MON walked out. Houllier had a history of health problems and had been out of hands on football management for a while. Followed by appointing a bloke who had just got Small Heath relegated and who would do a complete U turn on the way Houllier had tried to take the club. No arguments with Lambert's appointment but he should have been sacked sooner. Sherwood (and I'm still backing him to get things right) was undoubtably a gamble. Still, if the worst comes to the worst an experienced football administrator and former international coach would fit the bill. Step forward Sepp and Michel.
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The underlying problem for this great club has always been the owner and I'm not just referring to Lerner as I can go back to Norman Smith and the "board must go" days.
Ellis took over then and it's fair to say I eventually hated him with a passion for continuously holding us back when we had opportunities to become a top club.
As much as I hated Ellis , Lerner has taken bad ownership to the level of criminal negligence as he has washed his hands of us and allowed us to slide into a bad joke of a club with an absolutely terrible defeatist DNA.
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and nobody seems to know what to do when we get a throw-in
been a problem for years
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The underlying problem is that for the last 5 years we have been sh*t and only just managed to avoid being flushed away at the end of the season. We hung around like an irritating floatie until the start of the new season.
This season I fear we will go with the first flush into the championship cesspool.
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I fully understand the fear of relegation after so many years of hanging round the arse end of the table however, this is a stronger squad than we have had for quite a while and Sherwood can't continue to keep making mistakes, he will get tactically better. Won't he?
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I am bored and absolutely sick to death of Aston Villa being terrible for nearly every week of the last five or six years. I know we haven't been relegated yet, but I find that pretty remarkable. We are largely joyless to watch and an embarrassment most of the time. It doesn't seem to matter who the manager is or who the players are it just seems written into the DNA of the club now.
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I fully understand the fear of relegation after so many years of hanging round the arse end of the table however, this is a stronger squad than we have had for quite a while and Sherwood can't continue to keep making mistakes, he will get tactically better. Won't he?
That's it for me. He was brave enough to overhaul the squad where another manager might have blown the whole budget on direct replacements for Benteke and Delph. I think we need to stick with it.
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Where do you start with a question like this. There's a number of things you could say but to choose just one:
It's the losing culture that has permeated down from Lerner and his mismanagement of the playing side of the Club almost from the day he arrived.
I sure he means well and I'm proud of some of our off field initiatives but as a Football Club it's been dreadful.
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The underlying problem is that even if we thrash Stoke say 4-0 we would have absolutely no confidence that we could then beat Chelsea. The odd ray of hope is always followed by piss shower of reality. I just cannot fathom how we have fallen behind the likes of Leicester, Watford, Bournmouth, Stoke, Crystal Palace etc in regards to a fight and determination to be better. The air of superiority and complacency that exists even though survival is the sum of our ambitions is evidence of how low we have sunk. We have now completely lost touch we our peer group, we did successfully compete for many years and had a belief we could get positive results even if we played Chelsea one week and Liverpool the next.
I , like many of you, have tried to be positive but the constant wearing down of any optimism is having an effect. My one hope is that the confidence missing comes back and everyone starts to truly believe we are a good side.
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We've had several managers over the last few years trying different tactics, formations and ways to try and stop the rot and improve. None of which have had any success. To me it's seem obvious there's one stinking great problem throughout this period and it's that most of the teams in the league have a better overall squad than we do. We carry too many guys that simply don't cut it. Westwood, Hutton, Bacuna, Gabby etc are just not up to the level we require to progress. Buy a better quality of player than the likes of Stoke, Swansea etc and get a manager and coaching staff that help them play as a team and we might start climbing out of this mess. I agree with others that the standard of the squad is better this season but the problem for us is that it appears the rest of the also rans have improved as well and raised the bar. West Ham signing players like Payet just sets us further behind the likes of them. You really do need to spend just to stand still in this league.
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The underlying problem is that even if we thrash Stoke say 4-0 we would have absolutely no confidence that we could then beat Chelsea. The odd ray of hope is always followed by piss shower of reality. I just cannot fathom how we have fallen behind the likes of Leicester, Watford, Bournmouth, Stoke, Crystal Palace etc
Let's get a win against Stoke and I will worry about Chelsea afterwards. But I hear what you are saying. We just want a competitive team that wins as many as it loses at the moment nothing more.
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The underlying problem is that even if we thrash Stoke say 4-0 we would have absolutely no confidence that we could then beat Chelsea. The odd ray of hope is always followed by piss shower of reality. I just cannot fathom how we have fallen behind the likes of Leicester, Watford, Bournmouth, Stoke, Crystal Palace etc in regards to a fight and determination to be better. The air of superiority and complacency that exists even though survival is the sum of our ambitions is evidence of how low we have sunk. We have now completely lost touch we our peer group, we did successfully compete for many years and had a belief we could get positive results even if we played Chelsea one week and Liverpool the next.
I , like many of you, have tried to be positive but the constant wearing down of any optimism is having an effect. My one hope is that the confidence missing comes back and everyone starts to truly believe we are a good side.
Unfortunately that is the problem. We are not a good side. We are indecisive in central defence,poor at right back and disjointed further forward. If Agbonlahor had been fit yesterday Sherwood would have played him which would would not have proved helpful.
Both Lambert and Sherwood can obviously spot a player but neither have a clue how to set up a team or make the right tactical changes when the time comes. Why,for instance did Ayew not make an appearance yesterday? It just does not make sense.
Gerard Houllier was our best chance after MON left but for reasons discussed many times it didn't work out.
We need a proffessional manager someone who can forge a tight working unit from a set of mainly talented players
Perhaps we should look at Nigel Pearson, who upsets a lot of people, but got nine wins out of eleven to keep Leicester up. Or offer Sir Alex
a two year contract to come out of retirement and sort the playing side of the club out as only he could.
As The Stranglers said, 'Something Better Change'....and quickly!
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If you employ the following
Semi retired manager with health problems
Relegation merchant with no balls who is terrified of losing games
Guy with 12 months experience in top flight football at a small club with backroom staff who's his mate and brother in law
Bloke who's never managed a season in the top flight and has no other experience at all
Then you are going to keep getting fucked, unless one of your 1000/1 gambles pays off. Nowadays that's all we do though, gamble on young unproven players to become gems, gamble on managers from non entity clubs to make the step up, gamble on inexperienced managers to miraculously learn quick on the job and not end up broken. Everything is a gamble.
Even Fox has had to make a huge step up from his previous job to what he is doing now. I think they're all seriously out of their depth, unqualified people from top to bottom making desperate decisions on things they don't have a grasp on.
I cannot wait until Lerner fucks off elsewhere and takes every last one of his clueless cronies with him.
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But surely we as fans need to do more than moan on forums.
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Bad bad decisions by Lerner and Co post O'Neill leaving. Change of direction without clarity of how to go about it in a safe way. It started with unfortunate appointment if Houllier. McLeish followed in what was a tepid appointment to do nothing other than not to relegate us. The change of direction to young and hungry and Lambert's appointment was good and if we are honest most of us bought into that. The problem was young and hungry was implemented with very very poor cheap players. Later we found out about Lambert's inadequacy however management took too long in pulling the trigger. Next we appointed an unknown tactically naive motivator and giving him nearly £60 million to sign a new team in another error. We did not need to bring in 14 new players. We needed 4 circa £15m players. So now we have a new squad of average players lead by a sound bite Press lovey footballing village idiot. Time in now to get in a real coach otherwise we will be looking to appoint another motivator for the last ten games of the season and going down into the second division.
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But surely we as fans need to do more than moan on forums.
Consider our home record over the last 5 seasons. I'm seriously surprised we still get the crowds we do. That fickle line couldn't have been further from the truth IMO.
If anything, we haven't complained loudly enough.
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One thing Sherwood has been right about is that we have/had a losing mentality on the playing staff, so I think h was right to adopt the 'new broom' approach. It's just that he hasn't yet seemed to fix it.
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The club has the same stink about it that it had in the late 60s early 70s before we began our disastrous plunge.
I hope am wrong but the warning signs are all there.
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But surely we as fans need to do more than moan on forums.
What? Other than turn up and support which we do! Unless you mean lay a siege at BMH?
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The club has the same stink about it that it had in the late 60s early 70s before we began our disastrous plunge.
I hope am wrong but the warning signs are all there.
There's some over the top comments on here today but that one's the best so far.
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its sometimes very hard to put into words what your head and heart are saying.
many of us on here remember the halcyon days of the late seventies and early eighties
but try to forget the early seventies and late eighties.
what got us from the 3rd to the 1st? the 2nd back to the 1st?
I don't know the answer,does anybody?
So many questions but no definitive answers.
I do believe it was almost certainly down to continuity and a strong and passionate
boardroom(ie the very top dogs at the club). We now seem devoid of any ambition
at this wonderful football club and it is really starting to worry me what lies in store.
OK I know if we do get relegated we would be back,without doubt, but returning any
better or wiser, I doubt.
The problem lies at the very top,we need a new owner with people around him that
have villa close to their hearts(dream on).We keep trying to mop up the puddles(McLeish
lambert et al) but until the root cause is addressed we will continue to fester..
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Next Saturday will be very interesting in terms of if things go wrong on the pitch (let's face it that has a high probability rating) will the crowd turn on the manager.
I think the crowd will be very sparse which in itself should tell Fox all he needs to know .
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Next Saturday will be very interesting in terms of if things go wrong on the pitch (let's face it that has a high probability rating) will the crowd turn on the manager.
I think the crowd will be very sparse which in itself should tell Fox all he needs to know .
We don't get massive crowds against Stoke anyway.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
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Next Saturday will be very interesting in terms of if things go wrong on the pitch (let's face it that has a high probability rating) will the crowd turn on the manager.
I think the crowd will be very sparse which in itself should tell Fox all he needs to know .
We don't get massive crowds against Stoke anyway.
Well unless Stan Matthews is playing!....and George Cummings could take care of him.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
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The way we got back from the 2nd and the 3rd was because we had fans who were made of the right stuff.
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I know some of our players aren't up to much, but are they really that much worse than some of the less established clubs who do better than us, year after year?
And is Sherwood capable of even spotting the less impressive ones, as he keeps picking a few of them.
What concerns me is that although players make mistakes, it isn't the players who look like they are doing the most damage, it is Sherwood and his bizarre tactics.
If you take a look at any Spurs forum, you will see that he is getting criticised here for the exact things he did there. He's not going to change in a hurry. For starters, he's too arrogant.
I can see the Lambert Cycle coming back - decent result somewhere followed by two months of absolute shit, repeated to the end of the season. Except we won't get away with it again.
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The underlying problem for this great club has always been the owner and I'm not just referring to Lerner as I can go back to Norman Smith and the "board must go" days.
Ellis took over then and it's fair to say I eventually hated him with a passion for continuously holding us back when we had opportunities to become a top club.
