Hot off the press

[rob_bridge]

Gregory should have done much better. The style of football pretty turgid.

In many ways his reign was a forerunner to O'Neill

[PeterWithesShin]

The attendances that I still think were woeful were Boro and Sheff Utd in the same week 93. Just under and just over 20K. We were title challengers at the time.

[Fred]

I think any fans view of JG is dependent on wether you bought in to his "I love the Villa". Just makes me think of MON in that he had the money but spent it badly.

[Clampy]

And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.

SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.

I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.

No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.

I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.

Exactly - a top appointment then, given the players we had and the money that was to come in over the next five years, could have got us to the top. Instead we trod water.

I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.

[dave.woodhall]

I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.

Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.

[supertom]

And when he had to find one he went for Turner, McNeill, Venglos.

SGT, BFR, BL and JG just fell in his lap perfectly.

I suspect he had laid the foundations for the good recruits as well as the bad ones other than Venglos and McDuff a good while in advance.

No way on earth did he do anything to get Sir Graham, for a start. That one was down to a fresh challenge needed and his best friend in football working round the corner from Villa Park. BFR was always going to manage us one day, and decided that it was now or never. Brian Little was destiny and John Gregory a short-term fix suggested by Steve Stride that was in hindsight a bad appointment.

I don't think Gregory did that bad a job bearing in mind we'd plucked him from Wycombe.

Exactly - a top appointment then, given the players we had and the money that was to come in over the next five years, could have got us to the top. Instead we trod water.

I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.

Gregory's brand of football was a delight compared to this. At least for a time he had an effective set up with Boateng and Taylor doing the donkey work with Merson offering a bit of creativity ahead. We did manage, at our best some good football under JG, between Merson, Barry, Hendrie and JPA toward the end.

We were boring with the occasional burst of quality from a few flair players. Where-as now we're just painfully boring with no spark whatsoever.

Though I'd agree, at that time, a better appointment could have taken us to the next level. JG was ultimately here too long, and SGT2 just regressed us badly.
O Leary was always likely to start brightly and fade and that proved so.

O Neill was good, but not good enough. Houllier had the right ideas but poor execution (and health). The last two were just disastrous appointments. One was expectedly horrible, the other came with great potential and hasn't delivered, and proved to be nothing more than a pretender. He's unfortunately still here.

[Ads]

From January on under Houllier our form really picked up, especially after that draw at the Sty.

[rob_bridge]

6 points from Feb and March under Houllier and a shocking surrender, like Percival at Singapore,  in the FA Cup just after That Lot had won something.

It was a barell of laughs losing at home to Wolves and being in the bottom 3.

The form picked up in April though we still lost to the Bitters for the first time in donkeys years.

[QBVILLA]

It was when McAllister took over we hit form. Didn't we go to Arsenal with about three games to go just above the relegation zone? Some freakish last day results saw us jump up from 14th to 9th spot as well.
As for Gregory when he first took over and his first full season I thoroughly enjoyed the football and moreso the results. It became dull after that and Gregory became more celebrity. I seem to recakll him appearing on a chat show and playing some Springsteen on his guitar.

[Ads]

McAllister saw us get beat at the Shrine for the first time in a thousand years.

[pauliewalnuts]

The improvement was there under McAllister, but had already started prior to Houllier getting ill.

These are our results in that decent run.

The bold ones are when Houllier was in hospital (from April 21st).


Everton   2 - 2   Aston Villa   
Aston Villa   1 - 0   Newcastle   
West Ham   1 - 2   Aston Villa   
Aston Villa   1 - 1   Stoke
West Brom   2 - 1   Aston Villa   
Aston Villa   1 - 1   Wigan   
Arsenal   1 - 2   Aston Villa   
Aston Villa   1 - 0   Liverpool   

[Meanwood Villa]

I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.

Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.

None of whom acheived a great deal after 1998.

[rob_bridge]

We had a good run in April and May 2011 which saw us leapfrog to the very top of the erstwhile relegation battlers. The position was helped as we played 2 teams with nothing whatsoever to play for in the last 2 games.

It also helped that we had 2 Wantaway 'star' wingers who were putting themselves in the shop window.

The fact we were in a relegation battle to start with at all and still in one going into May with that squad was reprehensible on the management's part.

[rob_bridge]

I see what you're saying but i'm not sure we trod water under Gregory, you could argue we gave it a go. We were top for half a season, he took us to a cup final and we spent a lot of money doing it. Maybe a better manager would have have kept us top and won us that cup. To be honest, i can't remember who was around at the time.

Gullit, Dalglish and Venables were the front-runners.

3 bullets dodged. I thought Dalglish was already at Newcastle by this time. Was he likely to leave them for us in reality?
Gullit had just been given the bullet by Chelsea IIRC prior to his Newcastle stint.
And Venables had failed to get Australia to the World Cup after in all reality needing to win only one game. Not as bad as being replaced by Peter Reid though so that Leeds could avoid relegation.

[Fred]

Don't forget that El Tel replaced Dolly at Leeds with the Chairman saying after 30 minutes i his company i was left thinking we can win the League. El Tel's best days seemed to end when he left the England job apart from a brief spell when he kept Boro up.