Gerard Houllier

[Holte L2]

I think Mark Hughes would be our manager if O'Neil left in May.  An appointment I wouldn't have had a problem with.  The General himself said they liked Hughes but the timing was wrong due to him being appointed Fulham's new gaffer

[Toronto Villa]

I think Mark Hughes would be our manager if O'Neil left in May.  An appointment I wouldn't have had a problem with.  The General himself said they liked Hughes but the timing was wrong due to him being appointed Fulham's new gaffer

when did the General say they liked Hughes? Wouldn't that have been picked up by the press had he actually pinpointed a specific person, especially as that person was in another job at the time? I think there was a good chance we'd have got Hughes, but he's hardly pulling up any trees at Fulham is he?

[KevinGage]

Genuine question here - can someone remind me of exactly what the events were when he was heavily linked with Fulham in the summer?  From memory it was that he was at least tempted, but they wouldn't pay the release fee, and he wouldn't walk out.  Was that have been before their CL qualification?

If that is right, then paying his release fee would have been a small price for us given his suitability and our need. 

It was reported at the time (or soon after) that he was using Fulham's interest as leverage, namely to ensure that his best players at Ajax weren't sold from under him and that he'd get a decent transfer kitty.

He might or might not have been more interested in a job like Villa had we been in a position to go for him at that stage of the summer.

But if he definitely wasn't interested, the 'Villa will have to wait' line he came out with a few months later when the shit hit the fan would be an odd one.

[Concrete John]

He resigned on December 6th, after having fallen well short in the title race and been knocked out of the Champions League.

Maybe we should have just predicted that would happen and waited? If only it were so easy.

Surely, though, having said you thought Martin left us in a very strong position, we had something to maintain, so waiting for a manager to become available would have meant throwing away something?

It's all so easy isn't it, this football chairman lark. It's the same for (not you) the people screaming "sack Houllier now!". Not one of them has put forward a compelling plan re what we do next.

Fair enough - I thought it was longer ago than 6/12.

And it wasn't a matter of 'waiting', my argument is that things obviously weren't 100% rosey there for him (Fulham connection and gone as soon as results weren't what was expected) so had we made a strong approach he may have jumped.

Being a chairman isn't easy, despite what we all write on here, but when a bad decision is made I feel the chairman should take the brunt of it, not his last manager.

[pauliewalnuts]

The other point is, having been through that with Fulham, whether it was to leverage his position or not, Jol had clearly come through it with an agreement with the Ajax board, thus making it even less likely he was then going to walk away shortly after.

Sometimes it just doesn't happen, the manager might fancy the job, but the timing isn't right, other factors influence it, lots of factors are at play.

I wonder how many of the same posters now telling us we should have just gone out and magicked up the best manager they can name really quickly, like it was a video game, are the same ones who used to tell those of us who complained that MON was slow to get moving in the transfer market, "it's not that easy you know, it's not a video game"?

[Holte L2]

I think Mark Hughes would be our manager if O'Neil left in May.  An appointment I wouldn't have had a problem with.  The General himself said they liked Hughes but the timing was wrong due to him being appointed Fulham's new gaffer

when did the General say they liked Hughes? Wouldn't that have been picked up by the press had he actually pinpointed a specific person, especially as that person was in another job at the time? I think there was a good chance we'd have got Hughes, but he's hardly pulling up any trees at Fulham is he?

The General said it online the day of the Vienna away game.  It was also picked up by MysteryMan on Villatalk.
Hughes is doing a solid job if unspectacular at Fulham.  Whoever was going to take over from Hodgson was on a hiding to nothing.  He's done with Wales, and at Blackburn and Citeh

[WikiVilla]

I don't like houllier as our manager because I think he's past his sell by date, lacks drive, passion and charisma
He also seems out of touch with the modern game
I do feel for him in the sense that he's being undermined by a number of the senior players and this is wholly unacceptable and ironically may save his bacon

If it was just about results he'd be gone but there's more to this sloppy affair and the noise behind the scenes will buy GH more time sadly

[eastie]

Anyone think this unnamed  senior source feeding quotes to sky may be kevmac? I was just thinkin about it and wondered how he really feels after being urged to apply and then snubbed by randy?

