Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[not3bad]

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.

We appear to be moving, through trial and error, towards this model.  We can only hope we complete the transition successfully and retain our place in the Premier League at the same time.

[Wiggz]

My two penneth...

I have a note of caution in my voice when I say this but Garde  looks the sort of calm and collected influence we need.

Firstly his next 11 will be interesting if Gabby and Westwood are back from niggles. I'd be tempted to start with exactly the same team as vs City.

Reading the points on here I have to agree with most of what is being posted. Including the Grealish-will-he-make-it posts and the Garde-has-seen-issues-and-rectified-then posts.

Ayew looked a different player at the weekend. Linking the play and holding up the ball... He was very good. Gil stopped cutting inside and looked dangerous... And Sanchez played like he does for Colombia.

The caution comes in the form of Leicester last year. After Sheerwood's half time chat we looked a more confident team... I hope our bouncr lasts longer this time.

I still remain worried that we've already left too much to do (I still reckon we'll go)  but a win after the International break,  playing as we did against City would start to change my mind.

 

[Dave]

...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.

27 goals across 250 or so appearances? If Grealish went on to achieve that he would become the best result for our academy as a Villa player in a decade (or even longer, depending on how charitable you're feeling towards Gabby)

[Ads]

Sanchez had a properly defined role for the first time. He sat deep and screened the midfield. There were very few occasions when he left that area of the pitch to close down either in front of him or to the side.

His task was not to specifically mark anybody, but to occupy that zone in front of the back four to disrupt Man City, who found it very difficult to play through us, to a point where everything came out from Navas in the second half.

City have very good wide players; £120 million plus were on the pitch on Sunday, so they clearly use that as a tactic, but nonetheless, nothing came up the middle, with perhaps the exception of Sterling's break in the 1st half where he dived, although that was Richard's fault.

It clearly worked as we kept a clean sheet, he didn't look tired and he was able to compete and keep it simple in possession throughout the 94 minutes.

I have been saying for a long time that the quality is there, we just lack the organisation. We had a manager who misunderstood aspirations for tactics, with no clue how to achieve the former.

Sanchez is a big lad, very strong, good in the air, he's no slouch and he can pass the ball when not tired. It is not enough to think Sanchez is ideally suited physically to be a defensive midfielder, you actually have to set the side up and prepare him for the role with clearly defined instructions.

I was pleased to see Garde implement that and get a good balance in the side. Small things like Clark playing on the left hand side of defence made a big difference two.

Very early days, but I like what I saw. I think its unfair to chastise our attacking play when their wide men were so good and kept our full backs occupied for much of the second half. We were not able to commit men forwards and were equally unwilling to go out and sacrifice space in stopping the ball going wide, working on the percentage that Richards and Clark were better aerially than anything they had.

I am looking forwards to Everton and see that point as one that the other 9 sides in the bottom half will struggle to get.

[ChicagoLion]

The Football Manager Market is a closed shop with players, ex players,agents and media whores all wanting to keep dipping into the gravy train.
The reason that British managers are generally not much good is
1. Because they dont have to be.(they get rotated into the next available job)
2.The talent pool is lots of thick blokes that used to play football all sticking together.

[Comrade Blitz]

The Football Manager Market is a closed shop with players, ex players,agents and media whores all wanting to keep dipping into the gravy train.
The reason that British managers are generally not much good is
1. Because they dont have to be.(they get rotated into the next available job)
2.The talent pool is lots of thick blokes that used to play football all sticking together.

Right on.

[ktvillan]

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.

I'm a big fan of F365.  I like the fact their writers actually seem to do some research or simply actually know something about the subject they are discussing.  They tell it like it is, don't pander to the ex-player clique syndrome and they have a very healthy disdain for the mainstream football press and its attendant hysteria, hype and utter bollocks.  It's almost as if it's written by proper football supporters.

[not3bad]

The Football Manager Market is a closed shop with players, ex players,agents and media whores all wanting to keep dipping into the gravy train.
The reason that British managers are generally not much good is
1. Because they dont have to be.(they get rotated into the next available job)
2.The talent pool is lots of thick blokes that used to play football all sticking together.

Right on.

Things quickly change when you prove yourself though, as was the case with Pochettino.

