The future of Houllier and McAllister?

[VillaZogmariner]

Paulie - as well as look at the money spent on the team, how much of that money was spent by Houllier? Look at the players he inherited - a clearly unfit fat c*** Dunne. The likes of Collins, Warnock, Beye who have been seriously out of form and not giving a shit either way. Then add into the mix Ireland. I'm not saying Houllier is a great choice as manager, and he has made some strange selection choices (I'm talking about Cuellar there), but we have been nowhere as bad as a lot of people are making out. Especially since Bent came in and he was starting to get a settled spine to the team.

That's all well and good, and it was always going to be difficult this season, but to turn a squad from top six into bottom six with the subtraction of one very good midfielder for half the season plus the addition of one very good goalscorer, well, that is utterly unacceptable.

There's nothing settled about this team, and "spine" is the last word I would associate with it. A good portion of that blame lies with the players, but the manager is ultimately responsible.

My main argument/gripe though is twats coming out and saying that Houllier should not be allowed to attend the Liverpool match. He's the fucking manager of the club. ASTON VILLA FOOTBALL CLUB MANAGER is his job title (or could be Head Coach), so to say he shouldn't be at the match is a fucking joke. I'd be more pissed off if he was told he were fit enough to attend the match and not bother going.

He's not attending in his capacity as our manager, though, is he? He's not going to be giving team talks or sitting on the bench. If you imagine the situation where we need something from that game, and there's a love-in between our manager and their fans, it doesn't really take much to imagine why people might be very, very pissed off.

It shouldn't be like that, you're right, but that doesn't change the fact that it is. Like so many fuck ups this season, this is entirely avoidable.

What a lot of people seem to forget when they say about Houllier turning a squad that finished 6th last season to one that has struggled this is the important fact that all the teams that were also competing for the top 7/8 improved their squads last summer - all we did was sell our best midfielder and replace him with a nutter. So this top 6 squad has been weakened. This isn't the fault of Houllier but that of the ****** that threw his toys out of his pram and fucked off with ALL of the 1st team back room staff 5 days before the season kicked off. So up until January we had a weaker squad compared to that of the previous season. Add to that one of the worst injury crisis's I can ever remember us having. Even when our better players from the previous season were able to play they have been woefully off form. Dunne came back seriously overweight and clearly unfit. Gabby had niggling injuries and has had a stop start season. Warnock lost his form completely and Carew forgot where the goal was.

In previous seasons, if we had got 41 points at this stage in the season we'd be comfortably safe now and around 11th in the league. However in each of them seasons there have been teams well cut adrift at the foot of the table (Burnley, Hull, Portsmouth etc). This season though we haven't had that, and all the teams that are fighting the drop have been beating each other as well as picking up shock results elsewhere. Because of that the relegation fight has been tighter than it has been for many a year. When was the last time we came into the penultimate weekend in the season and no team had already been relegated? I honestly cannot remember.

Houllier has made some mistakes this season, let's not kid ourselves that he hasn't. However he has also had some wretched luck too, coupled with a core of the players who clearly couldn't give a fuck about the club or playing for the fans/shirt. I'm in the minority here, and that doesn't bother me at all, but I'd like to see Houllier stay on as Manager. He started to address the areas where we have struggled the most of the past couple of years and the type of football we were playing up to his illness was pretty good. Come this summer I'd expect him to continue what he started in January and he'd be able to use the whole of the pre-season to drill into this squad what he wants. Sadly though I expect that his family will persuade him that it's not worth the risks to his health.

The second point about him not attending the match as manager, he might not be in the dug out, but if he were to stay he'd want to see how we played and also have a better understanding about how the match panned out than he would by sitting in his house watching on a dodgy internet stream and trying to keep up with the match threads we have on here. I can't help but think that Houllier would be in a no win situation here, if he were told he was fit enough to attend the game there are a lot of posters on here who would be slagging him off for not having the passion for the job for wanting to attend. 

[The Moose]

I'm with you Villa Sub, all the way!
Going to Arsenal?

[VillaZogmariner]

Not tomorrow - got family coming down for the day.

[paul_e]

Yup, big thumbs up from me too, that's what I've been saying for a while.

Add on that mon had a very specific game plan that he built his squad (at great expense) to be able to follow.  Unfortunately those players were then unable or unwilling to adapt to the new system Houllier tried to introduce, it seemed though that the signing of Bent made them realise things could go well as we really did see a big improvement.

