Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[PaulWinch again]

From F365's "Winners & Losers" column:

Remi Garde and another way
 A monumental difference in performance and mood. From the chalk of Tim Sherwood’s white cliffs of Dover to Remi Garde’s French cheese.

If the national stereotypes feel too strong, they are appropriate at least this once. Remi Garde took his first opportunity to bring back Aston Villa’s continental brigade back into the first team, and they performed admirably against the league leaders. Jordan Amavi, Idrissa Gana, Jordan Veretout, Carlos Sanchez, Carles Gil, Jordan Ayew. Even Charles N’Zogbia played a part!

Villa may have offered little in attack, but they survived the Manchester City onslaught. It’s been a long time since Villa’s underbelly was anything other than squidgy soft. A run of seven consecutive Premier League defeats has, finally, come to an end.

This was an instant improvement. Gone was the tactical vacuum of Sherwood’s dice-rolling defence and midfield, replaced by a coherent plan to stop the division’s most potent attacking midfield. How weird that those useless French players Sherwood shunned instantly improved the side in his absence.

It’s not difficult to want Garde to do well, introduced against a backdrop of unfair mistrust. Think I’m overstating that mood? Here’s Charlie Wyett in The Sun on Thursday afternoon: ‘Now, Aston Villa will be joining Sunderland in the Championship after the ridiculous decision to appoint Remi Garde.’ He hadn’t even had a single match in charge.

Villa’s new manager still has an immense task on his hands to keep the club in the Premier League, but let’s not pretend that he isn’t better equipped than his predecessor. Villa Park enjoyed their first evidence of the changing of the Garde.

Changing of the Garde? Bastard, I did that gag first in H+V!

That's interesting from pea brained Wyett. Presumably his slight on Garde is because he's foreign and therefore Wyett hasn't bothered to do any research and has just given into the jingoistic cliches that are awash within the media. But at the same time he lumps us in with Sunderland, who have a manager that Wyett no doubt assumes would be the sort to save Villa. What a confused and inconsistent cretin.

[Sexual Ealing]

Article in Four Four Two on the Xenophobia in the English game.

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/how-misplaced-xenophobia-still-damages-english-football#:VrKhfZQj_-/AOA

Interesting. Thanks.

While I was reading it I was listening to 5 Live and it struck me quite how backward the media & ex-pro nexus is in English football. It's fucking ludicrous. They were talking about Patrick Vieira going to manage in New York and Henry Winter - who I'm given to understand is one of our leading football writers - essentially called Arsenal a bunch of ****** for not employing Vieira and 'developing' him in the way City have.

Why the fuck should Arsenal have kept someone in employment in perpetuity?! A player who fucked off and left them for Juventus (I think)!

It staggers me. Sections of the media decide in advance that certain players will make good managers in future - Bryan Robson, Stuart Pearce, Gareth Southgate etc - so there's a clamour for them to be 'groomed'. Obviously they all, without exception, turn out to be Blues. How come they don't advocate a meritocracy in those cases?!

Fucking mindbending.

[paul_e]

What I liked about his interview is he discussed the team. He talked through how and why he wanted a certain shape to the midfield, how we were attempting to play the game. No sound bites, no excuses, nothing about Remi Garde, he talked about our football team clearly, it's only been a week but I'm 100% certain he will get his message across to the players.

I know we've been saying it for a few years now but if we can just survive this year from the mess we've started next year I know we will kick on under this guy, It might be desperation but I think he's the real deal.

Only 3 training sessions with the squad and he's already picking a better team, organising it, improving it - work rate and accuracy of passing - and talking common sense.


Am I dreaming?

Not wanting to piss on anyone's bonfire but we were all marveling at the change under Sherwood after a quick chat at half time against Leicester.

Hence my question.
The midfield selection alone is what a lot on here wanted to see...and that's what he selected. Most of us believed we had decent players who needed organising and setting up "properly", which Garde clearly did. Most of us could see that playing Gil gave us an extra dimension. Garde selected him. We could all see that Gabby needed "resting". Garde did so.
Sherwood - nor MacDonald - did any of those things.
It ain't very often that a manager does the things the fans think they know need doing, and it works.

I think the fact that we actually played pretty well at times offered a massive sense of relief and gave signs that it can be built on through Garde's apparent calm and measured approach rather than Timmy's bluff and bluster.

When it happens it's invariably because it's painfully obvious and it's hard to work out how the manager couldn't see it.  Amavi ahead of Richardson is about the clearest case of that you'll ever see, I can't work out how anyone could fail to spot that, Amavi has all the makings of being a top class fullback, and we dropped him for a guy who's working his retirement.  1 game as a wake up because he'd made a couple of defensive mistakes I could live with but to extend it to 3-4 games was just pathetic.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Yeah it is a good read.

The key bit of data I focus on is how British managers are generally just not good enough to compete overseas and yet we are expected to hire them into the Premier league which is of similar if not higher quality.

How many big clubs in Spain, Italy, France or Germany are managed by British managers? Yet those countries have no problem bringing on foreign managers of other nations?