As much as I hated Ellis , Lerner has taken bad ownership to the level of criminal negligence as he has washed his hands of us and allowed us to slide into a bad joke of a club with an absolutely terrible defeatist DNA.
At least Ellis would have fronted up to it and not run off and hid like Lerner has.
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I've seen nearly every game over the last miserable five years, this is no-where near as bad as its been.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
I was referring to the mad rant about Americans earlier in the thread. I thought it was part of Great Universal Stores, a British-owned company. I could of course be mistaken.
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At Leicester I remember turning to the bloke behind me when we went 2-0 up and saying 'Why do I feel worse? When they pulled one back, you felt the slow intake of breath from the crowd like we all knew what was coming.
I remember a season or so ago, Emile Heskey being quoted as saying the Villa fans 'Don't so much get on your back as go unbearably quiet'. I think my match companion's reaction of 'F off Emile, if you hadn't been so F in shit maybe we'd have had more to sing about' is a fair one, but I also think he is right.
I do think the team felt that from us at Leicester, and I think there is a difference between ' blaming the fans' and saying the continuation of a losing mentality lies with the fans. Look back over this thread and it is about how many years we have put up with this, how every one has had enough of losing and being shit. We have come to expect it?
A few posts up there's something like - Even if we beat Stoke 4-0 I'll have no confidence going into the Chelsea game because every upturn is followed by more shit. That's how we all feel now, it's like we've lost the ability to believe in anything good.
I think the Cup Final really cemented this - more than any other time we've gone to Wembley I believed this was 'our year' - it felt like all the signs were there. It emerged like a beacon out of the shiteness that surrounded it. We were in an FA Cup miracle bubble and nothing could stop us. When that bubble burst, it felt as bad as anything I'd experienced as a fan.
It becomes easier to believe that everything is shit, that when you are 2-0 up, all it is going to take is one goal from the opposition and it's all going down the pan, because believing good stuff is going to happen can only end one way can't it?
I honestly believe that with a change of manager, director, & virtually the entire playing staff, the continuation of a 'losing mentality' might lie with us. NOT, that it is our fault, but that we are ground down by it and struggling to get up. The challenge for a manager of this club, is getting a team to be able to play us out of that, rather than panic when they feel it from us. We have earned our right to be miserable and defeatist, we need a team that is able to rise above that to drag us out of it, not be pulled in with us.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
I was referring to the mad rant about Americans earlier in the thread. I thought it was part of Great Universal Stores, a British-owned company. I could of course be mistaken.
The ultimate holding company of Burger King is a Delaware company, as you'd probably expect, but most of the restaurants around the world are privately held franchises. In the UK, Grand Metropolitan (not GUS) owned Wimpy, and merged it with Burger King, presumably because they'd bought into the BK franchises.
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Oh right, I missed that and thought you'd just got in or summat. Sorry.
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I met a bloke who claimed to be a Burger King executive whilst watching the Bournmouth game, he started telling me the history before I excused myself, went to the bar and then went to stand somewhere else.
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Oh right, I missed that and thought you'd just got in or summat. Sorry.
No, I've been in all night sadly.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
I was referring to the mad rant about Americans earlier in the thread. I thought it was part of Great Universal Stores, a British-owned company. I could of course be mistaken.
The ultimate holding company of Burger King is a Delaware company, as you'd probably expect, but most of the restaurants around the world are privately held franchises. In the UK, Grand Metropolitan (not GUS) owned Wimpy, and merged it with Burger King, presumably because they'd bought into the BK franchises.
Ta.
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its sometimes very hard to put into words what your head and heart are saying.
many of us on here remember the halcyon days of the late seventies and early eighties
but try to forget the early seventies and late eighties.
what got us from the 3rd to the 1st? the 2nd back to the 1st?
I don't know the answer,does anybody?
So many questions but no definitive answers.
I do believe it was almost certainly down to continuity and a strong and passionate
boardroom(ie the very top dogs at the club). We now seem devoid of any ambition
at this wonderful football club and it is really starting to worry me what lies in store.
OK I know if we do get relegated we would be back,without doubt, but returning any
better or wiser, I doubt.
The problem lies at the very top,we need a new owner with people around him that
have villa close to their hearts(dream on).We keep trying to mop up the puddles(McLeish
lambert et al) but until the root cause is addressed we will continue to fester..
4/10. Doesn't even rhyme.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
I was referring to the mad rant about Americans earlier in the thread. I thought it was part of Great Universal Stores, a British-owned company. I could of course be mistaken.
At this stage I would like to state that I have NEVER been to a Burger King establishment to purchase anything whatsoever!
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I blame MON. He ruined the tram museum for me.
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You are right we have been off track ever since.
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I'd just like to point out that Burger King are a British company.
Well, someone needed to point it out.
It's not by the way, it's based in Florida. What that has got to do with the price of fish, or processed meat, I'm confused about but there you go.
I was referring to the mad rant about Americans earlier in the thread. I thought it was part of Great Universal Stores, a British-owned company. I could of course be mistaken.
At this stage I would like to state that I have NEVER been to a Burger King establishment to purchase anything whatsoever!
I have and I didn't like it much, and I usually love crap like that. I'm not exactly a connoisseur.
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I think our problems stem from our inability as fans to express hyperbolic outrage. If, for example, we could all agree to refer to this 'once great club' in a uniform way, or settle on using 'Aston Villa Football Club' to indicate gravitas then surely Randolph would have no option but to release a statement that we could then moan about for ages. We, the fans, must remain resolute and remember that moaning is the only avenue left open to us now.
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I think our problems stem from our inability as fans to express hyperbolic outrage. If, for example, we could all agree to refer to this 'once great club' in a uniform way, or settle on using 'Aston Villa Football Club' to indicate gravitas then surely Randolph would have no option but to release a statement that we could then moan about for ages. We, the fans, must remain resolute and remember that moaning is the only avenue left open to us now.
Your first setnence could be correct. It always amazed me that during Lamberts dire reign the fans never turned on him. We were patient.
Thats probably why i want a change now
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I've seen nearly every game over the last miserable five years, this is no-where near as bad as its been.
I disagree. Only because when we got to the final, we had some hope for a few weeks. The SF was one of my best days out in football ever. I thought we had finally turned the corner again. I wasnt exoecting miracles but a nice steady mid table finish this season would have suited me fine and thenbuild from there. So we had some hope and now its gone Pete Tonge again and so soon after the SF.
Thats why in my view this is as bad as its been since 2010
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Of course, if we really want to make a difference as fans, we need to start thinking about the nuclear option: the use of incongruous quotation marks. "Tactics", "coaching", "football manager", "entertainment". Nothing ought to be left off the table.
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its sometimes very hard to put into words what your head and heart are saying.
many of us on here remember the halcyon days of the late seventies and early eighties
but try to forget the early seventies and late eighties.
what got us from the 3rd to the 1st? the 2nd back to the 1st?
I don't know the answer,does anybody?
So many questions but no definitive answers.
I do believe it was almost certainly down to continuity and a strong and passionate
boardroom(ie the very top dogs at the club). We now seem devoid of any ambition
at this wonderful football club and it is really starting to worry me what lies in store.
OK I know if we do get relegated we would be back,without doubt, but returning any
better or wiser, I doubt.
The problem lies at the very top,we need a new owner with people around him that
have villa close to their hearts(dream on).We keep trying to mop up the puddles(McLeish
lambert et al) but until the root cause is addressed we will continue to fester..
4/10. Doesn't even rhyme.
I don't know. If you imagine Bernard Sumner singing them with some melancholy tune, it kind of works.
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We've been clutching at straws for years now as each new manager and clutch of new players comes along. Little shafts of light and optimism before the unremitting gloom returns to extinguish all hope. The odd exceptional performance and result and then its Groundhog Day once again, the ineptitude returns and the results nosedive again. There was a Telegraph football reporter on the TV last week saying that clubs like Sunderland, Newcastle and Villa were "rotten to the core" and needed to be relegated. Yesterday, another reporter put Liverpool's win yesterday in context by saying they were playing one of the worst sides in the Premiership. That's our Villa they're talking about here and the really humiliating thing is that they're right. We're a weakling getting sand kicked in our face on the beach whilst still thinking we're a playground tough man. I don't like Small Heath and the Ollbeyun one bit, but you can see where their fans are coming from when they call us deluded pricks.
Lerner is an utterly disastrous owner now and any credit he had ran out four years ago. He's brought us to our lowest ebb as a club for 50 years. A clueless will o' the wisp whose existence is now a faint rumour. The buffoon can't even sell what he owns. Until he goes, the pain and agony will continue. Many more months of torment lie ahead, I fear.
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The underlying problem is the owner, not a dig but the fact we are for sale and we are buying players in line with that fact.
The issue with the playing side is we have lost three major players, have a group new to the league and the teams that have been promoted have settled, organised teams.
I just hope the talent we have, will prove itself. I'm confident(ish) !
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The underlying problem is the owner, not a dig but the fact we are for sale and we are buying players in line with that fact.
The issue with the playing side is we have lost three major players, have a group new to the league and the teams that have been promoted have settled, organised teams.
I just hope the talent we have, will prove itself. I'm confident(ish) !
Tom Cleverley was on loan to us. Unless of course you mean Andreas Weimann!
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The underlying problem is the owner, not a dig but the fact we are for sale and we are buying players in line with that fact.
The issue with the playing side is we have lost three major players, have a group new to the league and the teams that have been promoted have settled, organised teams.
I just hope the talent we have, will prove itself. I'm confident(ish) !
Tom Cleverley was on loan to us. Unless of course you mean Andreas Weimann!
I meant Vlaar, not that he was any use last year I suppose!
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O'Neill was allowed to near bankrupt the club
Houllier should never have been hired as manager, nor his useless lacky
McLeish should never have been hired to even make the tea
Lambert should have been binned in May 2014
Fuck up after fuck up after fuck up. Humiliation after humilation to lower league clubs in Cup competitions.
Absent owner, income fallen behind others, CEO 1 was a credit card manager, CEO 2 talked about falese narratives after wed scrored 12 goals at a rate of 0,5 per game.
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I've seen nearly every game over the last miserable five years, this is no-where near as bad as its been.
I disagree. Only because when we got to the final, we had some hope for a few weeks. The SF was one of my best days out in football ever. I thought we had finally turned the corner again. I wasnt exoecting miracles but a nice steady mid table finish this season would have suited me fine and thenbuild from there. So we had some hope and now its gone Pete Tonge again and so soon after the SF.
Thats why in my view this is as bad as its been since 2010
agree with that
the bitters game was as bad and as clueless as anything i have seen in the past 5 seasons as was the first half against small heath
6 tough games coming up if we pick up 3 wins (highly unlikely) that would give us 13 points from 13 games
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I've seen nearly every game over the last miserable five years, this is no-where near as bad as its been.
