Gerard Houllier

[pauliewalnuts]

If he does go Jol is not the right man of that I am totally sure. The board have a huge 3 weeks in Jan now. If I was Randy I would be saying name the players in each position you need to get us out of this, and I would go and get em at all costs.

They don't have three weeks, though, that's the point.

If we're going to back GH and get in his targets, we need them in *now*, right now, no fucking around.

There might be some room for debate than we can move forward with this manager, but I can't believe anyone thinks we're going to do so with this manager AND this squad as it is now.

[Toronto Villa]

I don't believe it's the right time to change manager, I think he needs time to put his team together.

What's happening at the moment shows us that MON was a good motivator of shit players that he bought.

Houllier needs to be backed in this window, we'll stay up, I have no doubt and he will turn it around, we've seen how well we can play, we need to do it consistently.

I'm still in this camp (though my strength is waning). I agree that he needs a chance to have at least one window with a few players that in HIS opinion will make a difference. If the message isn't getting through to the incumbent players, maybe they need to move on or be dropped.

The other thing of note is this slide in offensive firepower didn't just start now. It's been happening over 3 years now. Houllier is sitting in the eye of the storm of a defence that is conceding, and even when they don't the team has run out of goals.

[ozzjim]

If he does go Jol is not the right man of that I am totally sure. The board have a huge 3 weeks in Jan now. If I was Randy I would be saying name the players in each position you need to get us out of this, and I would go and get em at all costs.

They don't have three weeks, though, that's the point.

If we're going to back GH and get in his targets, we need them in *now*, right now, no fucking around.

There might be some room for debate than we can move forward with this manager, but I can't believe anyone thinks we're going to do so with this manager AND this squad as it is now.

They don't to appoint someone new and buy, that is why I am saying they have three weeks to get 4-5 of GH players in, ideally with a couple by next week.

[Risso]

I don't believe it's the right time to change manager, I think he needs time to put his team together.

What's happening at the moment shows us that MON was a good motivator of shit players that he bought.

Houllier needs to be backed in this window, we'll stay up, I have no doubt and he will turn it around, we've seen how well we can play, we need to do it consistently.

You're putting an awful lot of faith in two draws (not even wins) against an injury hit Man U and a Chelsea side who have lost to Blues and Wolves.  Most sides who go down have one or two decent performances a season, Burnley beat Man U last year, Portsmouth walloped Spurs in the cup semi.  We just get worse and worse as time goes on.  I can't see anything that suggests Hollier will turn it round, nothing whatsoever, he's been a disaster from start to finish.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Bloody hell Risso, I bet you never even canvassed this hard for the Tories at the last election. You're everywhere tonight, fella. (winky)

[ozzjim]

Like a dog with a bone.

[PeterWithe]

He wants Allardayce, easy to say when you dont have to pay to watch his fucking teams play. Not that the last ten minutes were much different.

[SoccerHQ]

Our football was abysmal to watch tonight.

What I expected when Houllier came in was to make use of our more skillfull players and get us playing a better passing game.

[Toronto Villa]

Our football was abysmal to watch tonight.

What I expected when Houllier came in was to make use of our more skillfull players and get us playing a better passing game.

I'm beginning to think that you can count our skillful players on one hand.

[Villatillidie25]

I was most definitely one of those who was pleased with the initial appointment of Houllier but frustrated that the first half of the season was ravaged by injuries to players. I have continuously said give him more time to allow him to inbed a more continental style of play and get everyone back.
However, having been at the game tonight. He has to go. He played four centre backs at home against a weakened Sunderland team and two defensive midfielders. On top of that, he played a striker on the left wing (at least play him on the right if you have to stick him there, especially given that downing is useless on the right) downing on the right when he quite obviously isnt comfortable there and young up front. I thought the ashley experiment up top might work but not at the expense of the balance of the team and not when he plays out and out up front. He no longer roams the park going from wing to wing to avoid being double marked and allow him the licence to whip in crosses from either flank. Instead he is stuck up front doing sweet fa. The two in the middle were devoid of ideas and Stan was so far off the pace it was almost funny...if not so scary. I just pray he was unfit/injured.
Admittedly, Heskey cost us the game; he scores we get at least a point, he doesnt get sent off, we probably still get a point but he was the only player who looked like he wanted. He moved off the ball well, held it up and ran the ragged. The rest of the team, while they worked hard enough looked unbalanced and disorganised. They ambled around the pitch, rather than moving in quick, short bursts in an effort to free up space. We looked as if we couldn't pass the ball to save our life.
However, the worst bit of it all was our supposedly tactically astute manager sat by and watched a second half performance which was one of the worst I have ever seen. He had bannan and albrighton warming up from around 55 and yet didnt bring them on when their energy could have provided the spark we needed. Im completely against playing just kids but they have showed they are good enough and a smattering of them could be the invigoration we need; they certainly looked livelier when they eventually came on in the 87th minute. Still more depressing was Houllier's tactic on how to break a team down. Put your best attacking player at full back, your big burly defenders up top and shell it to them. This is not English rugby, this is the Villa and it had the tactical imagination of a battering ram only with the strength of a wet fart.
I'm afraid Mr Houllier, this fan has ran out of patience, you should stick to roles behind the scenes, you simply aren't cut out for being a manager any more and the Villa players would seem to agree with me on that.

