Just when you think that things couldn't get any worse....

[ROBBO]

What do you expect managers outside the top five or six to do? for most of them it's all about survival, thats what the so called football guardians have done to our game,Swansea are probably the exeption to the rule as they do play good football and are at the moment doing okay but i would take a bet that they will fall away sooner than later. I don't sympathise with Mcleish as he made a lot of money out of Villa but i do understand the huge problems he faced, he saw the option of playing ugly as  the best chance of survival and who knows if he had gone the attractive football route we could be playing in the championship now.

[Legion]

WBA, Everton, Swansea, ManUre etc etc

[Percy McCarthy]

Timing is everything. If, as I favoured, we'd have appointed BFS to replace Houllier in January of that year we'd have missed the joy of TSM's reign and probably be in a much stronger position as a club to be thinking about getting a more progressive replacement now. In hindsight though, I wish we'd have kept GMac as coach with GH as director of football.

[pauliewalnuts]

The mistake we made was that, when Houllier went, we didn't appoint a manager who would have carried on with the minor signs of progress we'd made under him.

We'd had the pain of that season, but then decided not to take any of the gain, and went and replaced him with a manager who made Houllier's predecessor look like Pep Guardiola.

I wasn't sold on the idea of replacing Houllier with Roberto Martinez, but at least in that you could see some sort of footballing continuity.

Where was the joined-up thinking in flitting from a Martinez knock back (and, no, he didn't have an interview and turn us down, but "no thanks, I don't want an interview" is in every sense a knock back) to a manager whose style was diametically opposed.

[pauliewalnuts]

What do you expect managers outside the top five or six to do? for most of them it's all about survival, thats what the so called football guardians have done to our game,Swansea are probably the exeption to the rule as they do play good football and are at the moment doing okay but i would take a bet that they will fall away sooner than later. I don't sympathise with Mcleish as he made a lot of money out of Villa but i do understand the huge problems he faced, he saw the option of playing ugly as  the best chance of survival and who knows if he had gone the attractive football route we could be playing in the championship now.

McLeish wasn't converted to that style of football by the resources he had at his disposition here.

That's what he'd done ever since arriving in English football.

[Risso]

Bolton played far better football under Allardyce than we do under Lambert, much better in fact.  As I said before, he's a pragmatist.  Build a solid base using the players at your disposal, then gradually improve things.

No, they didn't.

The season they avoided relegation by a couple of points on the last day, that's when you'd have been calling for his head - probably by about mid-September. We're suffering at the moment from the club taking such a short term attitude to everything and changing manager again will just perpetuate that.

It's been a struggle this season, absolutely no doubt, but every so often there have been glimpses of what might be. 

If you're going to be so utterly childish, I'll respond in kind by saying that as you resolutely defended O'Leary and McLeish, you'd no doubt do the same for Allardyce the minute he was appointed.

[danlanza]

The person who started this thread should be shot. BFS MY FUCKING ARSE

[Legion]

It won't happen. It's yet another ridiculous pile of internet bollocks.

[danlanza]

Good. We will be fine with the same manager next season as we have now, thank you very much.

[KevinGage]

And yet they created the more clear cut openings and probably feel aggrieved to not get at least a point - despite not playing particularly well.

If you're taking that as admissable evidence, how many times this season could we have considered ourselves aggrieved not to get more than we did?

How different would things be now had we held on for another minute or two at Everton? Or in several matches this season?

Aye, maybe. 

But it's a sad state of affairs when the team that is supposedly the worst to visit Villa Park for a long time (personally, I think Reading take that accolade -edging slightly ahead of us) isn't beaten out of sight.

They were largely dire last weekend -yet they wouldn't have been particularly lucky had they won. 

However, Allardyce is a manager whose entire ethos is based around horrible, physical percentages football, so I find it pretty staggering when people who have spent much of the last few years (alongside myself) pointing out the footballing failures of previous managers suddenly start to re-evaluate Sam Allardyce favourably.

It's not really a re-evaluation on my part. 

I thought he was a traditional, limited meat and potatoes British manager during his time at Bolton.  And I still think that.

But the limitations of our current manager could see us drop into the Championship -something Fat Sam hasn't done despite working under even less favourable conditions at all his previous clubs.

You'd prefer us to go down than have someone like Allardyce in charge, fair enough. Personally, I think a stint out of the top flight -at a time when the new TV deal will widen the gap further between the haves and have nots- has the potential to be far more ruinous than a few years of having a gorilla with a bluetooth headset prowling the touchline.

[Chris Smith]

Bolton played far better football under Allardyce than we do under Lambert, much better in fact.  As I said before, he's a pragmatist.  Build a solid base using the players at your disposal, then gradually improve things.