Whoever it is , there is clearly a mole in the camp leaking stories to the media.

[Bandy]

Any manager in any job has got to get the best out of what he has, Houllier clearly isn't doing this and worse is alienating senior pros.  The mire we are in now means we will not be able to attract anyone decent in the window and frankly he shouldnt be given money to spend because he will get the sack and then the new man won't have any money to spend and have to offload more players he doesn't want.  Get MacDonald back in to end of season - players will play their heart out for him.  If not, then Allardyce could do a job.

GH is simply out of his depth - why pick Delph with other juniors ahead of experience of Petrov or Reo-Coker... doesn't make sense... we have great youngsters but don't let them drown and lose confidence without support of old lags.

How can he have made our reasonable team of last few seasons soooo bad and have soo little fight?  He HAS to go and now......

[pauliewalnuts]

Yep, let's get Kev Mac in, maybe he can get that passion like we showed at Newcastle back again.

[Concrete John]

I wonder how many of the same posters now telling us we should have just gone out and magicked up the best manager they can name really quickly, like it was a video game, are the same ones who used to tell those of us who complained that MON was slow to get moving in the transfer market, "it's not that easy you know, it's not a video game"?

The thing is though Paulie they DID take their time.  What was it - 6 weeks from MON going to Houllier being appointed?

[Clampy]

I think Mark Hughes would be our manager if O'Neil left in May.  An appointment I wouldn't have had a problem with.  The General himself said they liked Hughes but the timing was wrong due to him being appointed Fulham's new gaffer

when did the General say they liked Hughes? Wouldn't that have been picked up by the press had he actually pinpointed a specific person, especially as that person was in another job at the time? I think there was a good chance we'd have got Hughes, but he's hardly pulling up any trees at Fulham is he?

The General said it online the day of the Vienna away game.  It was also picked up by MysteryMan on Villatalk.
Hughes is doing a solid job if unspectacular at Fulham.  Whoever was going to take over from Hodgson was on a hiding to nothing.  He's done with Wales, and at Blackburn and Citeh

Hughes was doing ok at City, until he was given money then went silly with it and just brought players for the sake of it, Adebayor being the main example. Not sure i'd want him here though, i'm not sure why but he just bores me a little.

[dave.woodhall]

Hughes is doing a solid job if unspectacular at Fulham.  Whoever was going to take over from Hodgson was on a hiding to nothing.  He's done with Wales, and at Blackburn and Citeh

If he's doing a solid job at Fulham Houllier is Manager of the Year material.

[monkeyboy]

A somewhat cyclical argument, but the very fact that had MON not left when he had, Houllier wouldn't even have been considered for the job, shows that you can't pretend MON's departure had no effect.

Sorry, but when MON left none of us were considerign him for the job.  It's the way Randy wanted to go so fair enough, but if you jacked your job tomorrow and whoever replaced you was shite, would you accept you were partially to blame for a decision you had no hand in?  And with all the arguments about the timing of his departure, lets not forget that the club took their time in finding a new man and didn't jump into anything.

Martin left us in a much better state than we are in now, so what had happened since he's gone is simply not his fault.

Mmmm how can I put  this in a way you might understand.

If Father Christmas left his job on Christmas eve, it would be very difficult to replace him in time for the big event, and indeed the choice of stand in Father Christmas would be rather limited too. Whoever came in would find it difficult replacing such a pivotal figure at such a pivotal time even if the picture was rosy and the previous Father Christmas had left things in a great state. Unfortunately things weren't left in a great state, though maybe some that were blinded by the magic of Christmas and the faerie's  sparkle thought it was.

