Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[Toronto Villa]

I am a big fan of Remi Garde but the one huge hole he put in the bottom of his own boat was to start to clean out the dressing room of its poisonousness then to do a U turn.  I expected better of him.

I am not sure what options he had.

The total lack of transfers in January was the final nail, both for him and any lingering hopes of survival. It backed him into playing the very players he'd identified as wanting rid of.

it didn't help that he provided no bounce at all when he arrived and the hole that he started with became a chasm. I still believe had the points gap been what it was when he arrived then he would have got some money. But as much as he had a hell of a task he didn't make anything better. The whole thing was a massive disaster. Thank fuck Eric Black came in like Gandalph the White and saved the day.

[Pat McMahon]

Nice fella, completely out of his depth though. My highlight of his tenure was when we went to Wycombe and were sitting right behind the dugout - where we had a great view of Guzan and Lescott pissing about on the bench and Richards arguing with our fans. PatMcMahon's French mate came with us and every couple of minutes he would hurl some abuse towards Garde in perfect French. Childish, I know, but more fun than watching us limp towards a draw against a park team.

A shit performance made good by too much beer and a gargantuan chip shop.

[TB]

In order to provide a bounce you'll have to work with something that's not totally inert at the outset...

IMO, Garde's largest obstacle during his time at Villa was his nationality. When replacing a struggling English manager f*ckwit at a club with a very obvious us vs. them (English-based vs new French-based players) division in the squad, any competent manager of any other nationality might work. Spanish, Italian, Dutch, German, etc, but not English or French.

Appointing a French manager to replace Sherwood just turned the tables 180 degrees, with the squad division still intact. 'Us' vs. 'them' just became 'them' vs 'us'. A no-win scenario, especially without being allowed to bring in any players.

[brian green]

Agree 100% TB.  The club was awash with francophobia fuelled by Sherwood's strategy of staying in the favour of his media friends by shifting all the blame for bad performances onto the French and French speaking players whom he claimed he had no part in signing.  As somebody commented after the Blackburn game, who would you sooner have in midfield,  Veretout and Gueye or Gardner and Bacuna.

I freely admit to being disappointed with Remi Garde, mostly because he agreed to come without enforceable guarantees of backing.  The real problem he left behind him was the tailor made excuse for the dinosaurs at the club to resist the absolutely overwhelming evidence that the way forward is with young, intelligent, imaginative, preferably multi lingual managers.  We tried it with Remi Garde they will say as they search for David Moyes' telephone number.

[peter w]

I'm sorry but i just don't by this the club was more rotten to the core than an us v them french attitude prevailing through the club. Sherwood said after his sacking:

"I believe that those players in time will be good players for the football club, but when you bring in a lot of players from other countries that have not played and experienced the Premier League before, the competitive nature of it, it is going to take time.

According to the Daily mail:

Rudy Gestede and Mark Bunn were Sherwood choices, but he missed out on a number of other targets including Aaron Lennon, Andros Townsend, Joe Gomez and Esteban Cambiasso.
Emmanuel Adebayor was extremely close to signing before having personal doubts.


According to the Daily mail:

Rudy Gestede and Mark Bunn were Sherwood choices, but he missed out on a number of other targets including Aaron Lennon, Andros Townsend, Joe Gomez and Esteban Cambiasso.
Emmanuel Adebayor was extremely close to signing before having personal doubts.

Reilly and Almstadt, a data analytics expert, have preferred to employ 'Moneyball' methods and look abroad for emerging talents. Reilly moved to Villa after leaving his role as scouting co-ordinator at Liverpool, a club where such statistical theory is fundamental.
That resulted in the likes of Jordan Amavi, Jordan Veretout, and Adama Traore arriving, highly thought of in their own countries but untried in England. It is believed Idrissa Gana and Jordan Ayew were cumulative calls.

I have never brought in the idea that there was a them v us which was the problem. Garde came in to try and help the French players, or those from the French league, settle in as they were quality players who the club were hoping would propel us up the league. It didn't work out and there may have been a fractious relationship within the dressing-room, but that was more to do with the lack of scouting, buying, and overall structure to make the club strong on and off the pitch on a playing front. As news leaked out about the lack of scouting for certain age groups in birmingham, and scouts being AWOL, its clear the problem isn't or wasn't Sherwood or Garde. Sherwood didn't help but that a collection of players were thrown together who shouldn't have been, and that teh coaching was clearly not up to it, and that club was rotten was key.

[brian green]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

[Salsa Party Animal]

It would be interesting to see if Remi Garde took over Steve Bruce rather than Tim Sherwood. But he had his chance and doesn't seem to be strong enough to handle the job. We need a young Ron Atkinson type.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Nice fella, completely out of his depth though. My highlight of his tenure was when we went to Wycombe and were sitting right behind the dugout - where we had a great view of Guzan and Lescott pissing about on the bench and Richards arguing with our fans. PatMcMahon's French mate came with us and every couple of minutes he would hurl some abuse towards Garde in perfect French. Childish, I know, but more fun than watching us limp towards a draw against a park team.