I disagree. Only because when we got to the final, we had some hope for a few weeks. The SF was one of my best days out in football ever. I thought we had finally turned the corner again. I wasnt exoecting miracles but a nice steady mid table finish this season would have suited me fine and thenbuild from there. So we had some hope and now its gone Pete Tonge again and so soon after the SF.
Thats why in my view this is as bad as its been since 2010
agree with that
the bitters game was as bad and as clueless as anything i have seen in the past 5 seasons as was the first half against small heath
6 tough games coming up if we pick up 3 wins (highly unlikely) that would give us 13 points from 13 games
you must have missed large chunks of Lamberts tenure.
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The club has the same stink about it that it had in the late 60s early 70s before we began our disastrous plunge.
I hope am wrong but the warning signs are all there.
Are you employed by Lerner?
There's some over the top comments on here today but that one's the best so far.
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
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Like Sunderland, years of shit and a culture of losing throughout the club. Hoped Sherwood would change that and initially did. All changed when we got slaughtered at Southampton which in my opinion led to the tame Wembley display.
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O'Neill was allowed to near bankrupt the club
Houllier should never have been hired as manager, nor his useless lacky
McLeish should never have been hired to even make the tea
Lambert should have been binned in May 2014
Fuck up after fuck up after fuck up. Humiliation after humilation to lower league clubs in Cup competitions.
Absent owner, income fallen behind others, CEO 1 was a credit card manager, CEO 2 talked about falese narratives after wed scrored 12 goals at a rate of 0,5 per game.
Careful you will be accused of being over the top .
As I said previously I can only recall the club being this badly run in the late 60s early 70s.You can't get away with being this inept indefinitely, sooner or later the cumulative effect of cock up on cock up catches up with you.
Of cource some will say it couldn't possibly happen but some of us are old enough to remember this scenario and the eventual outcone.
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I fear we won't even reach 30 points this season.
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
Whilst I agree the points total is disappointing, we have only played seven games.
One we won, so that's six to chew over.
Man Utd what's their squad worth, over 200 million? We narrowly lost.
Palace we probably deserved a point.
Sunderland we really should have beaten.
Leicester, should have beaten.
Baggies match was not great admittedly.
Liverpool, another team full of stars, despite their problems.
Sherwood has made mistakes, the players have too. I'm optimistic and quite looking forward to the rest of the season, I may be a mug, may have low expectations but it won't be as bad as Mcleish or Lambert.
Whether it's good enough for Aston Villa is another argument.
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I fear we won't even reach 30 points this season.
If we had 29 points now you'd still worry we wouldn't get 30
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The club is still in a decline that started in 2010. You look at teams like Southampton, Swansea and West Ham, and they've moved ahead of us. This is also the case with Palace which was unthinkable 5 years ago. Shocking to think where we're heading.
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
Whilst I agree the points total is disappointing, we have only played seven games.
One we won, so that's six to chew over.
Man Utd what's their squad worth, over 200 million? We narrowly lost.
Palace we probably deserved a point.
Sunderland we really should have beaten.
Leicester, should have beaten.
Baggies match was not great admittedly.
Liverpool, another team full of stars, despite their problems.
Sherwood has made mistakes, the players have too. I'm optimistic and quite looking forward to the rest of the season, I may be a mug, may have low expectations but it won't be as bad as Mcleish or Lambert.
Whether it's good enough for Aston Villa is another argument.
Well said that man!
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"Should have beaten" when you lost is pretty meaningless, surely?
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That occurred to me but we need as many optimists as we can muster.
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At Leicester I remember turning to the bloke behind me when we went 2-0 up and saying 'Why do I feel worse? When they pulled one back, you felt the slow intake of breath from the crowd like we all knew what was coming.
I remember a season or so ago, Emile Heskey being quoted as saying the Villa fans 'Don't so much get on your back as go unbearably quiet'. I think my match companion's reaction of 'F off Emile, if you hadn't been so F in shit maybe we'd have had more to sing about' is a fair one, but I also think he is right.
I do think the team felt that from us at Leicester, and I think there is a difference between ' blaming the fans' and saying the continuation of a losing mentality lies with the fans. Look back over this thread and it is about how many years we have put up with this, how every one has had enough of losing and being shit. We have come to expect it?
A few posts up there's something like - Even if we beat Stoke 4-0 I'll have no confidence going into the Chelsea game because every upturn is followed by more shit. That's how we all feel now, it's like we've lost the ability to believe in anything good.
I think the Cup Final really cemented this - more than any other time we've gone to Wembley I believed this was 'our year' - it felt like all the signs were there. It emerged like a beacon out of the shiteness that surrounded it. We were in an FA Cup miracle bubble and nothing could stop us. When that bubble burst, it felt as bad as anything I'd experienced as a fan.
It becomes easier to believe that everything is shit, that when you are 2-0 up, all it is going to take is one goal from the opposition and it's all going down the pan, because believing good stuff is going to happen can only end one way can't it?
I honestly believe that with a change of manager, director, & virtually the entire playing staff, the continuation of a 'losing mentality' might lie with us. NOT, that it is our fault, but that we are ground down by it and struggling to get up. The challenge for a manager of this club, is getting a team to be able to play us out of that, rather than panic when they feel it from us. We have earned our right to be miserable and defeatist, we need a team that is able to rise above that to drag us out of it, not be pulled in with us.
Great post Amfy. Strangely enough, the one game where it seemed the fans didn't believe we were going to lose was the FA Cup semi final. The support just didn't stop and carried us through, culminating in the famous roar towards the end. It seemed to carry on from there until our bubble burst at Southampton away (even though the support there was still great considering what happened)
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"Should have beaten" when you lost is pretty meaningless, surely?
It's zero points that's for sure.
I just don't think Sherwood is as bad as some make out. The summer overhaul has been much better than I expected.
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
Whilst I agree the points total is disappointing, we have only played seven games.
One we won, so that's six to chew over.
Man Utd what's their squad worth, over 200 million? We narrowly lost.
Palace we probably deserved a point.
Sunderland we really should have beaten.
Leicester, should have beaten.
Baggies match was not great admittedly.
Liverpool, another team full of stars, despite their problems.
Sherwood has made mistakes, the players have too. I'm optimistic and quite looking forward to the rest of the season, I may be a mug, may have low expectations but it won't be as bad as Mcleish or Lambert.
Whether it's good enough for Aston Villa is another argument.
They cost more money
Should of could of
Should of could of
Should of could of
We were shit
They cost more money
Sounds like a bunch of excuses from the Blues fan playbook.
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
Whilst I agree the points total is disappointing, we have only played seven games.
One we won, so that's six to chew over.
Man Utd what's their squad worth, over 200 million? We narrowly lost.
Palace we probably deserved a point.
Sunderland we really should have beaten.
Leicester, should have beaten.
Baggies match was not great admittedly.
Liverpool, another team full of stars, despite their problems.
Sherwood has made mistakes, the players have too. I'm optimistic and quite looking forward to the rest of the season, I may be a mug, may have low expectations but it won't be as bad as Mcleish or Lambert.
Whether it's good enough for Aston Villa is another argument.
They cost more money
Should of could of
Should of could of
Should of could of
We were shit
They cost more money
Sounds like a bunch of excuses from the Blues fan playbook.
ah well
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"Should have beaten" when you lost is pretty meaningless, surely?
It's zero points that's for sure.
I just don't think Sherwood is as bad as some make out. The summer overhaul has been much better than I expected.
I think Tim is true to his stated ambition of getting rid of a losing mentality. That's the underlying problem that he identified straight away.
He is not going to come out with, ' the lads done well/ brilliant' comments post match if he doesn't think they have or if the plan they worked on during the week took a dive within the first couple of minutes. He wants the players to be accountable and recognise when they have switched off. Good for him.
He has added exciting players to the squad. He does need time to get everybody working together. No, I don't like being in the bottom 3 but there are months left of the season in which they will improve. Better than being there at Xmas or in March.
If we're still there at Xmas I will be surprised.
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I can't blame Lerner. Is he disinterested because of personal problems, sure okay. Has he always fronted up cash and given each manager a more than healthy chunk to spend, yes I think he has. He's written off and swallowed the loans the club owes him to help it out. That's really all I can ask of a billionaire owner. He's an easy target because we all know about him and he never speaks. That's his crime apparently.
For me, our CEO's should have done more. Yes perhaps they should not have been appointed but they are the ones with the day to day running of Aston Villa FC. They, either through inaction or inability have allowed Villa to be in this inescapable rut. We've also had a lot of CEOs and that can't be good for stability or for continuity. More nous on the board at Villa and we'd do better I think. We wouldn't just blindly stand by while everything seemingly goes to shit.
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I must say, my worry is that it's only the fans who remember what this club is about. Or so it would seem anyway.
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I can't blame Lerner. Is he disinterested because of personal problems, sure okay. Has he always fronted up cash and given each manager a more than healthy chunk to spend, yes I think he has. He's written off and swallowed the loans the club owes him to help it out. That's really all I can ask of a billionaire owner. He's an easy target because we all know about him and he never speaks. That's his crime apparently.
Are you his lawyer?
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There is a thesis to be written entitled The underlying problem at Aston Villa Football Club.
The truth is that, aside from a glorious trajectory from the mid 70s to the early 80s (and that had its blips along the way) and the odd season here or there, the club has underperformed when measured against its potential since the 1930s. Yes, for the first time in my supporting life the club has consistently underperformed for a number of seasons on the trot, but that also happened in the late 50s and even more spectacularly in the mid/late 60s.
I don't know what that history tells us, other than perhaps there is a something deeper in the collective psyche of those that own, run, play for or support the club. A lack of ruthlessness perhaps. A contentment with just being top dog in the city or wider region. An acceptance that, like it or not, just as the city is something of a national joke, then the club has to play its part in the ridicule. Possibly it is none of those things. But to lay all the blame for the current malaise at the door of Lerner or Fox or Sherwood or Agbonlahor I think misses the bigger picture.
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Top deck I hear what you say about under achieving mate but at least in the 22 seasons from 1990 to 2011 we finished in the top half 17 times, we were at least consistently decent. Right now we are consistently appalling. I think we are all hurting and frustrated and eventually someone is going to bare the brunt of it, could well be Tim.
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There is a thesis to be written entitled The underlying problem at Aston Villa Football Club.
The truth is that, aside from a glorious trajectory from the mid 70s to the early 80s (and that had its blips along the way) and the odd season here or there, the club has underperformed when measured against its potential since the 1930s. Yes, for the first time in my supporting life the club has consistently underperformed for a number of seasons on the trot, but that also happened in the late 50s and even more spectacularly in the mid/late 60s.
