the person with the banner, thanks for setting the upbeat tone for the day!

[Karl Bridges]

Feel free to take a banner to the game supporting the manager if you like.  Or even just start a song about him.  There's a first time for everything.

Thing is it's not going to happen at this point in the season- sacking him- so we should pull the drawbridge up and just get through the season. Then is the time to argue over Houllier. Like it or not he is going to be here until the end of the season and what we really don't need right now are the fans to make the place like it's somewhere the players are too nervous to play in order to get the results we need lest the fans start singing HOullier out. Whether it's justified or not now is not the time.

That is absolutely spot on.

[1_Pablo_Angel]

Your self delusion isn't even based on facts.  After the FA Cup game, these were our results:

Lost 3-1 to Man U
Drew 2-2 with Fulham
Drew 1-1 with Blackburn
Won 4-1 against Blacburn
Lost 3-0 against Man City (FA Cup)
Lost 3-2 against Bolton

So I make that 1 win in 5 or 6, depending on whether you want to include the FA Cup humiliation or not.  If you actually meant BEFORE the FA Cup game, then we won two out of five league games.  And it's not just hindsight with regards to Houllier either.  The bloke was in semi-retirement pushing paper for the French FA.  He hadn't been linked with a top job in years.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Course by "After the Blackburn FA Cup game... we had won 4 and drawn 1 of our previous 5 games" I meant that people were looking very much up the table after the Blackburn FA Cup game.

The games I was referring to were

Sheffield United away (W 3-1)
Blues away (D 1-1)
Man City home (W 1-0)
Wigan away (W 2-1) and
Blackburn home (W 3-1)

I'm well aware it was 2 league wins and a decent battling point at the shit. Fact remains, we were looking much more solid, scoring a few goals and people were looking up the table rather than nervously over their shoulders. Which was my original point.

[Risso]

So two wins in the FA Cup were going to help us on our way to 7th....OK then.  You do realise that those two games against Wigan and Man City was the only time we've had back to back league games under Houllier?

[Cuz]

man with banner is spot on and if it helps speed up Randy that's all good for me, can't believe anybody thinks Houlier can be given any time he is destroying us, he is out of touch doesn't have a clue or any answers just have a look at some of his quotes, how can he blame MON for zonal marking, and what he done in the FA cup finished me disgraceful!! in truth i find him embarrassing and he must be replaced asap

[SheffieldVillain]

So two wins in the FA Cup were going to help us on our way to 7th....OK then.  You do realise that those two games against Wigan and Man City was the only time we've had back to back league games under Houllier?

Isn't that his point? That we'd had two back to back wins and therefore most people would at that time have thought that we were going forwards not backwards.

[1_Pablo_Angel]

So two wins in the FA Cup were going to help us on our way to 7th....OK then.  You do realise that those two games against Wigan and Man City was the only time we've had back to back league games under Houllier?

Premature it may have been, but we looked to be getting the defence sorted and the club was still on a high from Bent's signing. Look up some posts if you want, as I KEEP SAYING the prevailing attitude was not one of fearing for relegation. Lets go back AGAIN to the original point I made that started this boring side-argument - you saying that it has always been obvious to any idiot that Houllier has been nothing but a total, awful failure, is a false statement. After we'd beaten Blackburn we had got in some very promising signings, strung some results together, and things were looking up. The table was so congested that a decent number of people here were thinking aloud about the possibility of getting up to 7th. It's really not that mental, at the time it would only have taken something like 2 wins.

As for

"So two wins in the FA Cup were going to help us on our way to 7th...OK then."

Is there any need to be putting words in my mouth in such a sarcastic, childlike fashion? It's unbecoming.
As for the back to back games thing, that has absolutely no relevance to my point whatsoever. But you do seem to keep losing sight of that in your attempts to find something to criticise.

[Risso]

As for the back to back games thing, that has absolutely no relevance to my point whatsoever. But you do seem to keep losing sight of that in your attempts to find something to criticise.

I don't have to "attempt" to find something to criticise, you seem to be doing your best to ignore the elephant in the room named "impending relegation".  And sorry, but saying that Houllier has been a total failure couldn't be more obvious to me.  He's taken a side that finished 6th with a solid defence and made us an embarrassing shambles.  He gave up in the cup to save the players from two games in 5 weeks.  Every comment he makes is more embarrassing than the last.  OK I can see that he's trying to get us to play football, but then that's what managers like Grant and Martinez are trying to do too, with similarly dreadful results.

[WikiVilla]

 Spot on Risso this clown is killing our club and driving away the fans

[1_Pablo_Angel]

As for the back to back games thing, that has absolutely no relevance to my point whatsoever. But you do seem to keep losing sight of that in your attempts to find something to criticise.