It didn't used to be this way but to me the facts are obvious. The talent level of British managers is in a down turn right now. Hopefully there will be a new era coming soon but as of now they just are not good enough to compete with the talent level of other countries. The stereotype of the power vs skill British style has truth to it. Until our managers start to embrace a more modern style they will remain less employable.

[paul_e]

British managers, in general, are out of date.  They're still managing teams like the ones they played in in the 80s and 90s, so it's all 'up and at em', british bulldog passion.  It worked in the past because, in my opinion, we had players that were stronger and faster than most clubs in europe and we'd just run them into the ground.  The increased fitness levels and better protection from referees have nullified that to the point where now you genuinely need to pick out weaknesses and strengths in the opposition and play to those, for example we completely closed down Toure yesterday, you can't do that purely by hard work.

The worst thing is I think Sherwood understood the value of coaching, and built a big backroom team because of that, but I don't think he knew what he wanted to do with all those coaches and all the analysis he was getting so it generally all looked muddled.  The appalling substitutions for most of his time here back that up, he could see the need for a change but just didn't have the intelligence or experience to know what to change.  If he wasn't such a egotistical knob he could probably get a job abroad for a couple of years as an assistant and develop into a decent manager but I don't think it will happen and he'll probably largely disappear now.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

i think it was danny kelly the other night who did a good piece on the fact that most british managers in the pl are rubbish

[Billy Walker]

The thing that gets me about the specifically English football press is their hypocrisy as well as xenophobia.  I've listened to them go on about how there should be more black managers in the game yet every time I look at the press pack following the England football team I am struck by the number of middle class, middle-aged white men given the plum writing gigs. From the outside looking in, it seems to me they very much need to get their own house in order.

[damon loves JT]

The reason they prefer British managers is because they already have their phone numbers. Hiring somebody from abroad means starting from scratch.

[Boz]

Good job we appointed Remi before Moyes got the bullet, otherwise there would have been a clamour for him from the media. After the great success he achieved in Spain.

[Bad English]

I often read comments on here similar to "Of course, Ligue 1 is such an inferior league, isn't it?" It is funny how that competition loses most of its best players to the moneybags leagues yet it maintains high standards of youth development, coaching, tactics and education.

[Monty]

I often read comments on here similar to "Of course, Ligue 1 is such an inferior league, isn't it?" It is funny how that competition loses most of its best players to the moneybags leagues yet it maintains high standards of youth development, coaching, tactics and education.

And it's funny that it's so bad, because if it is, how come the Premier League keep chucking cash at it to bring in its players, managers and staff?

[pbavfckuwait]

To few clubs in this country have a proper structure and ethos to which they wish they club to be recognised, Swansea, Southampton to an extent being a good example.

Where there is alot of money available this can be hidden, as in Chavski, how many managers have they gone through.

In the Premier league it is all about the here and now, so development of youth takes a back seat, as can be seen with our current youth teams, was it only a few years ago we were all shouting about how great our set up for youth was, but how many players have come through and made a mark in the first team, even  Jack has not done it over a sustained period and I have a horrible feeling with Jack, that we will get about the same as we did out of Lee Hendrie, hope and pray I am wrong on that one.
British managers on the whole do not strive to put in place a long term strategy, so it really has to be up to the clubs to develop this model not left in the hands of the manager.
We need stability attached to an improvement in results and be allowed to go about our business in a calm and thoughtful way, I now think we may have found the character to achieve this, whilst working within a frame work that will allow for as little disruption as possible if it does not garner the results required, but yet again only time will tell.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

Good job we appointed Remi before Moyes got the bullet, otherwise there would have been a clamour for him from the media. After the great success he achieved in Spain.

Precisely what I thought too.

[brian green]

You are correct Kuwait but the neglect of young player development is in my view a reflection of society as a whole. Everything has to be immediate. People are urged down a path of impatience and acceptance of the second rate. Quick is good, slow is bad. In my youth an apprenticeship in Birmingham lasted from leaving school at 15 until your 21st birthday (or 23rd if you had done National Service). These days an apprenticeship lasts 6 months and can be as non trades related as being a shop assistant. Nothing against shop assistants just that training is being devalued. Football included.

[VILLA MOLE]

Article in Four Four Two on the Xenophobia in the English game.

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/how-misplaced-xenophobia-still-damages-english-football#:VrKhfZQj_-/AOA

Interesting. Thanks.

While I was reading it I was listening to 5 Live and it struck me quite how backward the media & ex-pro nexus is in English football. It's fucking ludicrous. They were talking about Patrick Vieira going to manage in New York and Henry Winter - who I'm given to understand is one of our leading football writers - essentially called Arsenal a bunch of c***s for not employing Vieira and 'developing' him in the way City have.

Why the fuck should Arsenal have kept someone in employment in perpetuity?! A player who fucked off and left them for Juventus (I think)!

It staggers me. Sections of the media decide in advance that certain players will make good managers in future - Bryan Robson, Stuart Pearce, Gareth Southgate etc - so there's a clamour for them to be 'groomed'. Obviously they all, without exception, turn out to be Blues. How come they don't advocate a meritocracy in those cases?!

Fucking mindbending.

Good article , I watched the Utube Sherwood interview after the Leicester Game (shudder) as soon as he mumbled we have to go again he should have gone