I don't know what that history tells us, other than perhaps there is a something deeper in the collective psyche of those that own, run, play for or support the club. A lack of ruthlessness perhaps. A contentment with just being top dog in the city or wider region. An acceptance that, like it or not, just as the city is something of a national joke, then the club has to play its part in the ridicule. Possibly it is none of those things. But to lay all the blame for the current malaise at the door of Lerner or Fox or Sherwood or Agbonlahor I think misses the bigger picture.
Newcastle have underachieved even more than we have, ditto pre-sheikh Manchester City and arguably Everton, yet they're all from highly-regarded cities.
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At least we will have larger parachute payments if we go down this year and if spent correctly we should come straight back up .
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as villa fans(to a tee)
we are in a no win no win
we know whats wrong from top to bottom
the glory days will never be forgotten
keep heads held high and don't forget
we will stay up because we are VILLA
UTV
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I don't think it's time to throw in the towel just yet.
September?
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I don't think it's time to throw in the towel just yet.
September?
Agree, but we need a ray of hope from somewhere fast.
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Can't really argue with any of those, Dave. There are also clubs in London that will fall into that category, too. Perhaps the answer is that some clubs have their moments and when it's gone, it's gone, and a few have perpetual success. A success that has become entrenched through the current financial rewards that comes with that success.
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Can't really argue with any of those, Dave. There are also clubs in London that will fall into that category, too. Perhaps the answer is that some clubs have their moments and when it's gone, it's gone, and a few have perpetual success. A success that has become entrenched through the current financial rewards that comes with that success.
I can't think of any club that has perpetual success except possibly Arsenal and even they've had periods of mediocrity. The two most widely-known English clubs are Liverpool and Manchester United. Neither of them had massive success until the fifties in the former case and sixties in the latter, and even then they both went 26/26 and counting seasons without winning the league, which given their supporter bases is massive underachievement. League-wise there can't be many club who've outperformed us since we came up in 1975 but the big problem where perception is concerned is that we've only won three domestic trophies in that time. I forget who it was that said it, but clubs such as those two and to a lesser extent Surs can always seem to spawn a trophy when they aren't doing well to keep their profile high.
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I can't blame Lerner. Is he disinterested because of personal problems, sure okay. Has he always fronted up cash and given each manager a more than healthy chunk to spend, yes I think he has. He's written off and swallowed the loans the club owes him to help it out. That's really all I can ask of a billionaire owner. He's an easy target because we all know about him and he never speaks. That's his crime apparently.
For me, our CEO's should have done more. Yes perhaps they should not have been appointed but they are the ones with the day to day running of Aston Villa FC. They, either through inaction or inability have allowed Villa to be in this inescapable rut. We've also had a lot of CEOs and that can't be good for stability or for continuity. More nous on the board at Villa and we'd do better I think. We wouldn't just blindly stand by while everything seemingly goes to shit.
i posted during the close season that I felt ultimately Faulkener as CEO should shoulder a lot of the blame for not reigning in Oneills spending spree which effectively broke the club for the foreseeable future, which is where our current problems really began.
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Perhaps the legend of MON fell apart at Aston Villa and made subsequent employers more aware. It was well and truly alive at the time, though.
I think our current malaise is about not being able to break out of mediocrity and Tim has identified that. He is doing what he thinks is right to break out. I will give him a bit more time to get his vision working.
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I can't blame Lerner. Is he disinterested because of personal problems, sure okay. Has he always fronted up cash and given each manager a more than healthy chunk to spend, yes I think he has. He's written off and swallowed the loans the club owes him to help it out. That's really all I can ask of a billionaire owner. He's an easy target because we all know about him and he never speaks. That's his crime apparently.
For me, our CEO's should have done more. Yes perhaps they should not have been appointed but they are the ones with the day to day running of Aston Villa FC. They, either through inaction or inability have allowed Villa to be in this inescapable rut. We've also had a lot of CEOs and that can't be good for stability or for continuity. More nous on the board at Villa and we'd do better I think. We wouldn't just blindly stand by while everything seemingly goes to shit.
i posted during the close season that I felt ultimately Faulkener as CEO should shoulder a lot of the blame for not reigning in Oneills spending spree which effectively broke the club for the foreseeable future, which is where our current problems really began.
Problem there was Faulkner was parachuted in with no football experience into a world where MON was king, judge, jury and executioner. How many other CEO's / attempted DoF's had he already seen off by that point.
I think it was Faulkner finally twigging how fubar the finances were that precipitated the great flounce off.
The overarching theme through all of Lerner's time in charge has been the lack of people who understand football both on and off the pitch other than the first team manager.
The only time we'd got a chance of doing something about it was when Fitzgerald? resigned. Randy allowed the wrong man to walk away, but there'd have been hell to pay if MON had walked at that point.
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No leadership, no vision, no plan.
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Can't really argue with any of those, Dave. There are also clubs in London that will fall into that category, too. Perhaps the answer is that some clubs have their moments and when it's gone, it's gone, and a few have perpetual success. A success that has become entrenched through the current financial rewards that comes with that success.
I can't think of any club that has perpetual success except possibly Arsenal and even they've had periods of mediocrity. The two most widely-known English clubs are Liverpool and Manchester United. Neither of them had massive success until the fifties in the former case and sixties in the latter, and even then they both went 26/26 and counting seasons without winning the league, which given their supporter bases is massive underachievement. League-wise there can't be many club who've outperformed us since we came up in 1975 but the big problem where perception is concerned is that we've only won three domestic trophies in that time. I forget who it was that said it, but clubs such as those two and to a lesser extent Surs can always seem to spawn a trophy when they aren't doing well to keep their profile high.
4 trophies surely. League cups in 77, 94 and 96, League in 81?
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Can't really argue with any of those, Dave. There are also clubs in London that will fall into that category, too. Perhaps the answer is that some clubs have their moments and when it's gone, it's gone, and a few have perpetual success. A success that has become entrenched through the current financial rewards that comes with that success.
I can't think of any club that has perpetual success except possibly Arsenal and even they've had periods of mediocrity. The two most widely-known English clubs are Liverpool and Manchester United. Neither of them had massive success until the fifties in the former case and sixties in the latter, and even then they both went 26/26 and counting seasons without winning the league, which given their supporter bases is massive underachievement. League-wise there can't be many club who've outperformed us since we came up in 1975 but the big problem where perception is concerned is that we've only won three domestic trophies in that time. I forget who it was that said it, but clubs such as those two and to a lesser extent Spurs can always seem to spawn a trophy when they aren't doing well to keep their profile high.
4 trophies surely. League cups in 77, 94 and 96, League in 81?
Sorry, I meant to say cups. It was a way of saying that some clubs can collect shiny things even when their team isn't up to much but we've never managed it.
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From the mess now, it is a shame we didn't appoint Jurgen Klinnsmann instead of MON.
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I can't blame Lerner. Is he disinterested because of personal problems, sure okay. Has he always fronted up cash and given each manager a more than healthy chunk to spend, yes I think he has. He's written off and swallowed the loans the club owes him to help it out. That's really all I can ask of a billionaire owner. He's an easy target because we all know about him and he never speaks. That's his crime apparently.
For me, our CEO's should have done more. Yes perhaps they should not have been appointed but they are the ones with the day to day running of Aston Villa FC. They, either through inaction or inability have allowed Villa to be in this inescapable rut. We've also had a lot of CEOs and that can't be good for stability or for continuity. More nous on the board at Villa and we'd do better I think. We wouldn't just blindly stand by while everything seemingly goes to shit.
i posted during the close season that I felt ultimately Faulkener as CEO should shoulder a lot of the blame for not reigning in Oneills spending spree which effectively broke the club for the foreseeable future, which is where our current problems really began.
I don't think you'll find many of us who do not agree when and where this all started. The fact that it has caused this much damage is unbelievably baffling. But that was, what, 5 years or so ago? That the club haven't been able to move on from that shows the absolute weak leadership that has been shown. As much as they say to the contrary the owner is absent. He may care, of course he does any upturn of form means money and winning a big Cup Final puts the club very much in the shop window. hell, you may even turn up to the Cup Final. Why not? It's your club.
But the most damning thing to say is that where they may have been able to muddle better through the malaise is to appoint the right man for the job as manager. i think the decision to appoint Houllier, Mcleish (for fucks sake), Lambert, and Sherwood has directly led to where we are. That they have identified these people as the right man for the job surprised me. They are terrible at getting the manager we need in. Its gotten to the point where we dread an impending managerial appointment because you just don't know what the bloody hell they'll come up with.
yes, the fans were in support of Lambert at the time of appointment. But I don't think that swayed the decision to appoint. But, my Colchester mate (who all hate him) said that he'd be found out at Villa so were there any dissenting voices from the boardroom when deciding to appoint?
I remember from Dave's book, which is excellent by the way and I was thinking could do with an update because there's a hell of a lot to write about from O'Leary on,a run of largely wrong appointments and managers who have mostly faded into obscurity, and reading from back then you see similarities, not a solid backroom team, no money then money thrown at the problem but only to read that sometimes that had initial success but then ended up in failure and relegation. The only consistent was a weak or unstable backroom who could only appoint the wrong person rather than the real issues at hand. Then, as now, the rash splash of cash - where ever it comes from - is usually our only plan, as it ever was.
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Fuck me 5 trophies, league 81 , league cups x3 and that little trophy we won in 82!
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To me the underlying problem, is that we have no cohesive plan that can be implemented through the club from top to bottom, no (horrible word I am going to use for a football club) corporate identity, what we are good at and there has been a number off the pitch, we know about it but no one else does, because we take a closer interest, but we have and are still especially since Lerner very very poor at getting the message out there.Take the General for a prime example of crass corporate "We care "attitude, until it gets rough, then wham he is gone.
This seems to run through to the identifying and placement of managers, no set pattern of how the club identifies itself, allows for a transfer of dire do not lose, to play for a while then back to dire do not lose and has the cycle started again.
As for what is coming out of Sherwood at the moment, he is a inexperienced manager with a very cocky I know it all attitude, so surely you look for someone at the club, i.e. Fox to say pull it back a bit Timmy boy, it might be how you are feeling but lets say those things at Bodymoor, not on the BBC on a Saturday night when you are still hurting, because there's 30k other Villa fans hurting and alot of them have put up with this sort of shit alot longer than you son.
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Amen to that Kuwait. Like most of a lifetime longer than Sherwood has.
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Fuck me 5 trophies, league 81 , league cups x3 and that little trophy we won in 82!
The original point said domestic ie not European.
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To me the underlying problem, is that we have no cohesive plan that can be implemented through the club from top to bottom, no (horrible word I am going to use for a football club) corporate identity, what we are good at and there has been a number off the pitch, we know about it but no one else does, because we take a closer interest, but we have and are still especially since Lerner very very poor at getting the message out there.Take the General for a prime example of crass corporate "We care "attitude, until it gets rough, then wham he is gone.
This seems to run through to the identifying and placement of managers, no set pattern of how the club identifies itself, allows for a transfer of dire do not lose, to play for a while then back to dire do not lose and has the cycle started again.
