Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[Chris Smith]

hope I'm wrong
but I think there might be some very disappointed people on here when things don't pick up straight away
I think it will be evolution not revolution

I am fully behind Garde, very happy with the appointment,
 I just think its going to take more than re arranging the line up and changing a a few tactics here and there

I think we are really deep in the shit this time, not because we have bad players but because we are not a team, we have no pattern, we have no ID,
Garde will put this right I am sure, but the fruits might take some time

Experience should tell us that often what we think we are getting isn't how it turns out.

I can see the reasoning with Garde and agree that it seems a good fit and I like what I have read about him from those who know him or of him. Then I reflect that to win games you need to score goals and think of Gabby and Gestede and that you need to not concede and I think of Guzan at Chelsea and Clark last night (to pick just 2 from many) and that optimism is tempered.

I know at the moment the gap does not look insurmountable at the bottom but, given our next couple of opponents, it might look a lot worse by the end of the month. He really has got his work cut out to make the proverbial silk purse from the current mess.

I really hope that it works out favourably, it would be fantastic for progressive thinking to succeed for once at the Villa, but there is no denying that we are in a hole but let's hope that we have finally stopped digging.

[PaulWinch again]

I think getting a fitness coach in who will actually get the players to work hard is very sensible. It should also be symbolic of the extra work they need to put into the rest of their game as well.

[Toronto Villa]

Rémi Garde, the humble visionary, ready to do the hard yards with Aston Villa
Lyon called him their Pep Guardiola and Aston Villa have pinned their hopes on the calm and thoughtful Frenchman cutting it in the Premier League
 
“I’m warning you, you risk enjoying it.” So said Arsène Wenger to Rémi Garde when the former Arsenal midfielder accepted Lyon’s offer to move into management in 2011. And Garde did enjoy it but he also found it draining and so after three successful years at Lyon – and the day after receiving his final coaching badge – he stepped down, explaining he wanted to devote himself more to his family and “recharge”. Seventeen months later the 49-year-old has decided the time is right to return to management. We will soon find out whether Villa Park is the right place.

There is no doubt Lyon was the perfect location for him to begin his managerial career. He was born close to the city in 1966 and supported the team as a child before joining their academy and progressing to the first team, which he captained to promotion in 1989 and thus helped launch the club’s rise to dominance in France.

After leaving and spending three years at Strasbourg and another three at Arsenal, he returned to Lyon and worked in all the main sectors of the club – as a scout, then director of the academy from which he had graduated and also as the assistant manager to first Paul Le Guen and then Gérard Houllier. When he was given the top job it seemed like a destiny fulfilled. “He’s a very intelligent guy, he is a visionary and he has an approach to football that I think is remarkable … I’ve been saying to the president for a while: ‘Rémi is our Guardiola’,” said Bernard Lacombe, the long-time adviser to the Lyon president, Jean-Michel Aulas.

Garde transformed Lyon, not quite spectacularly or triumphantly enough to put him in the class of Pep Guardiola but noticeably and while operating within shackles the Catalan did not have to contend with and Aston Villa do.

Lyon had just missed out on Champions League qualification and were slashing their budget so Garde had to integrate a wave of young players while many of the team’s assets were sold. His calm, clear and collaborative manner helped lift the spirit of a team who had become rather morose under his disciplinarian predecessor, Claude Puel, and he fostered a vibrant attacking style while remaining versatile enough to use a variety of formations.

Garde fostered a vibrant attacking style at Lyon while remaining versatile enough to use a variety of formations
Garde won the French Cup in his first season, had a good run in the Europa League and kept the team in respectable league positions throughout his reign at a time when money was propelling Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco into another dimension.

Lyon lost to PSG in the 2014 League Cup final a month before he announced he would not accept the club’s offer of a new contract. Already in that final the strain of the job seemed apparent, as a touchline camera detected him insulting the PSG defender Thiago Motta in a highly uncharacteristic outburst for which he apologised unreservedly the next day.

Garde evidently feels revitalised by the sabbatical he has enjoyed since leaving, during which his only football-related work has been as a media analyst, sometimes alongside Wenger, his friend and virtual mentor.

