Summer transfer rumours, speculation and out-and-out b*ll*cks.

[WikiVilla]

I remember people saying on here that if we had a top half finish and the youngsters got their chance that this would be a good season, we could very well do that.

Or we could still possibly go down, one swallow doesn't make a summer

[eastie]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

I can't help but feel the off the field situation is at least partly of his own making as he's out of touch with how to handle the modern footballer egos.  They're in the wrong, don't misunderstand me, but I think the issues could have been settled without the obvious friction had he handled things better.

And as for progress, yes MON's first season was seen as that.  But how can Houllier's be anything other than disastrous given our fall from 6th and challenging for 4th to relegation candidates?  Blame injuries if you like, but for me it's much more due to poor management than unfortunate circumstance.   

And maybe - I don't know, so I'm only guessing - a lot of it was down to kicking the players arses and making them a bit less comfortabe. But as you said, it's about results. In that case, do you think two wins in 20 matches is get-the-banners-out standard?

No I don't.  I never said 06/07 was 'banners out standard' - we're Aston Villa and 11th will never be that, but is was a decent final position given where the club was at the time.  Were we to finish 11th this season I'd think it a much less acceptable position given what the manager has had to work with.     

i think should we finish top 10 this season it would be quite an achievement considering the problems that have dogged our season from the start, and very acceptable for a manager who came in after the season had begun and inherited a load of problems besides the injuries that have crippled us at times.

[dave.woodhall]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

I can't help but feel the off the field situation is at least partly of his own making as he's out of touch with how to handle the modern footballer egos.  They're in the wrong, don't misunderstand me, but I think the issues could have been settled without the obvious friction had he handled things better.

And as for progress, yes MON's first season was seen as that.  But how can Houllier's be anything other than disastrous given our fall from 6th and challenging for 4th to relegation candidates?  Blame injuries if you like, but for me it's much more due to poor management than unfortunate circumstance.   

And maybe - I don't know, so I'm only guessing - a lot of it was down to kicking the players arses and making them a bit less comfortabe. But as you said, it's about results. In that case, do you think two wins in 20 matches is get-the-banners-out standard?

No I don't.  I never said 06/07 was 'banners out standard' - we're Aston Villa and 11th will never be that, but is was a decent final position given where the club was at the time.  Were we to finish 11th this season I'd think it a much less acceptable position given what the manager has had to work with.     

I'm not saying you did say that - just the opposite in fact. The point I keep making is that there were reasons why we finished 11th that season, there are reasons why we may well finish in roughly the same position this season, and yet one was acceptable while the other has seen an unprecedented outpouring of hysteria and bile.

[Concrete John]

The point I keep making is that there were reasons why we finished 11th that season, there are reasons why we may well finish in roughly the same position this season, and yet one was acceptable while the other has seen an unprecedented outpouring of hysteria and bile.

Yes, some reactions have been OTT from the lunatic fringe, but that doesn't mean his record is any good.  I think the crux of the matter is what those reasons were and which, if any, are the fault of the respective managers.

06/07 - main problem was a squad that was suffering from under investment for a number of years.  Some good players, but ultimately a team that was heading for a relegation scrap in most people's eyes.  The takeover then happened too late for any significant recruitment, other than Petrov, with Jan being a great window for us as it needed to be.  You may disagree, but our biggest issue was the quality of the players.

10/11 - main problem seems to be the adaption to a new style.  The old manager walked at a bad time, so we struggled getting the right replacement, which in turn meant we pretty much missed the summer transfer window.  After that the new boss then had bad injuries to contend with, but at the times when these weren't biting as hard results did not significantly improve.  He also had a troubled dressing room to contend with, which was not the case prior to his arrival.  I think this season the players have been there, but for one reason or another have not performed to the level they are capable of either individually or collectively - and that's the managers responsibility!     

[hartman_1982]

I remember people saying on here that if we had a top half finish and the youngsters got their chance that this would be a good season, we could very well do that.

Or we could still possibly go down, one swallow doesn't make a summer

We are 3 [points closer to 9th than we are to going down.

[WikiVilla]

I remember people saying on here that if we had a top half finish and the youngsters got their chance that this would be a good season, we could very well do that.

Or we could still possibly go down, one swallow doesn't make a summer

We are 3 [points closer to 9th than we are to going down.

Agree we are moving slowly away from  danger but we need points from the next 3 tricky games

[paul_e]

The point I keep making is that there were reasons why we finished 11th that season, there are reasons why we may well finish in roughly the same position this season, and yet one was acceptable while the other has seen an unprecedented outpouring of hysteria and bile.

Yes, some reactions have been OTT from the lunatic fringe, but that doesn't mean his record is any good.  I think the crux of the matter is what those reasons were and which, if any, are the fault of the respective managers.

06/07 - main problem was a squad that was suffering from under investment for a number of years.  Some good players, but ultimately a team that was heading for a relegation scrap in most people's eyes.  The takeover then happened too late for any significant recruitment, other than Petrov, with Jan being a great window for us as it needed to be.  You may disagree, but our biggest issue was the quality of the players.