As for what is coming out of Sherwood at the moment, he is a inexperienced manager with a very cocky I know it all attitude, so surely you look for someone at the club, i.e. Fox to say pull it back a bit Timmy boy, it might be how you are feeling but lets say those things at Bodymoor, not on the BBC on a Saturday night when you are still hurting, because there's 30k other Villa fans hurting and alot of them have put up with this sort of shit alot longer than you son.
Worth pointing out that we now have a Sporting Director / Technical Director / whatever you want to call him, in Hendrik Almstadt, which suggests that there actually is some thought towards football continuity above the level of manager.
I agree, one of the things he might want to be doing is having a word with Sherwood about the cockiness from time to time, it doesn't really stand up to scrutiny and it just pisses off the supporters.
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One underlying factor which has not been touched on is us, the crowd at Villa Park. Ever since MON flounced out we, the fans have had an endless stream of agony to endure. Patience and goodwill have become thin on the ground and, with every justification, our nerves and our tempers are frayed and the players pick up on it.
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One underlying factor which has not been touched on is us, the crowd at Villa Park. Ever since MON flounced out we, the fans have had an endless stream of agony to endure. Patience and goodwill have become thin on the ground and, with every justification, our nerves and our tempers are frayed and the players pick up on it.
Was just saing in the office I have noticed the difference as we come out of the ground after yet another defeat - people used to be saying "see you next time to give XXXXXX a seeing-to" now it is more "maybe see you in a couple of weeks - maybe...."
Must admit I am just bored now - can't even muster the anger - stopped following the matches when we are away as it just ruined ann afternoon - still attend but keep wondering why as even the entertainment factor is minimal
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Houllier was different. He struggled at first having inherited an ageing overpaid and unmotivated squad, and he showed a lack of respect for the club and the fans at times. But let's not forget we finished 9th after looking like relegation certs. We were playing some very decent stuff by the end of that season and the talk was of bringing in some very promising talent that close season. He wasn't perfect but it's notable that he's the only non-British coach Lerner has hired and he's the only one who had much of a clue tactically and achieved a top half finish. Our other managerial choices since have been, to varying degrees, insane, risky, naive, badly researched, and unambitious. It's the kind of thinking that has some people advocating bringing in the arch űnterPulis Allardyce. Surely if the net is cast around Europe and beyond we could come up with someone better than that?
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You are right kt. Houllier was a good manager. The only thing he had in common with the other post DOL incumbents was that we took a chance on him. With him we hoped he had a fully functioning heart, the others we hoped had a brain. We always roll the dice and it always comes up Delph Eyes.
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At Leicester I remember turning to the bloke behind me when we went 2-0 up and saying 'Why do I feel worse? When they pulled one back, you felt the slow intake of breath from the crowd like we all knew what was coming.
I remember a season or so ago, Emile Heskey being quoted as saying the Villa fans 'Don't so much get on your back as go unbearably quiet'. I think my match companion's reaction of 'F off Emile, if you hadn't been so F in shit maybe we'd have had more to sing about' is a fair one, but I also think he is right.
I do think the team felt that from us at Leicester, and I think there is a difference between ' blaming the fans' and saying the continuation of a losing mentality lies with the fans. Look back over this thread and it is about how many years we have put up with this, how every one has had enough of losing and being shit. We have come to expect it?
A few posts up there's something like - Even if we beat Stoke 4-0 I'll have no confidence going into the Chelsea game because every upturn is followed by more shit. That's how we all feel now, it's like we've lost the ability to believe in anything good.
I think the Cup Final really cemented this - more than any other time we've gone to Wembley I believed this was 'our year' - it felt like all the signs were there. It emerged like a beacon out of the shiteness that surrounded it. We were in an FA Cup miracle bubble and nothing could stop us. When that bubble burst, it felt as bad as anything I'd experienced as a fan.
It becomes easier to believe that everything is shit, that when you are 2-0 up, all it is going to take is one goal from the opposition and it's all going down the pan, because believing good stuff is going to happen can only end one way can't it?
I honestly believe that with a change of manager, director, & virtually the entire playing staff, the continuation of a 'losing mentality' might lie with us. NOT, that it is our fault, but that we are ground down by it and struggling to get up. The challenge for a manager of this club, is getting a team to be able to play us out of that, rather than panic when they feel it from us. We have earned our right to be miserable and defeatist, we need a team that is able to rise above that to drag us out of it, not be pulled in with us.
Great post Amfy. Strangely enough, the one game where it seemed the fans didn't believe we were going to lose was the FA Cup semi final. The support just didn't stop and carried us through, culminating in the famous roar towards the end. It seemed to carry on from there until our bubble burst at Southampton away (even though the support there was still great considering what happened)
Someone on here once said it's all over for a manager when the fans turn on him. I tend to think Lambert being left in place for so long was part down to the lack of reaction to him on matchdays.
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It is always about the man at the top.
We are here because of string of really poor decisions and the current situation through a lack of a decision regarding Lambert.
Now VP is seen as a place where the fans are easily critical or apathetic, Teams love coming to Villa Park, not the Home Team.
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We could do with a man of stature, who fans could respect coming in and galavanising the club. Getting a feel good factor going again, a Big Ron. Not more nobodies with 12 months on their Cv or questionable personalities.
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I can see Saturday being scarcely 30,000 , possibly 28k.
Interest is waning. Our home form is diabolical and it's not entertaining whatsoever .
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I think it is a little early to change manager but if it does happen you have to look at what Koeman has done at Southampton and hope a new manager could do the same. If we could get a man of stature as AJ says then we could finally put the last 5 years behind us. Klopp would be a gamble as he doesn't know the premier league but he would be my shout, if we could get him.
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I can see Saturday being scarcely 30,000 , possibly 28k.
Interest is waning. Our home form is diabolical and it's not entertaining whatsoever .
Good try, Silhill.
Seasoned GTC players will dismiss this scarcely veiled attempt at influencing their guesses and go ahead regardless.
Having said that I don't expect capacity, myself. ;)
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If Klopp is a gamble then Sherwood is the equivalent of sticking your cock in a crocodiles mouth and hoping it doesn't bite. We've sold ourselves short for years, culminating in appointing Blues like Sherwood, Mcleish and Lambert and now everyone thinks we are a complete joke. There is barely a drop of ambition left in the club.
If we'd have been linked with Rondon you can bet your arse most people on here would have said he wouldn't come, be realistic, he's played in the champions league. It's the same with the managers.
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Heads to GTC thread 8)
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Heads to GTC thread 8)
Remember. It's Stoke.
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Paulie Walnuts reference putting this guy in place regardless of his title will see hopefully an improvement, but again that will take time, it is the same with our scouting system, we actually look like we issue them a passport now, not a rail card.
As to us playing our part, I think for the older supporter we have seen cycles like this a number of times before, but have that hope and the memories of when we came good, but as I stated after the cup final at Wembley, I was in the hotel bar feeling miserable and stated , balls that would have made the full set, I would had seen us win and a young lad about 19 stated, lucky you, I've seen us win fuck all in my time of supporting them, so the younger Villa supporters really have nothing to hold onto or compare to and such probably allows for a lower estimation of where we sit in the grand scheme of things, allowing for a lowering of expectations that have been pushed out by the club over the last 5 years especially.
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Paulie Walnuts reference putting this guy in place regardless of his title will see hopefully an improvement, but again that will take time, it is the same with our scouting system, we actually look like we issue them a passport now, not a rail card.
As to us playing our part, I think for the older supporter we have seen cycles like this a number of times before, but have that hope and the memories of when we came good, but as I stated after the cup final at Wembley, I was in the hotel bar feeling miserable and stated , balls that would have made the full set, I would had seen us win and a young lad about 19 stated, lucky you, I've seen us win fuck all in my time of supporting them, so the younger Villa supporters really have nothing to hold onto or compare to and such probably allows for a lower estimation of where we sit in the grand scheme of things, allowing for a lowering of expectations that have been pushed out by the club over the last 5 years especially.
That is an excellent point regarding the younger fans. We have been almost ridiculed in the media, apart from when Golden Balls MON was around and it is based on history only being around for as long as Sky promote it. Its the same with the spoilt brat arrogant wankers that follow United that are around 30/35 they can only recognise a world where they dominated and that players would walk over hot coals to get there. All this league is about is who spends the most. there is no skill in scouring lower leagues for a gem or bringing your own academy players through as they will be picked off with impunity.
I am actually quite glad that I am not following one of the wankfest teams to be honest
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Hookey I agree and disagree with the point about it's all about who spends the most. To finish in the top 4/5 then it's a given you have to have a massive outlay on players but from 6th-12th it doesn't have to be that much.
We've seen Swansea, Southampton, Everton, Palace, Stoke all finish around those spots and we have by and large outspent them even during the last 5 years but have nothing to show for it. They've scouted some very very good additions from the lower leagues and abroad where as we've bought very badly.
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Spot on especially when you see arsenal fans having to stump +£100 for a standard ticket to a CL game or ManYanited fans threatened with bans if they don't pay for and attend cup games . Fuck that
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Hookey I agree and disagree with the point about it's all about who spends the most. To finish in the top 4/5 then it's a given you have to have a massive outlay on players but from 6th-12th it doesn't have to be that much.
We've seen Swansea, Southampton, Everton, Palace, Stoke all finish around those spots and we have by and large outspent them even during the last 5 years but have nothing to show for it. They've scouted some very very good additions from the lower leagues and abroad where as we've bought very badly.
There are short term examples of bucking the trend but robust statistical and economic analysis inSoccernomics (link to it on Amazon, below, can't link to the 92% quote direct) found that 92% of variation in league placings, over a very long period, is explainable by difference in wage budget. The other 8% is the difference between good and bad managers, broadly.
This might change in the scenario where all premier league clubs are significantly richer than everyone else in Europe I suppose
http://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-Australia-Turkey-Iraq-Are-Destined/dp/1568584253
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And we've had a very high wage budget including the last 5 years.
Last year 11th highest
Season before 7th highest
Before that 8th highest
We've spent the money very badly on players that have been poorly scouted.
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If you think back over the last 5/6 years it's quite incredible how bad we've been. Every season ends in a squabble on here as to whether we will or won't be relegated. Now fortunately thus far those in the latter camp have been correct, but frankly it's embarrassing that this is an ongoing debate year on year. There is a real acceptance of defeat within the club.
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Ridiculous to think how much Lerner has pumped in overall and what he has to show for it ! I make it 1 Peace Cup, a carbon free ground, a nice pub in Aston and a letter from siralex.
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A revamped BMH.
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A mosaic.
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There is a real acceptance of defeat within the club.
There you have boiled it down perfectly.
There is no pressure. When you're a millionaire - which managers and players tend to be these days - you need pressure to spur you on. But the likes of Gabby can coast on the pitch, and each manager will have a ready-made excuse, because every season is all about staying in the league.