A shit performance made good by too much beer and a gargantuan chip shop.

[/quote]

A shit performance made good by too much beer and a gargantuan chip shop.
[/quote]

It was called Mr Cod. Funny the things you remember when the rest of the day was a total blur.

[Ad@m]

Nice fella, completely out of his depth though. My highlight of his tenure was when we went to Wycombe and were sitting right behind the dugout - where we had a great view of Guzan and Lescott pissing about on the bench and Richards arguing with our fans. PatMcMahon's French mate came with us and every couple of minutes he would hurl some abuse towards Garde in perfect French. Childish, I know, but more fun than watching us limp towards a draw against a park team.

I was, unknowingly, stood right next to you.  I had a chuckle every time the (to me) random fella to my left screamed something in French down to the bench.  I did think it was very strange that a French tourist would choose Wycombe away to go and see the worst Villa side in a generation play!

[peter w]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

I agree with that. garde was probably who we needed either after O'Neill or Houllier. Not when he came in. Lerner made such a mess of us it was going to take him to get it back onto an even keel again, never mind getting it right.

[Pat McMahon]

Nice fella, completely out of his depth though. My highlight of his tenure was when we went to Wycombe and were sitting right behind the dugout - where we had a great view of Guzan and Lescott pissing about on the bench and Richards arguing with our fans. PatMcMahon's French mate came with us and every couple of minutes he would hurl some abuse towards Garde in perfect French. Childish, I know, but more fun than watching us limp towards a draw against a park team.

I was, unknowingly, stood right next to you.  I had a chuckle every time the (to me) random fella to my left screamed something in French down to the bench.  I did think it was very strange that a French tourist would choose Wycombe away to go and see the worst Villa side in a generation play!

A lot of those French insults came from me too!

[Ad@m]

Nice fella, completely out of his depth though. My highlight of his tenure was when we went to Wycombe and were sitting right behind the dugout - where we had a great view of Guzan and Lescott pissing about on the bench and Richards arguing with our fans. PatMcMahon's French mate came with us and every couple of minutes he would hurl some abuse towards Garde in perfect French. Childish, I know, but more fun than watching us limp towards a draw against a park team.

I was, unknowingly, stood right next to you.  I had a chuckle every time the (to me) random fella to my left screamed something in French down to the bench.  I did think it was very strange that a French tourist would choose Wycombe away to go and see the worst Villa side in a generation play!

A lot of those French insults came from me too!

Excellent!  I don't speak a word of French (OK, one, merde!) but it was still very entertaining!

[pauliewalnuts]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

I agree with that. garde was probably who we needed either after O'Neill or Houllier. Not when he came in. Lerner made such a mess of us it was going to take him to get it back onto an even keel again, never mind getting it right.

I absolutely agree with that.

For me the pivotal moment in the last 6 or 7 years was when, after the Houllier season, we'd had a painful time, but had started to show glimpses of knowing how to play actual, proper football.

What we needed then was a manager with the ethos to take those hard earned little signs of growth and work with them, create a side that passed the ball around a bit.

They tried with Martinez, then decided to go for McLeish, which was *exactly* the type of manager we did not need.

They threw away every little bit of progress in the Houllier season and went for a mental year zero approach. Insanity.

[West Derby Villan]

Would not disagree with you directly Peter, we see eye to eye on most things but I try to examine why the club was rotten as you put it.  It was, but why?  How had it come about?  I had heard from my son who has a friend who is a friend and colleague of Remi Garde that he is a very decent man and a very competent manager at Lyon.  How did we come to treat him so badly?

The closest I have come to ever understanding what went on in the death throes of Lerner's ownership was a post by Ads suggesting that the club was effectively in receivership.  Steering the club off the rocks took priority over everything else, including dumping Remi Garde.

I agree with that. garde was probably who we needed either after O'Neill or Houllier. Not when he came in. Lerner made such a mess of us it was going to take him to get it back onto an even keel again, never mind getting it right.

I absolutely agree with that.

For me the pivotal moment in the last 6 or 7 years was when, after the Houllier season, we'd had a painful time, but had started to show glimpses of knowing how to play actual, proper football.

What we needed then was a manager with the ethos to take those hard earned little signs of growth and work with them, create a side that passed the ball around a bit.

They tried with Martinez, then decided to go for McLeish, which was *exactly* the type of manager we did not need.

They threw away every little bit of progress in the Houllier season and went for a mental year zero approach. Insanity.

Totally agree, for the life of me I still dont understand the McLeish appointment

[cdbearsfan]

The only vague idea I ever had about what they might have seen in McLeish was that we had been utterly incompetent at the back under Houllier, while just breaking our transfer record to bring in a new centre-forward.

They might have thought that if we can sort the defence out, the attack will take care of itself, and that McLeish was known as a man who could deliver tight defences.

Still makes very little sense considering we had spent most of the previous years selling the majority of our creative players, and had approached Martinez prior to the ill-fated McLeish appointment, as he's about as far as you can get from Alex.