No, they didn't.

The season they avoided relegation by a couple of points on the last day, that's when you'd have been calling for his head - probably by about mid-September. We're suffering at the moment from the club taking such a short term attitude to everything and changing manager again will just perpetuate that.

It's been a struggle this season, absolutely no doubt, but every so often there have been glimpses of what might be. 

If you're going to be so utterly childish, I'll respond in kind by saying that as you resolutely defended O'Leary and McLeish, you'd no doubt do the same for Allardyce the minute he was appointed.

You've spent much of the last 4 seasons wanting the manager at the time sacked, it's hardly "utterly childish" to assume that you'd be the same with Allardyce under those circumstances. I was in hospital for much of McLeish's tim,e and hardly posted so didn't really have a lot of time for this resolute defence and I'm sick to death of having to keep explaining about O'Leary, that all I argued for was leaving a decision until the end of the season, which, as things turned out, was the right stance.

[Risso]

Bolton played far better football under Allardyce than we do under Lambert, much better in fact.  As I said before, he's a pragmatist.  Build a solid base using the players at your disposal, then gradually improve things.

No, they didn't.

The season they avoided relegation by a couple of points on the last day, that's when you'd have been calling for his head - probably by about mid-September. We're suffering at the moment from the club taking such a short term attitude to everything and changing manager again will just perpetuate that.

It's been a struggle this season, absolutely no doubt, but every so often there have been glimpses of what might be. 

If you're going to be so utterly childish, I'll respond in kind by saying that as you resolutely defended O'Leary and McLeish, you'd no doubt do the same for Allardyce the minute he was appointed.

You've spent much of the last 4 seasons wanting the manager at the time sacked, it's hardly "utterly childish" to assume that you'd be the same with Allardyce under those circumstances. I was in hospital for much of McLeish's tim,e and hardly posted so didn't really have a lot of time for this resolute defence and I'm sick to death of having to keep explaining about O'Leary, that all I argued for was leaving a decision until the end of the season, which, as things turned out, was the right stance.

Most of the last three years has been spent battling relegation, so yes, I wanted to see the back of the awful Houllier, the diabolical McLeish and the worst of the lot, Lambert.

[pauliewalnuts]

You'd prefer us to go down than have someone like Allardyce in charge, fair enough. Personally, I think a stint out of the top flight -at a time when the new TV deal will widen the gap further between the haves and have nots- has the potential to be far more ruinous than a few years of having a gorilla with a bluetooth headset prowling the touchline.

I'd rather not go down, end of, to be honest. If we do go down, the deciding factor will be our failure to strengthen in January, and I suspect that would have been the case whoever the manager.

If we are going down, though, I'd rather we rebuilt from there than appoint a gorilla like Allardyce and try to build on that. I don't give a toss about his bluetooth headset, I do give a toss about everything else about him.

As I said, there are two arguments here.

The first is that we need to replace Lambert.

The second is that we should do so with Allardyce.

The first I disagree with, but can see why people would want to. The second, I just don't get. If we're going to replace him, why not do so with a manager who could start to build something worthwhile here? Why do so with a dinosaur?

It's also not just "swap this manager for that one" - it is sack one manager and his team and pay a fortune for the pleasure of doing so, and then spend another fortune liberating a mediocre manager and his huge back room staff from West Ham.

It's all so short termist, and it's that that I am most sick about with Villa at the moment. How much more money are we going to burn through as we lurch from one plan to another?

We'd spend all that money, and what would we get? He'd maybe - maybe - keep us up but what would be the long term plan with Allardyce?

[Risso]

We'd spend all that money, and what would we get? He'd maybe - maybe - keep us up but what would be the long term plan with Allardyce?

Any talk of a long term plan is meaningless with Lerner in charge, so I'd settle for staying in the Premier League until he sells.  Going down will ruin us.

[KevinGage]

Allardyce would be a totally short-term solution, you're right.

But without the short term, we might not have much of a medium>long term to speak of.

There would have been an argument to bring someone in post Wigan -and definitely post Southampton and Bradford. Now, I think we have to stick with Lambert -for good or for ill. If we make a change (or Lambert takes the decision out of our hands)  I'd hope it's in the summer, that we're still in the top flight and that it isn't Sam Allthepies.

My point was not so much about defending the merits of Monkey Man, I just find it odd that so many Villa fans can be snobbish about his record and style of play.  Graham Taylor's side first time around was a long ball outfit, John Gregory's side was largely safety first.  Brian Little, after a promising few years, was similar. MON: his limitations have been done to death, and the less said about the last few the better.  The only Villa manager in my lifetime who has had a commitment to attractive, attacking football has been BFR.