10/11 - main problem seems to be the adaption to a new style.  The old manager walked at a bad time, so we struggled getting the right replacement, which in turn meant we pretty much missed the summer transfer window.  After that the new boss then had bad injuries to contend with, but at the times when these weren't biting as hard results did not significantly improve.  He also had a troubled dressing room to contend with, which was not the case prior to his arrival.  I think this season the players have been there, but for one reason or another have not performed to the level they are capable of either individually or collectively - and that's the managers responsibility!     

I can't agree with the bit about result not improving, we had started to look like a better side in January after the Bent signing and results did improve but them suspensions and injuries hit again and we struggled for a few games.  Now we've got a fairly stable squad again and we have 4 points in 2 games.  If everyone stays fit and suspension free from now until the end of the season we should be safe, if we have 7 defenders out again who knows.

I've posted the injury record elsewhere on this forum and a lot of people were suprised by how many were there, it's a figure far in excess of any season MON had (more than double for 2 of his seasons) and that was a month ago.

In 06/07 we did have injuries but never where we had literally no defenders outside the matchday squad until you got to youth team level.  Ditto this season we had a period of time where we had a half fit Heskey and the Fonz as our only fit strikers until you got to youth prospects.  We also had a point where we had to field Hogg, Bannan and Clark as our central midfield, with Herd as the replacement.

You can argue all you want about how poorly Houllier has done but it's a fact that he's had to deal with some of the worst injury problems I've ever seen at the villa, all whilst arriving to a side who came in to the season under prepared, having lost our best player and with no one from the previous coaching regime to help smooth the transition.

We won on the opening day mainly due to West Ham being abysmal and the fans sucking the ball into the net, we then saw the true level of our preparation away at newcastle.  A lot of the injuries and clashes have come from the new coaching setup trying to get the team sufficiently fit to play how they want us to.  Give Houllier a pre-season to set a higher bar for the fitness and reshape the squad and then see how he does.

At the time MON left a lot of people stated, quite rightly, that the effects of his leaving when and how he did would reverberate through the season but a bit of emotion returning to his old club (which was an error of judgement) and a mistake in the cup seem to have led to huge swathes of people deciding that he should have had us challenging for the champions league and as such he's a huge failure.

As for playing people out of position, that's the manager's choice.  Gabby might have done a good job on the left wing (and I actually think he did what was asked of him there to an extent it just blunted his game too much) Houllier couldn't be sure until he tried it for a few games.  If he'd had a pre-season he could've tried these things there but the timing of his arrival meant he was dropped into things.

I'm suprised Downing on the right has been mentioned though, he's actually played really well on the right and will probably end up as our player of the season in a season where he's spent at least 50% of his time on the right.  To suggest the decision to put him there is something to beat Houllier with is mind boggling in it's stupidity.

[eastie]

Well said, people critisising downings position must surely realise he's had a great season for us , the biggest error without doubt was the team at man city in the cup as we had some momentum
And the feel good factor was returning until that night- we have played much better in recent weeks and it's the silly late goals that are the difference between us being where we are and being in the top 8.

If we could see out games and hold onto leads rather than drop an incredible 23 points from leading- just 8 of those 23 points would have seen us up chasing a top 6 place.

[Risso]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

We finished 12 points clear of relegation that season, having never really been threatened with the drop.  You just can't say the same this season.

[DrGonzo]

So who are we signing this summer?

[dave.woodhall]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

We finished 12 points clear of relegation that season, having never really been threatened with the drop.  You just can't say the same this season.

Depends who you talk to.

[LeeB]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

We finished 12 points clear of relegation that season, having never really been threatened with the drop.  You just can't say the same this season.

I clearly remember being a little concerned about the 'R' word until we won at Blackburn around the same time of year, we never looked back after that.

[Monty]

You also cannot compare the off-field situation O'Neill enjoyed with the one Houllier has had to put up with, yet O'Neill's first season was thought of as one of progress while Houllier is condemned.

We finished 12 points clear of relegation that season, having never really been threatened with the drop.  You just can't say the same this season.

I clearly remember being a little concerned about the 'R' word until we won at Blackburn around the same time of year, we never looked back after that.

Yep, just after what would become the traditional March Meltdown IIRC.

[Merv]

I remember that 06-07 season, when we couldn't buy a win for so long. We scraped past Watford at home, with Baros missing a hat-trick of one-on-ones. That always sticks out in my mind when I think back to that first O'Neill season - the PL had truly woeful teams back then. This season no-one is totally stranded at the bottom. Three, four seasons ago Wigan (on 31 pts, aren't they?) might probably be in 16th, 17th at this stage of the season, rather than bottom.

[Chris Smith]

Apologies in advance but I am about to use the 't' word.

A mid table finish has to be seen as acceptable in a transition season. So despite all the trials and tribulations Houllier will have done an acceptable job if we finish between 8th and 14th. I think there might need to be some tinkering with the structure in the summer but I'd expect it to be enough for him to still be here come August.