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There is a real acceptance of defeat within the club.
There you have boiled it down perfectly.
There is no pressure. When you're a millionaire - which managers and players tend to be these days - you need pressure to spur you on. But the likes of Gabby can coast on the pitch, and each manager will have a ready-made excuse, because every season is all about staying in the league.
Pressure or pride and a winning mentality ?? Look at Sir Alex, worth tens of millions yet he was a driven determined winner for decades. You cannot teach or learn that , it comes from within.
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He was at Man Utd, a club that won't accept defeat.
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He was at Man Utd, a club that won't accept defeat.
They'd accepted 20 years of pretty much incescent mediocrity at a time when you didn't need to spend a fortune, but managing to blow a fortune anyway under the likes of Gordon Milne and our own BFR before he turned up.
The modern day myth of Man Utd is more the myth of SAF.
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One of the problems over the 5 years is that we haven't had a core of 4 or 5 solid experienced players to hold the team together. An example of this is not having a team captain worthy of the position (in my opinion) over that period. If you look at Everton, they have that core of solid professionals that have stayed with the club.
We seem to be in a constant state of change either with managers or players. When we have wanted to get rid of players, we have generally been stuck with them, which cannot be good for the rest of the players.
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One of the biggest blows I felt was when Barry slapped in a transfer request. That was more or less at the high point of the halcyon days under the bespectacled pube head and the new Lernarian period, yet our club captain decided he wanted out and it set a tone . Barry very roundly put the club in its place as a gig well below the big boys even when we were up and amongst them .
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One of the problems over the 5 years is that we haven't had a core of 4 or 5 solid experienced players to hold the team together.
Agree and would also add that I think we have lacked quality in midfield over that period as well. We never properly replaced Barry, Milner, Young and Downing, and lack quality in that area now. Our midfield has not been solid enough defensively or creative enough.
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Completely agree OMVF. For the last 5 years or more where there should have been a captain on the pitch bollocking and driving and marshalling our players we have had a vacuum. The role of captain has been relentlessly devalued up to the point of nothing but calling the coin toss.
The captain is the manager's voice on the field. When the language being used by the manager is foreign, incoherent or non existent a voice of authority in the thick of the fight is even more necessary.
Add to that the current arrogance and the at-my-discretion attitude of referees and more than ever you need a captain to calmly and respectfully get on the referee's case to demand a level playing field. The big bee I still have buzzing in my bonnet is the kicking our most gifted players are getting. This utterly abominable concept of taking one for the team legitimising the non-football of people like Pulis. We need a hard, strong captain more than ever but seem to be blind to the need.
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the antediluvian shite arse who kept Adama out for a few weeks should have been banned for the same period of time.
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One of the biggest blows I felt was when Barry slapped in a transfer request. That was more or less at the high point of the halcyon days under the bespectacled pube head and the new Lernarian period, yet our club captain decided he wanted out and it set a tone . Barry very roundly put the club in its place as a gig well below the big boys even when we were up and amongst them .
Or was it simply that he'd been here for over 10 years and fancied a new challenge?
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Isn't the important point not whether it is as bad as anything in the last five years or not, but that it is still woefully short of what is acceptable?
And that's at a time where our expectations are so low, it should be pretty much impossible to fail to satisfy them.
Whilst I agree the points total is disappointing, we have only played seven games.
One we won, so that's six to chew over.
Man Utd what's their squad worth, over 200 million? We narrowly lost.
Palace we probably deserved a point.
Sunderland we really should have beaten.
Leicester, should have beaten.
Baggies match was not great admittedly.
Liverpool, another team full of stars, despite their problems.
Sherwood has made mistakes, the players have too. I'm optimistic and quite looking forward to the rest of the season, I may be a mug, may have low expectations but it won't be as bad as Mcleish or Lambert.
Whether it's good enough for Aston Villa is another argument.
Well said that man!
Should of + Could of + Didn't = Relegation.
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There is a thesis to be written entitled The underlying problem at Aston Villa Football Club.
The truth is that, aside from a glorious trajectory from the mid 70s to the early 80s (and that had its blips along the way) and the odd season here or there, the club has underperformed when measured against its potential since the 1930s. Yes, for the first time in my supporting life the club has consistently underperformed for a number of seasons on the trot, but that also happened in the late 50s and even more spectacularly in the mid/late 60s.
I don't know what that history tells us, other than perhaps there is a something deeper in the collective psyche of those that own, run, play for or support the club. A lack of ruthlessness perhaps. A contentment with just being top dog in the city or wider region. An acceptance that, like it or not, just as the city is something of a national joke, then the club has to play its part in the ridicule. Possibly it is none of those things. But to lay all the blame for the current malaise at the door of Lerner or Fox or Sherwood or Agbonlahor I think misses the bigger picture.
There hasn't been the will, the nous or the finances to compete with the very best over a prolonged period since the days of Ramsey, Rinder et al.
The will and the finances has to come from the chairman/owner. The nous from the (wider) team he employs.
All looks further away than it's been during my supporting lifetime of around 45 years.
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Paulie Walnuts reference putting this guy in place regardless of his title will see hopefully an improvement, but again that will take time, it is the same with our scouting system, we actually look like we issue them a passport now, not a rail card.
As to us playing our part, I think for the older supporter we have seen cycles like this a number of times before, but have that hope and the memories of when we came good, but as I stated after the cup final at Wembley, I was in the hotel bar feeling miserable and stated , balls that would have made the full set, I would had seen us win and a young lad about 19 stated, lucky you, I've seen us win fuck all in my time of supporting them, so the younger Villa supporters really have nothing to hold onto or compare to and such probably allows for a lower estimation of where we sit in the grand scheme of things, allowing for a lowering of expectations that have been pushed out by the club over the last 5 years especially.
No we haven't.
Yes we have seen poor teams and relegation, but these were for relatively short periods of time.
There was always the reasonable expectation that with the right manager and financial backing that wouldn't bankrupt the club, that we could compete with the best and win the league, let alone the cups. Of course it only happened once, but we were very close under GT, BFR and BL.
With a mixture of the current regime and the 'development' of the PL we at an unprecendented level of uncompetitiveness.
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Completely agree OMVF. For the last 5 years or more where there should have been a captain on the pitch bollocking and driving and marshalling our players we have had a vacuum. The role of captain has been relentlessly devalued up to the point of nothing but calling the coin toss.
We miss Petrov in that role.
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I know results haven't backed this up but with Lescott and Richards at centre half they do seem to talk to others far more than the Clark/Vlaar combo. Maybe they should belt up?
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I agree with pauliew we have missed Petrov who imo held the midfield together I would love to see a midfielder who could consistently place a defence splitting pass.
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At the moment there is no winning culture, desire or mindset to compete at the very top of the game and for this the buck must stop with Randy Lerner.
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Completely agree OMVF. For the last 5 years or more where there should have been a captain on the pitch bollocking and driving and marshalling our players we have had a vacuum. The role of captain has been relentlessly devalued up to the point of nothing but calling the coin toss.
The captain is the manager's voice on the field. When the language being used by the manager is foreign, incoherent or non existent a voice of authority in the thick of the fight is even more necessary.
Add to that the current arrogance and the at-my-discretion attitude of referees and more than ever you need a captain to calmly and respectfully get on the referee's case to demand a level playing field. The big bee I still have buzzing in my bonnet is the kicking our most gifted players are getting. This utterly abominable concept of taking one for the team legitimising the non-football of people like Pulis. We need a hard, strong captain more than ever but seem to be blind to the need.
Some of the great Villa sides of the past have had several leaders on the field, and not just as captain. We've lacked this for years now.
However it all stems from the top. Lerner is never here and shows no leadership.
I remember when Graham Taylor left in 2003, he said that if you get a club right at the top then it has a good chance of flowing down throughout the rest of the club.
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
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I think Randy must bear some of the blame, but as an owner, I don't think it is a necessity for him to be actively involved with the club. Where he lets himself down is making a statement about appointing a Chairman if we aren't sold, then not doing it (yet).
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
And only then to crawl around the arse of the future King while the team he's supposed to be chairman of were getting royally dicked on the field.
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
And only then to crawl around the arse of the future King while the team he's supposed to be chairman of were getting royally dicked on the field.
In fairness, what else is he supposed to do while we're getting beaten?
Sub himself on? Have a word in Sherwood's ear?
Anyway, his "Oh yes, I'll definitely be there for THAT match!" gloryhunterish plan certainly didn't pan out very well for him, did it?
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He jinxed it
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
And only then to crawl around the arse of the future King while the team he's supposed to be chairman of were getting royally dicked on the field.
What was he supposed to do - ignore him?
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One of the biggest blows I felt was when Barry slapped in a transfer request. That was more or less at the high point of the halcyon days under the bespectacled pube head and the new Lernarian period, yet our club captain decided he wanted out and it set a tone . Barry very roundly put the club in its place as a gig well below the big boys even when we were up and amongst them .
Or was it simply that he'd been here for over 10 years and fancied a new challenge?
Either way it set a depressing tone and Young and Downing and Milner all quickly followed suit
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
And only then to crawl around the arse of the future King while the team he's supposed to be chairman of were getting royally dicked on the field.
What was he supposed to do - ignore him?
No. Nonetheless it was not good to see him getting so cosy considering what was unfolding on the field.
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Damned if he does...
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To play devil's advocate, Randy's name wasn't being mentioned when we signed 5 players inside a week.
True, but he had the cash from players that had left. If he had invested and we have kept those players, then maybe he would get mentioned for the right reason. He is damned either way though. I just wish he gave the impression of taking an interest, rather than just turning up for the cup final.
And only then to crawl around the arse of the future King while the team he's supposed to be chairman of were getting royally dicked on the field.
What was he supposed to do - ignore him?
Not sing the national anthem.
Sorry, wrong guy.
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A couple of more problems we have are (i) very poor at defending from the front (ii) too many players that have to take two touches (and that is being kind) before passing the ball.
Defending from the front rarely involves tackling or charging around like a mad man. All it takes is understanding how the opposition bring the ball out from the back and positioning to cut the angles for passes and then applying pressure so that the opposition player makes a poor pass.
One thing you notice about foreign players is usually how comfortable they look playing short one touch passes in triangles when in tight positions. I even think back to Makoun and Sylla (who were not brilliant by a long way) when they first came in and how they could play one touch football. I have seen the same between Gueye, Amavi and Veretout in the early games. Sanchez looks very good when he plays this way and it is only when he starts holding on to the ball too long that things go wrong. The key to this, however, is movement by the player receiving the pass. Contrast this to how Westwood plays who always seems to receive a pass, repositions himself with a couple of touches before looking for the next pass, by which time any gaps have closed up.
