Gerard's gaffes

[Chris Smith]

More of his quotes from the E & S, which gives a bit more detail than the edit to cause a fuss version from the Mirror.
 

He said: “This will be dealt with internally but it is through that we have conceded too many goals on set-pieces and we need to address that.

“I came to this club on September 18, they had their habits for four years and I am not going to change it in the middle of the season but next year it is obviously something I will address.

“For now I will probably stick with it for the rest of the season. We missed Richard, James and Carlos at the same time because they are three experienced players.

“I think what we missed was not just their aerial ability but their experience and probably on set-pieces we showed we were a bit naive.

“Their presence in the air is so good but it is not the first time we have had to play without them.”

[Risso]

More of his quotes from the E & S, which gives a bit more detail than the edit to cause a fuss version from the Mirror.
 

He said: “This will be dealt with internally but it is through that we have conceded too many goals on set-pieces and we need to address that.

“I came to this club on September 18, they had their habits for four years and I am not going to change it in the middle of the season but next year it is obviously something I will address.

“For now I will probably stick with it for the rest of the season. We missed Richard, James and Carlos at the same time because they are three experienced players.

“I think what we missed was not just their aerial ability but their experience and probably on set-pieces we showed we were a bit naive.

“Their presence in the air is so good but it is not the first time we have had to play without them.”

Sorry Chris, but how is that you think that that's in any way better?  He's still going on about "four year habits" even though none of the defence have been there that long.  And sticking with something for the rest of the season that clearly isn't working?  Suidical, surely?

[Shrek]

Hmm deluded?

13 of our 22 man squad injured at one stage,

Overwieght Dunne in shit form,

Young lads totally inexperienced, because they were totally underused by previous regime.

Houllier has bought a Goal scorer which we have needed for years

Houllier has bought a quality fullback we have needed for years

Houllier has bought a quality Midfielder we desperatly needed

Houllier has dropped the useless Warnock

Houllier has dropped Petrov whose legs have gone.

Houllier has changed our style of play which is getting better and better.

He isnt perfect but has done alot more to be positive about than to be negative about.

It's like your all willing to take the good, but not accept the bad that coincides.

[eastie]

Interesting words GED but I'd hardly call September the middle of the season, he's changed the system and playing style so why not change the defensive marking of the team, as I posted earlier the lack of a specialist defensive coach is causing us harm, Steve walford did the job well for mon and he has not been replaced.

Let's be in no doubt GED has addressed many problems and done some very good things this season, good transfer dealings and a much more fluid and attractive style of play bode well for the future, he has cocked up badly with Liverpool and man city issues , but given time I think he knows what needs to be done- the worry is can we get by until the summer, we shouldn't be in this position but for a variety of reasons we are.

Let's hope we can get out of trouble and continue to rebuild in the summer.

[Mazrim]

From what I hear, Walford did next to fuck all.

[Merv]

When we talk about 'why can't we just do what we did last year?', we do need to remember that last season's effective back four - Cuellar Dunne Collins Warnock - have barely all been fit/available at the same time this season. The back four's been remodelled half a dozen times this season; Saturday's line-up was perhaps the most dramatic reshuffle yet. It's hard to get consistency in your tactics when the personnel keep changing.

We should have been out of sight by the middle of the second half on Saturday.

[eastie]

I disagree there maz , walford has been mons defensive coach at Leicester , Celtic and villa and all 3 had pretty solid defences- to say he did fuck all seems a tad harsh on that evidence.

[Chris Smith]

From 5th - 29th Jan we conceded 5 goals in 6 games. Things were better.  Injuries since then have cost us again.

Currently our only 3 experienced centre halves are injured, I think all sides would struggle under those circumstances - see Manu yesterday for an example.

There are clearly issues but we cannot just ignore the part that injuries and suspensions have played.

[nadz3488]

I'm going to reserve my judgement until the end of the season. He can say whatever he likes for all I care as long as we win the games in hand and finish strongly. The last thing I want is to debate about things like these.

[Mister E]

The bottom line is: sort out the defensive / goalkeeping issues from set pieces or we will go down! We're too easy to score against and this is an issue for now.
Getting a decent defensive coach cannot be that hard - get Laursen back in for a couple of weeks to work with them! What does Tony McAndrew and McDonald do about training to defend set pieces? - can we not use that experience?
Even so, you'd think that the existing staff, with the experience in the club (Dunne, Collins, Cuellar, LY),  could have already addressed the key problem areas. A video of the goals-conceded from our last half-dozen games would demonstrate what the issues are and therefore a cocaching plan can be put in place to deal with them.