I don't have to "attempt" to find something to criticise, you seem to be doing your best to ignore the elephant in the room named "impending relegation".  And sorry, but saying that Houllier has been a total failure couldn't be more obvious to me.  He's taken a side that finished 6th with a solid defence and made us an embarrassing shambles.  He gave up in the cup to save the players from two games in 5 weeks.  Every comment he makes is more embarrassing than the last.  OK I can see that he's trying to get us to play football, but then that's what managers like Grant and Martinez are trying to do too, with similarly dreadful results.

I totally agree with you about the cup surrender. I'm not ignoring the threat of relegation. I was defending Randys part in our situation, and in relation to our most recent bits of discourse, questioning your assertion that it has been obvious to everyone that Houllier has been an unmitigated disaster throughout his tenure, when there was a period when this was simply not the case.

That is all.

If you don't need to attempt to find things to criticise, then don't do it. Stop putting words in my mouth and taking things laughably out of context like assuming I meant our run of results after the Blackburn game, when my original statement wasn't even ambiguous. It's like arguing with a child.

[Cuz]

Spot on thank you

As for the back to back games thing, that has absolutely no relevance to my point whatsoever. But you do seem to keep losing sight of that in your attempts to find something to criticise.

I don't have to "attempt" to find something to criticise, you seem to be doing your best to ignore the elephant in the room named "impending relegation".  And sorry, but saying that Houllier has been a total failure couldn't be more obvious to me.  He's taken a side that finished 6th with a solid defence and made us an embarrassing shambles.  He gave up in the cup to save the players from two games in 5 weeks.  Every comment he makes is more embarrassing than the last.  OK I can see that he's trying to get us to play football, but then that's what managers like Grant and Martinez are trying to do too, with similarly dreadful results.

[Cuz]

Correct!!!!

Spot on Risso this clown is killing our club and driving away the fans

[Ad@m]

OK I can see that he's trying to get us to play football, but then that's what managers like Grant and Martinez are trying to do too, with similarly dreadful results.

Not wanting to piss on your parade but West Ham have got 11 points from the last possible 18 and they're out of the bottom three for the first time this year. 

I don't see that GH is trying to get us to play football.  All I see is he's trying to get us to not lose the ball.  This results is loads of possession but no chances on goal.  I don't remember any of our attacking players having a single chance yesterday other than when Ash hit the bar.  At home, against a team in the relegation zone, that's just not good enough.  This isn't down to the players - they're all good enough to be in the top half of the table - so it must be down to something else.  Everything is pointing to the management team.

[Villa'Zawg]

 gregnash: trouble with that theory is Houllier wasn't here when Dunne was living in the pie shop pre-season, he wasn't here when they were putting in gutless performances under Mcdonald. I think you'd struggle to find someone who would say GH is an easy man to get on with given the evidence but still there seems to be certain members of the squad who don't seem to be happy with whoever they're playing under
------------------

If only those players hadn't taken 10 points from the first 6 games of the season you might have a point.A continuation of that level of form would have seen us fighting it out with Chelsea and Spurs rather than the.Blues and Baggies.

What wouldn't you give for 3 wins and a draw from our next 6 games.

[Risso]

If you don't need to attempt to find things to criticise, then don't do it. Stop putting words in my mouth and taking things laughably out of context like assuming I meant our run of results after the Blackburn game, when my original statement wasn't even ambiguous. It's like arguing with a child.

Your original point was this:

"there have been times most on here were looking at 7th as a possibility rather than trying to stay up in the last few games. Things are dire now but to say it's all been this bad since he came is complete revisionism designed, I can only assume, to give you another stick to beat Randy with."

I would argue that there has never been a single moment when "most" on here were looking at 7th at all.  You seem to be using one two-game winning streak as your entire evidence for not everything being bad, when in reality it has been.  We've had numerous public relations disasters, some utterly dismal results, and he's got the worst win percentage of any Villa manager since McNeill, and look where that ended.  The players don't want to play for him, and the fans don't want him. 

So yes, the man who appointed him, and continues to stand by him has to take the blame.  If we go down, Lerner's ownership will have to be reappraised I feel.

[Greg N'Ash]

gregnash: trouble with that theory is Houllier wasn't here when Dunne was living in the pie shop pre-season, he wasn't here when they were putting in gutless performances under Mcdonald. I think you'd struggle to find someone who would say GH is an easy man to get on with given the evidence but still there seems to be certain members of the squad who don't seem to be happy with whoever they're playing under
------------------

If only those players hadn't taken 10 points from the first 6 games of the season you might have a point.A continuation of that level of form would have seen us fighting it out with Chelsea and Spurs rather than the.Blues and Baggies.

What wouldn't you give for 3 wins and a draw from our next 6 games.

then why isn't he manager now then.  I don't remember a ground swell of pro-mcdonald support on here when he was given the boot. Most seemed to think he'd sadly failed the audition. Tbf in retrospect he seemed to have coped at least as well as GH with the general discontentment in the camp