Now we've all had a bad Christmas because we didn't get the presents we wanted. The new Father Christmas hasn't exactly covered himself in glory, but he hasn't been helped by some of his helpers,  and some of his key sleigh pulling reindeer that were meant to help him deliver his presents to us deserving Villa fans, got themselves injured or have gone AWOL. We shouldn't be too harsh on him though, he came in when everything was in full flow and with the wheels just primed to come off the sleigh and he has had very little opportunity to gain any control as the wheels were already in motion. Given the time of his appointment he couldn't even get the mechanics in he wanted to try and fix everything that was wrong. The simple fact of the matter is that most of the causal chains that buggered up Christmas were put in motion long before Christmas and the ones that weren't were ones that the incumbent Father Christmas had no control over. Maybe if he'd had that little bit of magic dust everything would be much better now, though we would be blinded to the underlying reality by that dust,  but it's a rare commodity these days, and unfortunately he didn't seem to have it, or enough of it, to have a positive effect. It would be unfair however to blame him for not fixing the mess he inherited considering when he inherited it.

The moral of the story? It was MoN that killed Christmas.
 

That is now my favourite xmas story. Makes a lot of sense .............

Great way of presenting it - and makes sense - my only issue with it is that - agreed the last Santa was indeed a twat, and did leave things in a way that the wheels were ready to come off but....

The twat Santa had bought a lot of new reindeers, granted a lot of which were never good enough to pull the sled, (and in the case of Heskey the red nosed one couldn't be trusted to stay on his feet if one of the other reindeers looked at him) but the reindeers he bought and those he selected Christmas in and Christmas out (even if a few were in the wrong position) did seem to give their all for him - granted they weren't the most attractive sled pulling team but they were effective and were right up their with a chance to pull their sled in Europe (before twat Santa knackered them and they were unable to pull every March)

Then, as we know childishly, twat Santa slung his hook on Christmas eve and dropped the reindeers and ther trusty child punters who paid his wages right in the reindeer poo.

Unfortunately (and granted there was not a lot of choice with Santa's Curbishley, Brown, Jewell and Dowie out of work)  we ended up with the French Santa. He gathered all of the reideers together called them all dicks, (especially the Irish reindeers whom he effectively offered to the glue factory along with Big John Reindeer (the kids favourite) whom he told to fu** off and die horribly - he'd never like Big John from the days he pulled French Santa's sled in France a few years previously.

He then followed this up by ringing the Lapland Sun/Mirror to call all the reindeers dicks in the press. He declared the whole outfit (reindeers, elves and all) a mid table pulling team and not fit to lace the skates of the previous sled team he used to manage - Slitherpool his beloved red army.

To make things worse - he didn't recognise that Twat Santa had assembled a bunch reindeers that was very one dimensional (but effective) - and then changed the style - rendering the reindeers essentially useless and devoid of any confidence. So much so that all the reindeers gave up any thought of delivering presents at all - they just went through the motions and got shat on by all the other sled teams in Lapland, so much so that they are now in danger of being relegated somewhere colder and more miserable (North East Championship)

Bottom line Twat Santa is indeed a Twat - but French Santa is proving himself to be a bigger Twat in every way - and I for one don't trust French Santa to deliver any presents any time soon - i vote we get rid of him ASAP and call this Christmas off with a view to a better one next year. I'm hoping Dutch Santa might come in and save the day.

PS if Dudley Santa fronts up sling him a few quid and tell him to fuck off - he take it and go quietly

[pauliewalnuts]

I wonder how many of the same posters now telling us we should have just gone out and magicked up the best manager they can name really quickly, like it was a video game, are the same ones who used to tell those of us who complained that MON was slow to get moving in the transfer market, "it's not that easy you know, it's not a video game"?

The thing is though Paulie they DID take their time.  What was it - 6 weeks from MON going to Houllier being appointed?

And why didn't they magic up who you wanted at the end of it?

What kind of moron thought that a man who had won the French league three times, the UEFA cup, the FA Cup, two league cups, and been deeply involved in football administration in a country with a record of developing excellent players might be a good appointment?

Like i said, it's all so easy with hindsight, isnt it?