If we don't concede goals we will stay up; simple as. In our current form and that of our opponents, I can see us getting only 7 more points this season ... not enough. Most of the teams we are due to play are showing resilience and upwards momentum.
So, the imperative to get the defending right - and with the injuries and discipline bans outstanding - is a burning one.

[Villa'Zawg]

Hmm deluded?

13 of our 22 man squad injured at one stage,

Overwieght Dunne in shit form,

Young lads totally inexperienced, because they were totally underused by previous regime.

Houllier has bought a Goal scorer which we have needed for years

Houllier has bought a quality fullback we have needed for years

Houllier has bought a quality Midfielder we desperatly needed

Houllier has dropped the useless Warnock

Houllier has dropped Petrov whose legs have gone.

Houllier has changed our style of play which is getting better and better.

He isnt perfect but has done alot more to be positive about than to be negative about.

It's like your all willing to take the good, but not accept the bad that coincides.

I guess I hadn't realised how well things are going and how much we've improved on last season.

[Mazrim]

I've just been speaking to a Liverpool supporting friend who says:

"The one thing that Houllier did well at Liverpool was install a mean defence. He signed Hyypia, Henchoz and Riise and we won the treble in 2001.
I think he’ll come good at Villa, he’s a great manager and he just needs to be given time. As you say, in the summer he needs to put his stamp on the team."

Patience.

[cdward]

I can understand what GH is trying to do, by changing the style of play, to where the defence play the ball out and it is welcomed.
But that is only one aspect of a defence, the fundamental basic element is winning the ball in the area. Forget the different nuances between zonal marking and man marking, there is only one ball, concentrate on winning that.
Friedel certainly hasn't helped, and maybe the younger lads coming in have been used to Parish actually moving off his line, but blaming MON just looks a bit desperate, bordering on ridiculous considering how well the defence had been playing under MON.
I am not convinced GH is good at man management, the best managers never publicly blame their players, privately yes, so i think he has a bit to learn in that department.
As for the FA cup, touching the Anfield sign, waving at the kop....yes I think this thread will run and run..

[AV82EC]

I've just been speaking to a Liverpool supporting friend who says:

"The one thing that Houllier did well at Liverpool was install a mean defence. He signed Hyypia, Henchoz and Riise and we won the treble in 2001.
I think he’ll come good at Villa, he’s a great manager and he just needs to be given time. As you say, in the summer he needs to put his stamp on the team."

Patience.

Hammer. Nail. Head.

[Risso]

Hmm deluded?

Yes deluded.  A  David Icke level of delusion in fact.


"13 of our 22 man squad injured at one stage" And have things massively improved now the injuries have cleared up?  Are we out of the relegation scrap?

"Overwieght Dunne in shit form".  And when Cuellar came in and had a great game against Wolves, he dropped him for the overweight, shit Dunne.

"Young lads totally inexperienced, because they were totally underused by previous regime."  I can't see that the young lads having played a few games last season would have made much of a difference to be honest.

"Houllier has bought a Goal scorer which we have needed for years" Fair enough, but who's to say that O'Neill wouldn't have bought a goal scorer given £20m to spend on one player.  Houllier may have bought Bent, but he's given away Carew and ruined Gabby, with no overall improvment in results or league position.

"Houllier has bought a quality fullback we have needed for years".  No he hasn't, he's loaned one.  And we had a quality right back last season, he just didn't get much of a look in.

"Houllier has bought a quality Midfielder we desperatly needed" - Bit too early to say if Makoun is quality or not.  And he's also loaned Bradley, who frankly, looks dire.

"Houllier has dropped the useless Warnock".  Awesome.  Not much managerial skill needed to drop an underperforming player.  Bit more needed to stop them underperforming in the first place.

"Houllier has dropped Petrov whose legs have gone." Petrov needed to be used more sparinly for sure.  Again it's hardly a stroke of brilliance though.

"Houllier has changed our style of play which is getting better and better."  More tippy tappy football, that's mostly ineffective, and leads to lots of goals being conceded.

"He isnt perfect but has done alot more to be positive about than to be negative about."  The negatives far, far outweigh the positives.  We're conceding an average of two goals a game, are a gnat's cock away from the relegation places, can't keep a clean sheet, have conceded more goals under Houllier than we did in the whole of last season, surrendered the FA Cup, lost to Small heath on the way to them winning a trophy, waved like a drowning man to Liverpool fans, but ignores Villa fans totally, plays Gabby completely out of position, and blames everybody else except himself.

"It's like your all willing to take the good, but not accept the bad that coincides."  There isn't really an awful lot of good though is there?  I mean, I don't walk into work with a smile on my face because Stephen Warnock is earning £40K a week in the reserves.