I've never seen a new manager's words so critically debated and misconstrued.
~I agree he said some silly things. But its fairly standard practice for a new manager to talk down recent performances, for fairly obvious reasons. He was wrong to say we were a 7th-12 placed team; but it wasn't a million miles out. I feel that's where our 'natural' position would be if everyone performed to their potential across the division. ie top 6 'should' be: Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Spurs.
Quote from: dave.woodhall on January 01, 2011, 12:34:12 AMI've never seen a new manager's words so critically debated and misconstrued. This was my reason for asking the question.I can understand people being critical of performance and comments made but it has gone further than that. We have people openly fabricating stories to use against the manager, why? We have people twisting comments to suit their arguement against the manager, why?The age of the internet has meant news travels very fast and rumours spread like wildfire. People pick up on comments, treate them as gospel and comment on them, sometimes without thinking about why it was said and whether it is true. Take the comment the other night when it was said GH was not travelling back with the team and was attending a Liverpool function, which somebody later said was totally untrue. Why would somebody want to make up something like that, which would show the manager in a bad light and ultimately show up the club and the supporters. It is the last bit that I am struggling to accept as a long time Villa supporter. Everybody has a right to give their opinion but I have always believed that we should get behind the club and give the people that run the club the time to put plans into action. It is very easy to stand on the sidelines and criticise. It is not so easy these days to show some restraint and understanding of the problems before criticising.My opinion, GH will never get the full support of the fans, too much has been said. If results do improve and we finish the season on a high, there will still be some supporters waiting for the next setback. Things will not happen quick enough for some (in this day and age probably many). How many people these days accept they are wrong and change their views, easy to say but difficult to action.Randy Lerner selected Houllier (in my opinion) for the long term to slowly rebuild the team to challenge and sustain the challenge year after year. This was never going to be a short term taking of last seasons team and adding a couple of players. Many people recognised the limitations of the team, the most obvious being not being able to take a game to the opposition and dominate (an absolute requirement if you want to be a top team). As supporters we always believe the team is better than it actually is and that some players are better than they actually are, that is what being a fan is all about.I think Randy is here for the long term but he knows that he cannot keep pumping in money like before as there will always be another owner that will come along similar to Man City. That way has to be on a sustainable development of the team that goes on year after year. Until GH is able to field a settled side, injury free and add a couple of players to cover the loss of Milner and the deficiencies I will give him the time to show whether he still has it in him. The tipping point for me will probably be the end of February. I will either see the light at the end of the tunnel or will accept that my faith was misplaced and suggest we look for another manager, providing that it follows the same blueprint that I believe Randy is trying to follow and build for the future. I have seen too many periods of short term succes followed by periods of nothing or, even worse, failure.
Let's give our manager the benefit of the doubt on all the negative things he's done since he took over, and let's concentrate on the positives. Anybody want to start us off....?