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A couple of more problems we have are (i) very poor at defending from the front (ii) too many players that have to take two touches (and that is being kind) before passing the ball.
Defending from the front rarely involves tackling or charging around like a mad man. All it takes is understanding how the opposition bring the ball out from the back and positioning to cut the angles for passes and then applying pressure so that the opposition player makes a poor pass.
One thing you notice about foreign players is usually how comfortable they look playing short one touch passes in triangles when in tight positions. I even think back to Makoun and Sylla (who were not brilliant by a long way) when they first came in and how they could play one touch football. I have seen the same between Gueye, Amavi and Veretout in the early games. Sanchez looks very good when he plays this way and it is only when he starts holding on to the ball too long that things go wrong. The key to this, however, is movement by the player receiving the pass. Contrast this to how Westwood plays who always seems to receive a pass, repositions himself with a couple of touches before looking for the next pass, by which time any gaps have closed up.
In defence of Westwood he has shown briefly that he can pick a pass. Problem is is that there is so little movement ahead of him there's little he can do. When we were doing well last season he was an excellent part of it.
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Wouldn't disagree about Westwood being able to pick a pass, it is the time it takes him to get into a position to pass that I was getting at. I am not sure whether it is confidence, ball control ability or he is not thinking of options before the ball gets to him. The latter two points would point towards a limited player that needs time, something you do not get in the EPL.
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Westwood doesn't let the ball roll across him either and allow momentum to build , this was something Petrov and Barry used to do really well and Westwood as a more limited player doesn't have the ability instead he takes unnecessary touches and slows down the play which you can get away with in league 1 but not the EPL
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Westwood doesn't let the ball roll across him either and allow momentum to build , this was something Petrov and Barry used to do really well and Westwood as a more limited player doesn't have the ability instead he takes unnecessary touches and slows down the play which you can get away with in league 1 but not the EPL
There is a general lack of movement ahaead of any ball carriers and this then leads ato a slowing down of play. Then forwards react but defenders have time to counter, a ball is played and we lose possession.
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If lack of movement is the problem buying Gestede was a mistake.
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Westwood is championship standard. He would do well at somewhere like Ipswich, where he can be nice and tidy on the ball without disturbing anyone.
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I know this sounds simple but if the ball was played into the space upfront surely we would get more movement from the forwards. I think because we don't want lose possession the midfielders wait to long and lose the ball anyway.
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The lack of movement is a direct result of and a major issue with our immobile forwards. There isn't anywhere for them to move other than sideways as they are pushed up and marked by their defenders and dont move or drop off their markers to make space. Gestede, Gabby and Sinclair are all guilty of this particularly in and around their 18yd box.
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Westwood doesn't let the ball roll across him either and allow momentum to build , this was something Petrov and Barry used to do really well and Westwood as a more limited player doesn't have the ability instead he takes unnecessary touches and slows down the play which you can get away with in league 1 but not the EPL
westwood has been a mainstay of midfield for 3 years of shitness, he does slow the game down far too much and it hurts us big time. if sherwood starts him on sat there really is no hope
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Westwood doesn't let the ball roll across him either and allow momentum to build , this was something Petrov and Barry used to do really well and Westwood as a more limited player doesn't have the ability instead he takes unnecessary touches and slows down the play which you can get away with in league 1 but not the EPL
westwood has been a mainstay of midfield for 3 years of shitness, he does slow the game down far too much and it hurts us big time. if sherwood starts him on sat there really is no hope
I thought in the second half of his first season he was showing signs of adapting to the EPL and his game going up a gear or two, I recall that goal at smethwick he scored being a good example , but he really has regressed this last two seasons and I don't think he's going to make it at this level.
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Westwood doesn't let the ball roll across him either and allow momentum to build , this was something Petrov and Barry used to do really well and Westwood as a more limited player doesn't have the ability instead he takes unnecessary touches and slows down the play which you can get away with in league 1 but not the EPL
westwood has been a mainstay of midfield for 3 years of shitness, he does slow the game down far too much and it hurts us big time. if sherwood starts him on sat there really is no hope
I thought in the second half of his first season he was showing signs of adapting to the EPL and his game going up a gear or two, I recall that goal at smethwick he scored being a good example , but he really has regressed this last two seasons and I don't think he's going to make it at this level.
there was a point in the second half against the bitters when he was brushed off the ball so easily it was laughable. you cant play in his position and have zero physical presence.
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I know I go on about Michael Carrick but that's why he's so good at what he does and he's 6ft 4" too and doesn't get brushed aside.
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I know I go on about Michael Carrick but that's why he's so good at what he does and he's 6ft 4" too and doesn't get brushed aside.
How much does he weigh?
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Westwood is a good passer of the ball, but the problem is all the other stuff he doesn't do. I don't think we're good enough to be able to "afford" a player like him at the moment.
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Westwood is also well off form at the moment, so for a player who's only a 7 out of 10 fella while he's on his game should be left out for now. At least we might see something different for set pieces too. So bloody predictable.
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If he's dropped Saturday we will know sherwood reads here, maybe Ray does too or Tony
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The underlying problem? Not enough movement, not enough physicality, silly individual mistakes and a manager who keeps picking shit players, oh, and a couple of injuries to key players but they seem to be abating.
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I know I go on about Michael Carrick but that's why he's so good at what he does and he's 6ft 4" too and doesn't get brushed aside.
How much does he weigh?
85 Kg
http://www.uefa.com/teamsandplayers/players/player=50909/profile/index.html
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cant see sherwood dropping him unfortunately
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Wouldn't disagree about Westwood being able to pick a pass, it is the time it takes him to get into a position to pass that I was getting at. I am not sure whether it is confidence, ball control ability or he is not thinking of options before the ball gets to him. The latter two points would point towards a limited player that needs time, something you do not get in the EPL.
To be fair, in the ManUre game, he played 2 or 3 excellent first-time forward passes but the movement ahead of him was insufficient to exploit them.
However, the team practises long enough that the basics we are talking about here really shouldn't be issues.
Incidentally, my son - a pro football coach - identified Westwood's frailties right at the start of his Villa career and has been critical ever since. I cut him more slack but am now in agreement that he is simply not good enough.
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I know I go on about Michael Carrick but that's why he's so good at what he does and he's 6ft 4" too and doesn't get brushed aside.
How much does he weigh?
85 Kg
http://www.uefa.com/teamsandplayers/players/player=50909/profile/index.html
Star sign?
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Perhaps the problem is that our chair has only two legs and it needs at least one more not to fall over all the time.
It seems to me that we have become a Jekyll and Hyde outfit. Under the TSMs it was almost entirely Mr Hydes out there on the pitch. Latterly under Sherwood we have seen at least something of Dr Jekyll. We play clever, complex football and score cracking goals or revert to pub team blunders and defeat on a whim.
Perhaps we should consider the third way of simple, strong, quick efficiency. Target man hoofball has become our instinctive line of last resort.
There were a number if us on these pages begging not to go down the route of buying an inferior version of Benteke to fill the Benteke shaped hole he left. We knew a scenario of Benteke saving Lambert's sorry arse was never going to be replicated by Adebayor/Berbatov/Gestede/Austin saving Sherwood's.
We need simple, efficient error free football. If we can't be Barcelona that does not mean we have to be Pulisists.
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Perhaps the problem is that our chair has only two legs and it needs at least one more not to fall over all the time.
It seems to me that we have become a Jekyll and Hyde outfit. Under the TSMs it was almost entirely Mr Hydes out there on the pitch. Latterly under Sherwood we have seen at least something of Dr Jekyll. We play clever, complex football and score cracking goals or revert to pub team blunders and defeat on a whim.
Perhaps we should consider the third way of simple, strong, quick efficiency. Target man hoofball has become our instinctive line of last resort.
There were a number if us on these pages begging not to go down the route of buying an inferior version of Benteke to fill the Benteke shaped hole he left. We knew a scenario of Benteke saving Lambert's sorry arse was never going to be replicated by Adebayor/Berbatov/Gestede/Austin saving Sherwood's.
We need simple, efficient error free football. If we can't be Barcelona that does not mean we have to be Pulisists.
We all know that that the high turn over of players was always going to lead to some uncertainty, but we really could have done with some battlers in the side. A lot of the players we've brought probably haven't experience of a relegation battle before, and that's a concern.
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The underlying problem? Not enough movement, not enough physicality, silly individual mistakes and a manager who keeps picking shit players, oh, and a couple of injuries to key players but they seem to be abating.
How tall was Makalele, sorry, first post I saw and not got a Scooby what you are on about. Size is not everything in some ways thankfully lol
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We all know that that the high turn over of players was always going to lead to some uncertainty, but we really could have done with some battlers in the side. A lot of the players we've brought probably haven't experience of a relegation battle before, and that's a concern.
Sherwood stated he wanted to import a 'winning mentality' and by definition those with experience battling relegation are not doing too well in the winning stakes. Though by the end of this season, all of our players could have that experience if things don't improve drastically.
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We need to quickly decide if Micah Richards is a CB or RB and play him accordingly. Likewise Sinclair & Grealish need to be played in position.
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We need to quickly decide if Micah Richards is a CB or RB and play him accordingly. Likewise Sinclair & Grealish need to be played in position.
I can't argue with any of that.
The thing that annoys me most is that centre back has been a problem for a long time yet we've done little about - players like Huth, Danns and Hangeland have all moved for little money.
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Whilst I think Richards might be a better at right back, he's done nothing wrong at centre half. I think he's been great since he's been here.
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Whilst I think Richards might be a better at right back, he's done nothing wrong at centre half. I think he's been great since he's been here.
Richards down one side and Amavi on the other, I doubt there would be a better pair in the league.
Micah has been pretty good in the middle however.
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On balance I would prefer to see Micah at RB but he does add some very much needed muscle to our central defence.
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if your moving Richards, whose that leave in the centre, I'll go with Clarke but with who Okore aint quite back yet, and Lescott well if his got any strenths , we aint playing to them?
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I think when Okare is ready he will go with three centre backs.
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And yet another defeat. We are an utter embarrassment that's the underlying problem.
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he could play six centre backs and we'd still loose. Time's up Tim.
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Looks like I jumped the gun with my three centre backs prediction. Looks like he is in panic mode now.
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The only underlying problem that results in the sort of managerial ineptitude we're experiencing is the board picking the wrong manager. As it was Fox's first managerial decision I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
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The only underlying problem that results in the sort of managerial ineptitude we're experiencing is the board picking the wrong manager. As it was Fox's first managerial decision I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
The sarky bastard in me says, "has Fox been seen with possible candidates in corporate hospitality lately"
The cynical bastard in me says, "he'd made his mind up about Sherwood as Lambert's replacement before Christmas, has he had chance to line anyone else up."
The optimist in me says, "well he persuaded Lerner to ditch his bestest buddy and found someone to keep us up. Maybe he's not completely useless."
