Statement from VP

[Legion]

"What plans do you have for Emile Heskey?"

[pauliewalnuts]

"Experience in managing in the Premier League" certainly opens the door to a lot of uninspiring candidates.

Southgate?
Curbishley?

Strange that we set that as the prime criteria.

[BedsVillain]

Not sure if this list is exhaustive but take your pick from this lot:

Premier League Managers

[Eigentor]

For some reason, I believe that Houliier's path at Liverpool is quite similar to O'Neill's at Villa. Good/promising start, never able to make the final step, and in the end it all went sour. I think managing Liverpool may be one of the more thankless tasks in football due to the combination of enourmous expectations, small resources (compared to Chelsea, Man Utd and now also Man City) and a bunch of ex-players in the media who jump on your back once the team plays poorly. His transfer record was somewhere between mediocre to poor. Good signings (Hyypiä, Hamann, McAllister) were fewer than the downright disastrous (Diouf, Diao, Cheyrou, Ziege etc).

He is tactically astute, has a reputation of being good at developing players -- but I don't think there is much evidence of this at Liverpool at least. He is sometimes credited as being one of the minds behind the work in France leading to their wins in the World Cup in 1998 and Euro2000, but whether there is correct, I don't know.

I would say a Houllier appointment would be a disappointment. Sven would be better (I'm assuming the likes of Jol and Hiddink are unavailable). But Houllier is well respected as a knowledgeable coach, and he did reasonably well at Lyon, so I don't think he would be a disaster.

[Legion]

Take your pick

[Olneythelonely]

They've created a deliberate and classic Catch 22 situation.

Didn't want to sign any players before the new manager is appointed - candidates won't even be interviewed before Wednesday then Oh Look!! we've missed the deadline. Never mind we'll expect the new manager to make do with no decent midfileder or striker until January - then we'll think of another excuse!!

Nonsense. This distrust of the board borders on the paranoia.

Yeah, very weird. They've done nothing to deserve the distrust either.

[PaulWinch again]

Well Sven over Curbishley any day of the week.

[Ads]

The final step for Houllier was winning the title though! A bit of a difference between that and finishing in the top four.

[pauliewalnuts]

They've created a deliberate and classic Catch 22 situation.

Didn't want to sign any players before the new manager is appointed - candidates won't even be interviewed before Wednesday then Oh Look!! we've missed the deadline. Never mind we'll expect the new manager to make do with no decent midfileder or striker until January - then we'll think of another excuse!!

Nonsense. This distrust of the board borders on the paranoia.

Yeah, very weird. They've done nothing to deserve the distrust either.

What's what I don't get.

You'd think that a four year track record of pouring money in, "getting" the club and doing the right thing might have earned them enough credit in the bank for people to give them the benefit of the doubt.

For a lot of people, though, that clearly isn't the case.

[Mac]

"Experience in managing in the Premier League" certainly opens the door to a lot of uninspiring candidates.

Southgate?
Curbishley?

Strange that we set that as the prime criteria.

Curbishley is now down at 11-1 from over 50-1 earlier.

[pauliewalnuts]

"Experience in managing in the Premier League" certainly opens the door to a lot of uninspiring candidates.

Southgate?
Curbishley?

Strange that we set that as the prime criteria.

Curbishley is now down at 11-1 from over 50-1 earlier.

That would be pretty much the least ambitious appointment they could possibly make.

[BedsVillain]

Wouldn't mind Ranieri he had a a 53% win rate when at Chelsea and he started managing them in 2000 when they were mediocre. It's a shame about the whole Prem experience thing, I thought they would have been sick to the back teeth with that notion when MON was here, not exactly Global branding is it? I would've liked us to take a punt on Ralf Rangnick, think he could be the new Wenger, thinking man's football manager and the most Anglo-German going!

[eastie]

Was it houllier who paid £11m for heskey?

[Mac]

There is some weird stuff going on.  I don't think anybody knows and if they wanted Curbishley he'd be in place already.

[Mac]

Was it houllier who paid £11m for heskey?

LOL  Yes.