[JJ-AV]

As the hours go on my feeling is he's got to go.

We're gonna go down under him. Well OK, that's not guarenteed but does anyone really see us getting 6 wins from our next 17 games with him? He provided 2 from his first 17 games.

Birmingham A,
Wigan A,
Fulham H,
Blackpool A,
Blackburn H,
Wolves H,
Newcastle H,
West Ham A,
Stoke H,
West Brom A,
Wigan H,
Liverpool H.

Are all remaining fixtures I'd fancy us to get something from.

There should be six wins there.

Give KMac the job, he can get us playing how we're used to under O'Neill and we'll get six wins (atleast) from those fixtures. It won't be pretty, we won't be pulling up trees, but we'll stay up and as soon as that's guarenteed we can start looking for a successor (be it Coyle, Moyes, Hughes, Hodgson - who all could be gettable by then for a club of our size, our resources and very much a blank canvas to work from).

[Nev]

At the start of December I said bottom 3 by the New year and sadly I wasn't proved wrong.

Despite how close it is at the bottom, given the first half of the season, I can't see us getting out.

[brian green]

What is happening now is exactly what I thought would happen and said would happen on the day we appointed him.   He is yesterday's man, a spent force.   He is the managerial equivalent of Basil Fawlty's Norwgian Blue parrot.

It all began with the short list of candidates we put together.   It was - with the honourable exception of KM piss poor and second rate.   As we watched Carew blaze a penalty over the bar and the goals pour in at Newcastle we knew that was KM's chance gone and that a prick of a manager would get the job.

When O'Neill flounced out we should have done one of two things.   We should have bitten on the bullet and made a top flight manager and his club an offer they could not refuse and got the best money could buy or we should have given KM a longer holding role until the right man became available.   Instead we fell right through the gap in between those two options.   We got an old man resting on past achievements living in the comfort zone and unaware or oblivious to what he was letting himself in for.  He has gone full circle and has become a schoolteacher again.

He provided more evidence if more is needed of his being out of touch with premiership level football and the fans in his statement after the game.   He said and I quote "it is very frustrating for the fans".   No it isn't frustrating you silly old fool.   It is pure unadulterated unbearable agony.   Under any circumstance for fans to see the team they love humiliated week after week is more than flesh and blood can bear but to go from the new dawn of the club under the ownership of Randy Lerner and the spending of huge sums of money on players to being in accelerating  freefall after challenging for top four for three seasons should not be summed up as "frustrating".   Just in case the point he was making for us to stop being silly billys was lost on us he went on to say if we had won we would be chanting his name.   No we would not and to claim it is as blatant and premeditated an insult to our intelligence as the Anfiled love in was.

If the comments had come from a foreign manager with little command of english - Capello for example, the choice of words would not have been so informative but his english is perfect.

This is not a cheap shot about his health but it is clear that Houllier has no heart.   The game to him now is all in his head in his reversion to school teacher mode. Football and Aston Villa and football fans exist only in his brain like the names of mountains and rivers do in a geography teacher's head.

If we act quickly and get somebody in to pull the team back into a unit - even if that means booting Houllier upstairs for the rest of his contract - we may just survive.   If we delay or if we allow Houllier and his assistant to continue to command the dressing room, the dug out and the training ground w are done for.

I am not frustrated Monsieur Houllier.   I am dying game by game.

[N'ZMAV]

I did type a huge post to my thoughts on Houllier, but decided to just say "what a fucking mess!!!" as it summed it all up perfectly.

[Bad English]

Would it be frowned upon if I typed "told you so" while folding my arms and tutting disdainfully?