Unfortunately that's as far as my optimism runs right now. The guy in ultimate charge might not be completely useless.
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I am fucking fed of Villa. It is soul destroying to watch our slip to new levels of ineptitude every week.
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I am in the pub, hoping the rugby might cheer me up. I have read nothing since the match on this thread, but I will say they played that penalty appeal on the big screen showing not one but 2 penalty trips. They are not even supposed to do that but they wanted us to react. We should have been howling for that but.....nothing....We are dead inside after the last 5 years. How the he'll do we turn this round?
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I am in the pub, hoping the rugby might cheer me up. I have read nothing since the match on this thread, but I will say they played that penalty appeal on the big screen showing not one but 2 penalty trips. They are not even supposed to do that but they wanted us to react. We should have been howling for that but.....nothing....We are dead inside after the last 5 years. How the he'll do we turn this round?
It's ground us down now.
Terrible at home.
Lack of goals.
Half wit managers.
Chairman a wacko who makes no effort.
CEO giving us the bullshit about narratives.
10 hours without a goal.
Buying lower league players.
Buying old has beens.
Record runs of defeats, lowest points blah blah we all know the records there's just so many now we can't remember them all.
Appointing nobodies.
Terrible away.
Worst record in English football over the last 4 years.
Being taken for idiots with comments like '' we go again'', '' I thought we were magnificent''
Alex Mcleish.
It goes on and on but the bottom line I think is everyone has had enough and people are going to quietly start drifting away. There's no point protesting, no one is listening. Some would say there's no point sacking another manager, we have no one with a brain to appoint anyone decent.
I've said it earlier but we might just have to take a relegation and Lerner fucking off to breath some life in to this club again, we are withering away.
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I am in the pub, hoping the rugby might cheer me up. I have read nothing since the match on this thread, but I will say they played that penalty appeal on the big screen showing not one but 2 penalty trips. They are not even supposed to do that but they wanted us to react. We should have been howling for that but.....nothing....We are dead inside after the last 5 years. How the he'll do we turn this round?
It's ground us down now.
Terrible at home.
Lack of goals.
Half wit managers.
Chairman a wacko who makes no effort.
CEO giving us the bullshit about narratives.
10 hours without a goal.
Buying lower league players.
Buying old has beens.
Record runs of defeats, lowest points blah blah we all know the records there's just so many now we can't remember them all.
Appointing nobodies.
Terrible away.
Worst record in English football over the last 4 years.
Being taken for idiots with comments like '' we go again'', '' I thought we were magnificent''
Alex Mcleish.
It goes on and on but the bottom line I think is everyone has had enough and people are going to quietly start drifting away. There's no point protesting, no one is listening. Some would say there's no point sacking another manager, we have no one with a brain to appoint anyone decent.
I've said it earlier but we might just have to take a relegation and Lerner fucking off to breath some life in to this club again, we are withering away.
spot on
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How about keeping it simple? We had 3 attacking ball players up front at any one time in the second half. We had no one to hold the ball up with feeti in the penalty area for them to finish off their attacking play. Gestede should be an impact player and Kozak should be holding that ball up. But... oh no... Tim doesn't like him. He's rotting in the stiffs. Well fuck you Tim... it's your funeral.
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That was the sort of game Benteke would of bailed us out with an equaliser. It's not there this season. We are as good as down .
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The underlying problem? That dumb idiot on the other side of the pond who doesn't give a shit. Look no further, it's always down to leadership in any organisation and he couldn't lead himself to the toilet without getting lost.
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I think when Okare is ready he will go with three centre backs.
Strikes me as a bit of a 1990s tactic, that.
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Starting to think the only people who give a shit are us mugs, the fans
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Starting to think the only people who give a shit are us mugs, the fans
I think you may be right, and a lot of us are past caring or trying not to let it get to us so much.
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Put simply, we have had an investment of over 200 million since Lerner arrived in 2006, yet nearly a decade on, we've ended in a significantly worse position than when we entered it.
A damning indictment of how the club has been run.
Clueless management , no long-term plan, stumbling along from season to season making decisions on a whim...
Need I go on?
As far as im concerned, Lerner and the selfish bunch of imbeciles he surrounds himself with (yes i know the personnel has changed over this period) has blood on its hands and owes each and every Aston Villa supporter an apology for the shambolic and ineffective way the club has been governed over this period.
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How about keeping it simple? We had 3 attacking ball players up front at any one time in the second half. We had no one to hold the ball up with feeti in the penalty area for them to finish off their attacking play. Gestede should be an impact player and Kozak should be holding that ball up. But... oh no... Tim doesn't like him. He's rotting in the stiffs. Well fuck you Tim... it's your funeral.
Its not Tims funeral. He will fuck off with his big pay day and be bigging it up quicker than you can say Chris Ramsay at QPR. We, the fans, will be left with playing Blose in the local derby as our big game of the season in rhe championshop. Blose will not be in the prem next season. Not a f in chance
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We keep hiring shit managers. That's something of a problem.
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We keep hiring shit managers. That's something of a problem.
This.
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is Lerner. Thanks to this dumbass we're lost as a club.
We have no soul anymore, no direction, no purpose for being other than to try and survive, no expectations of quality or professionalism. We just hope we can fluke enough points to keep us safe for another year.
Never has a clubs motto been so far removed from the truth.
It's pathetic.
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It has always been only the supporters that give a toss, but at the moment the club has no identity, no style of play, a manager that has limited if any tactical ability to influence that style, players that have not got the ability to think for themselves and a core support that is now accepting of the shit delivered up every week and has been for the last 5 years, because the club insist on telling anyone that will listen, this is where we are now guys, so please don't rock the boat, 17th is acceptable and you know that is correct because we Aston Villa told you so.
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Yes that truly is the underlying problem. We have bought into the lowering of expectations philosophy.
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Not only brought into it Brian, but we are also too well aware that what ever we do, moan, demonstrate, stay away, it does not matter one flying f..., because the owner does not care about us, about the club and looking more and more he could not care about his investment, we are something on his portfolio that he just cant shift, so he will give it less and less time and attention.
A fool and his money are easily parted and we have the Norman Wisdom of fools.
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Yes that truly is the underlying problem. We have bought into the lowering of expectations philosophy.
We have, hook, line and sinker.
We talk of sacking a manager, the first response is ''yeah but who would come?''. Then a list of the same old failures are drawn up and critiqued.
We talk of buying players and if they aren't Harewood and Heskey style comedy characters we immediately question why they would join us and say we aren't being realistic.
We lose to Crystal Palace, Stoke, Leicester etc and the excuses come out that we should be losing these games because so and so are on a good run, spent some money, don't have injuries, we haven't gelled.
We can't put a single 90 minute game together, for almost 5 years we've stunk the league out and the support as a whole have got angry a couple of times if that.
We've bought players from Crewe and Chesterfield and made excuse after excuse for them and why they were bought. Hell I'm no fan of Darren Bent but the boy was not given a run out whilst we persisted with that fucking donkey we bought for £500,000 from the fourth Division, ridiculous.
We are on another one of our runs, 8 defeats in 10 and the only name we can come up with is Fat Wank Allardyce, we already know just how limited he is, ask West Ham fans if you don't. It would be another short term appointment but we don't think we can do any better than stumbling from one disaster in to another.
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Agree completely aj2. Incidentally I have a very good and truthful nephew who follows lower league Northwest clubs who told me that Chesterfield's asking price for Bowery was £250,000 but we made an offer without asking how much they wanted for him.
My main point however is one I made a year ago about replacing Lambert. We could get whoever we wanted to manage the club. They are all mercenaries to a man. Just decide who you want and make him an offer he can't refuse. How much have we spent on Gestede and Ayew? Half of that amount as a signing on bonus would get whoever you wanted. We just don't get the importance of a proven too quality man in charge. We shop in Argos and get inferior merchandise. We are too mean to walk through the doors of Harrods.
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Where's Benitez these days
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Where's Benitez these days
Not a hope in hell of a manager of his quality (or anyone like him) working for Randy Lerner. We're in the bottom of the barrel market when it comes to hiring managers.
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Brian, they wouldn't even know who to approach if they wanted to sack thicko Tim. The Aston Villa brain trust have no knowledge of football beyond what they see day to day. It would be another proven, failed/limited British manger or someone who has been tried and failed in the Premier League.
The outside world, German, Italian, French and Spanish football is an alien concept to them. Tom Fox appointed his chancer mate, he has no idea who up and coming managers from the continent are, he's a money man thrown in the deep end, a slight upgrade on credit card guy who was nice but dim.
We need a coach, hmm who's about? Don't know but I've heard of Roy Keane, he's in the paper all the time, employ him.
We need a manager, hmmm who's about? Don't know but I've heard of Tim Sherwood, he's in the paper all the time, employ him.
Absolutely agree that there are hundreds of managers all around the world that would shit the bed and walk barefoot to Villa Park for the huge pay packet and the exposure the Premier League will give them but we've bought the line that we are doing the best we realistically can and to ask for anything more than winning the odd game every couple of months is us living on our history.
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Where's Benitez these days
He was interviewed after Houllier( I think) but then he heard what his budget was and ran a mile. We ended up with McCleish
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It's just like getting to host the World Cup. You simply have to make the biggest offer to the parties concerned. You put a £10 million signing on bonus on the table and £200k a week and a house in Barbados and you can get any manager you want. It is no different from signing Adebayor. In this world money buys you whatever you want. Try Klinsmann. He would live in Nelson Street if the money was right.
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Prepare for life in the championship lads. At least we can have a target then to get promotion. Could be playing Burton & Walsall next season.
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Prepare for life in the championship lads. At least we can have a target then to get promotion. Could be playing Burton & Walsall next season.
And we could not be.
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I don't we're far from a decent side, there's little glimpses there and we certainly have the players to be decent enough. All 6 defeats this season have been by 1 goal and a few have involved fine margins, Richards scores against Sunderland & Stoke, Guzan & Amavi don't brain fart at Palace and we don't fanny around with the ball at Leicester instead of a safety first hoof that ultimately led to their first, and we'd almost certainly be on 11 points.
However until we have a manager that knows his best 11 and what system and style he wants us playing, we're going to be a bit/lot aimless on the pitch. So unfortunately i'm thinking that it's Sherwood that's the problem and is holding the squad back.
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I think we will go down this season. Whatever Lerner tries I think has failure written into its DNA post MON.
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I was reading an article about Gary Mac this morning and this bit struck me...its pretty damning on Faulkner's part, but not really a surprise given the state of the club...
McAllister said, “I’ve not done the Pro Licence. I was actually doing my A Licence at Inverclyde when I got the text from Paul Faulkner at Villa telling me my services were no longer required."
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Prepare for life in the championship lads. At least we can have a target then to get promotion. Could be playing Burton & Walsall next season.
And we could not be.
True enough. There's no guarantee that Walsall will be promoted.