[The Moose]

And all that's happened recently is that we've gone back to last season's tactics, with last season's players (bar Bent and Walker) and achieved a couple of scrappy wins which more than likely will keep us up.

Does anybody really think that the current management will improve things next season? Not me, no chance.

Time for change, and fast!

[ozzjim]

If Ancellotti leaves Chelsea, and is looking for a club in England, we should be in there like a shot. Great manager, and he and Wilkins together have proved an excellent partnership.

[Shrek]

If Ancellotti leaves Chelsea, and is looking for a club in England, we should be in there like a shot. Great manager, and he and Wilkins together have proved an excellent partnership.

Definatly, but there will be big clubs in Italy who would take him with CL I think.

[olaftab]

Now that would be very good ozzjim but I guess there will be a queue.... But I do like Ancelotti. Amazingly dignified and honest man and not a bad football coach.

[Archie]

Now that would be very good ozzjim but I guess there will be a queue.... But I do like Ancelotti. Amazingly dignified and honest man and not a bad football coach.

Not a bad football coach?
Jesus, we  are acclimnatized to managers like MON and Houllier, whereas Carletto has won the Serie A, the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League: maybe he deserves to be considered something better than "not a bad football coach"!

[ozzjim]

Now that would be very good ozzjim but I guess there will be a queue.... But I do like Ancelotti. Amazingly dignified and honest man and not a bad football coach.

Not a bad football coach?
Jesus, we  are acclimnatized to managers like MON and Houllier, whereas Carletto has won the Serie A, the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League: maybe he deserves to be considered something better than "not a bad football coach"!

Yet people are against a coach who has won la ligue twice, the uefa cup, the european cup, the fa cup and the world club cup. For all the arguments against Benitez, he is overqualified for the job with what he has won, and is only 51.

[paul_e]

Now that would be very good ozzjim but I guess there will be a queue.... But I do like Ancelotti. Amazingly dignified and honest man and not a bad football coach.

Not a bad football coach?
Jesus, we  are acclimnatized to managers like MON and Houllier, whereas Carletto has won the Serie A, the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League: maybe he deserves to be considered something better than "not a bad football coach"!

Yet people are against a coach who has won la ligue twice, the uefa cup, the european cup, the fa cup and the world club cup. For all the arguments against Benitez, he is overqualified for the job with what he has won, and is only 51.

but 'Amazingly dignified and honest man' makes ancelotti someone you can happily accept, for all the good things in terms of success benitez is an idiot and it's really tough to not let that affect your judgement.

[Somniloquism]

Now that would be very good ozzjim but I guess there will be a queue.... But I do like Ancelotti. Amazingly dignified and honest man and not a bad football coach.

Not a bad football coach?
Jesus, we  are acclimnatized to managers like MON and Houllier, whereas Carletto has won the Serie A, the Premier League, the FA Cup and the Champions League: maybe he deserves to be considered something better than "not a bad football coach"!

Yet people are against a coach who has won la ligue twice, the uefa cup, the european cup, the fa cup and the world club cup. For all the arguments against Benitez, he is overqualified for the job with what he has won, and is only 51.

The only point I would make with both of these managers records are they have done it with inheriting teams who have had world class players and who are normally known to reside towards the top of their respective leagues.

As I have mentioned before, Benitez inherited a team that had won the Liga and finished as Runners up in the CL league twice so it's not like he was a miracle worker taking a team from nowhere to the top.

[OzVilla]

I can't believe such normally sane and respected posters still think that these clowns deserve another crack at next season.

Havn't the last 8 months on and off the field been enough.

If we survive this horrensous season we need fundemental change, starting with the management - and we needed it before Ged's unfortunate illness.

[richardhubbard]

Why we keep blamin mon, he went 9 months ago frog and muppet been in charge 8 months over30 games and spent30 million plus and took us to edge of relegation, they are to blame for god sake

[Whiney MacWhineface]

As I have mentioned before, Benitez inherited a team that had won the Liga and finished as Runners up in the CL league twice so it's not like he was a miracle worker taking a team from nowhere to the top.

Not quite true. He inherited a side that had lost both Champions League finals, true, but that team had finished fifth the season before Benitez took over. It was Benitez who won both Valencia's titles.