Gerard Houllier

[Risso]

We haven't got 5 or 6 more points though, and even that's not really the point.  Are we going to get enough points under Houllier  to stay up?  The evidence to date suggests not.

I said if we'd had anything like a full strength squad to choose from. The evidence to date doesn't help in that respect. This is the worst run of injuries I have ever known in my time following the Villa and I'm ancient. Every time we've had a decent performance we've lost a couple more from that side the following week. I think any manager new to a club would have struggled with what he's had to deal with. We're just starting to get some players back now, he's also got the transfer window to make his own mark on the squad. We'll know much more about him in a couple of months.

By which time I think we'll be firmly entrenched in the bottom three.  I don't want to know anything more about Houllier, he's been an utter disaster from day one.  Terrible, terrible appointment, done on the cheap.  Well it's biting Lerner firmly on the arse now, and while he deserves it for not making a proper appointment in the first place, it's all of us who suffer for it.

[Villa'Zawg]

As an ex supporter of MON's, i'm as pissed off with him for leaving as any of us on here but for McGraths sake we've got to stop going on about the last Manager - this is about Houllier and the players and whether we have the confidence in them that they can turn this around.

No, you can't divorce the two.

If Houllier is finding it taking longer to settle and get his influence and control across to the players, he's not being helped by having been dropped in it when he was.

He also got dropped into a club which was in utter fucking turmoil as a result of MON's departure.

I'm not going to start to assign percentages as to whose fault it is between MON and Houllier, but I do think that anyone who thinks MON's side of that percentage is anything like zero is living in cloud cuckoo land.

and the same probably applies to the chairman and CEO.

Having the manager leave just before the start of the season is a pain in the arse but I don't see why it is worse "utter fucking turmoil" than if he had left after 10 or 20 games with the club struggling in the league, which is want often the situation when a club changes manager.

[Chris Smith]

Is there something fundamentally wrong in our training set up that is causing these injuries, I wonder, or just bad luck? We were very lucky with injuries for a long time previously, maybe this is payback time.

I do think, though, that up front with Carew's susceptibility to bending his hair or cutting himself shaving thus ruling him out, and Heskey, despite actually putting the odd decent performance in this year, being the easiest injured man mountain alive, we have got to move these two on and replace them with more sturdy options.

Yes, we've been a better side whenever Heskey has been on the pitch but he just doesn't seem physically able to play 3 games on the trot without blowing a gasket. I just hope Omar Cummings is a more than just somebody who sounds like he should be in a Carry On film as I suspect striking options will be difficult to get in January.

[Linus]

Omar Cummings is a player who has scored a goal in every 3 games.

In Major League Soccer.

[Drummond]

The manage arrived and has had to work with what he was left with. Some players who couldn't be arsed, hadn't be trained properly, got injured and as a result we're suffering performance and results-wise.

We need to ship some players out and get some new blood in. The attitude of many of our players has been good and the younger ones have, on the whole, done pretty well. The future is looking good, even if the present isn't.

We need to give Houllier time, he's currently having to manage a weak, under-strength squad of over-paid, under-performing players.

Many on here are expecting Houllier to work miracles when in actual fact he's currently trying to polish MON's turd.

[Mr Diggles]

i am in the camp of back ged, i can see what he is trying to do on the pitch, there are a load of players who are in the squad who cannot play the type of football he wants, the only mistake i can see is the evolution not revolution one that owen coyle has taken up. I sympathise with the injuries he has had to put up with.
there is enough there to take us away from relegation, the board will back him in jan, and then he can start building for a rise in the league next year!
Mon is a tosser in my eyes at the time of his departure, though i always appreciated the job he did for us without ever being a fan of his style of play. We all know we were left in the shit when he did that to us!

A perfect summation of what I think too. Back him, this time next year we'll be playing attractive and successful football.

[NeilH]

Is there something fundamentally wrong in our training set up that is causing these injuries, I wonder, or just bad luck? We were very lucky with injuries for a long time previously, maybe this is payback time.

When you take into account that our previous training regime consisted of MON chucking a load of balls at the players and telling them to get on with it whilst Robertson stood at the sidelines shouting ''stop bunching'' its hardly a surprise we've ended up with injuries.

[Drummond]

What could Houllier have done better?

[Chris Smith]

Is there something fundamentally wrong in our training set up that is causing these injuries, I wonder, or just bad luck? We were very lucky with injuries for a long time previously, maybe this is payback time.

When you take into account that our previous training regime consisted of MON chucking a load of balls at the players and telling them to get on with it whilst Robertson stood at the sidelines shouting ''stop bunching'' its hardly a surprise we've ended up with injuries.

Perhaps that's what we should be doing now because it made us win a lot of games. Or, perhaps, it's a load of bollocks that has become another of those interent truths.

[Linus]

What could Houllier have done better?

We have no idea what it's like to play under him. Maybe he's doing everything right and the players are just not responding. Or maybe he can't movtivate, his tactics are unworkable, his training leading to injuries, his one signing weird, and his team selections odd? Either or.

[NeilH]

Is there something fundamentally wrong in our training set up that is causing these injuries, I wonder, or just bad luck? We were very lucky with injuries for a long time previously, maybe this is payback time.

When you take into account that our previous training regime consisted of MON chucking a load of balls at the players and telling them to get on with it whilst Robertson stood at the sidelines shouting ''stop bunching'' its hardly a surprise we've ended up with injuries.

Perhaps that's what we should be doing now because it made us win a lot of games. Or, perhaps, it's a load of bollocks that has become another of those interent truths.

Ahhh I see irony gets once more lost on the internet. The point is that no-one knows the true reasons for the injury list, just as no-one knows the truth behind supposed player unrest. There is but one truth and that is that our kids are doing a magnificent job whilst a number of senior players are not. If only one or two of those aforementioned senior players were to get their arses in gear the problem would be resolved and we'd once more be talking about 6th place.

[Clampy]

What could Houllier have done better?

Winning more than 5 league games and looking a bit more interested on the touchline would be a start.

[Eigentor]

What could Houllier have done better?

Winning more than 5 league games and looking a bit more interested on the touchline would be a start.

I'm not sure if there is a correlation between the performance or results of a team and how emotional the manager is.

[NeilH]

What could Houllier have done better?

Winning more than 5 league games and looking a bit more interested on the touchline would be a start.

Mick McCarthy leaps up and down on the touchline, but would you want him as your boss?

[Concrete John]

What could Houllier have done better?

Not defending Ireland, but he's clearly a player who needs an arm round the shoulder as opposed to a public rollicking, so bad man management there.

He should have dropped Dunne sooner than he did for Cuellar.

The defence is all over the place, so I'll stick my neck out and say we should concentrate more on the defensive basics in training.

Whatever his motivational style it's clearly not working.

He should abandon the double training sessions until the injury crisis eases.