He will be well aware he is walking into a different and more difficult environment at Villa Park. Morale is low, the team’s calibre uncertain and the extent of the owner’s ambition, beyond selling the club, unclear despite the acquisition of 13 players in the summer. And he will soon find out the Premier League is a lot tougher than Ligue 1.

Rémi Garde won the French Cup in his first season at Lyon, had a good run in the Europa League and kept the club in respectable league positions throughout his reign. Photograph: Robert Pratta/Reuters/Corbis
Garde knows all that but working in England has long been his aim. He perhaps believes young players such as Ashley Westwood, Jack Grealish and Adam Traoré can be tutored into becoming as influential at Villa as his proteges such as Samuel Umtiti, Alexandre Lacazette and Nabil Fékir have become at Lyon. If he can identify an experienced player to exert the influence that his most inspired recruit, Steed Malbranque, did for him at Stade Gerland, then so much the better.

It will be a blow to Garde if he has to do the job without some of the tools that helped him succeed at Lyon, namely Bruno Génésio and Gérald Baticle, the coaches who led the training sessions Garde oversaw at the club. Lyon have been refusing to release the pair from their contracts. Villa’s statement confirming Garde as manager did not make mention of the backroom staff.

“When you work with him, he’s straightforward and honest,” said Baticle of Garde in 2012. “He is structured, well-organised and thoughtful in terms of how he designs sessions, manages things and, above all, in his discussions with players. He has a knack for always knowing the right thing to say to them. He rarely gets it wrong.”

“He is humble and has a lot of knowledge,” added Joël Bats, Lyon’s goalkeeping coach under Garde. “When you have those two qualities you are capable of rallying everyone around you and getting them to buy into what you’re doing and get stronger.”

[JUAN PABLO]

Good little piece that TV

[Mister E]

If we stick with this guy (irrespective what happens this seaon - if we go down it will largely not be his fault), we may reverse the horrible trend of the last 5 years. If this is another short term option, we will get everything we deserve (and are getting what we deserve).

... although some were saying this when Dim Tim came in.

[Mister E]

Duverne has quit Metz and joined Villa according to Twitter.

Nice.

Nancy

UTV
The Doc

"Come on you Lyon"

[Salsa Party Animal]

 Nice Articles I want to read French Journalist report not stilly ex professional. I wonder what the legends like Dennis Mortimer, Brian Little, Graham Taylor, Big Ron, Ron Saunders think Let hope Remi will do for Aston Villa what Arsene Done for Arsenal. We need big changes, Fitness coach is great start as it will rattle those players who are not in shape. We need to create an new identity and stick with it. Our current identity is not good enough. I think if we are relegated and made lot of improvement, we should stick to the plan.
 

[Mister E]

Good little piece that TV

I don't think TV wrote it :-)

[mr underhill]

If Duverne's back, some of those half-arsed fuckers are in for a shock

[ozzjim]

I can hear Gabby shaking from here at the prospect of Duverne. Great news and an experienced head in.

[Salsa Party Animal]

Love it I want Duverne to be up their with best Drill Sargent and make the players tough and fit like those Navy Seals

[wince]

.......Garde has my full backing and to be blunt, as shit as we are, we are already gone anyway so lets start playing without fear!

We ain't gone yet !!!!!

I know and I hope not but the way we play indicates that the team are nervous and playing with a lot of fear. If we accept we are gone, we take the pressure off, try new approaches and if the worst happens, it happens, we reform and we fight our way back. Dont want us to drop but if we do, well, it does. We just need to give Garde the time to make changes and adapt this feckless lot into a team that are drilled and are competitive. I am hopeful that there are only one or two changes needed anyway. I just hope we have a gaffer who we can get behind and trust no matter what and hope the players bust a gut for the team. I would rather go out fighting playing good football than to spend year after year with the likes of pulis or ateallthepies coming in as short term effect managers....Pundits, bookmakers and neutrals have written us off so we have nothing to lose. Messr Garde, it is over to you now!

[PaulWinch again]

Too many players have made a lot of money off Villa for fuck all return, time to get some value back.

[Ron Manager]

I think getting a fitness coach in who will actually get the players to work hard is very sensible. It should also be symbolic of the extra work they need to put into the rest of their game as well.

I don't think Roy Keane was very impressed with our lot in training.

[Malandro]

Let's have a couple of Wenger's players too. Campbell?