[DeeBoy1]

...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.

27 goals across 250 or so appearances? If Grealish went on to achieve that he would become the best result for our academy as a Villa player in a decade (or even longer, depending on how charitable you're feeling towards Gabby)

I'm 100% with you on this Dave. Revisionism seems to have created a myth that Hendrie never performed for us which is ludicrous. Maybe he never reached his full potential but he was there and thereabouts our best player for a good few seasons, and would have been more if not for injury. I for one will still remember him fondly as one of my favourite players. If Jack reaches his heights for the Villa then he will have done well.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Sanchez had a properly defined role for the first time. He sat deep and screened the midfield. There were very few occasions when he left that area of the pitch to close down either in front of him or to the side.

His task was not to specifically mark anybody, but to occupy that zone in front of the back four to disrupt Man City, who found it very difficult to play through us, to a point where everything came out from Navas in the second half.

City have very good wide players; £120 million plus were on the pitch on Sunday, so they clearly use that as a tactic, but nonetheless, nothing came up the middle, with perhaps the exception of Sterling's break in the 1st half where he dived, although that was Richard's fault.

It clearly worked as we kept a clean sheet, he didn't look tired and he was able to compete and keep it simple in possession throughout the 94 minutes.

I have been saying for a long time that the quality is there, we just lack the organisation. We had a manager who misunderstood aspirations for tactics, with no clue how to achieve the former.

Sanchez is a big lad, very strong, good in the air, he's no slouch and he can pass the ball when not tired. It is not enough to think Sanchez is ideally suited physically to be a defensive midfielder, you actually have to set the side up and prepare him for the role with clearly defined instructions.

Pretty much agree with the above though I diagree when you say "his task was not to specifically mark anybody, but to occupy that zone in front of the back four". Sanchez has normally played a very zonal game, drifting around but I thought he was much tighter when he needed to be on any Man City player, closing down the options for a pass. He would also tightly track certain players, two things he wasn't doing before under Tactics.

I've been very impressed with Sanchez and a big fan since he arrived, he really is a class player and it's great to see that finally he's getting the recognition he deserves. Having Gana alongside him and Vertoute there has enabled him to finally share the workload. The big difference on Sunday was he was obviously told to tighten up on City and it worked a treat. As you say, having the midfield organised was a massive improvement. Long may it continue.

[Clark W Griswold]

...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.

27 goals across 250 or so appearances? If Grealish went on to achieve that he would become the best result for our academy as a Villa player in a decade (or even longer, depending on how charitable you're feeling towards Gabby)

I'm 100% with you on this Dave. Revisionism seems to have created a myth that Hendrie never performed for us which is ludicrous. Maybe he never reached his full potential but he was there and thereabouts our best player for a good few seasons, and would have been more if not for injury. I for one will still remember him fondly as one of my favourite players. If Jack reaches his heights for the Villa then he will have done well.

I think saying he was anything close to our best player at any point is a very bold statement indeed, but if Grealish plays regularly as well as Hendrie did during some of his highlight periods, for example when he first got in the team and was trying to make an impression, and during the 12 months before he left (when he was probably feeling that his place in the squad was under threat), then Grealish would be considered a big success.

[Dante Lavelli]

Your average footballer will not need to work again after their playing careers end so it will be interesting to see how many can be bothered to actually study football and learn their trade in the lower leagues.  St Georges Park theoretically gives them the tools to be successful but I'm unsure what their motivation will be. 

[damon loves JT]

Your average footballer will not need to work again after their playing careers end so it will be interesting to see how many can be bothered to actually study football and learn their trade in the lower leagues.  St Georges Park theoretically gives them the tools to be successful but I'm unsure what their motivation will be. 

Rather than helping to give already-wealthy ex-pros a leg-up into a second career, I hope they give preference to intelligent people with a bit of motivation.

[Sexual Ealing]

Your average footballer will not need to work again after their playing careers end so it will be interesting to see how many can be bothered to actually study football and learn their trade in the lower leagues.  St Georges Park theoretically gives them the tools to be successful but I'm unsure what their motivation will be. 

Rather than helping to give already-wealthy ex-pros a leg-up into a second career, I hope they give preference to intelligent people with a bit of motivation.

Amen, brother.

[brian green]

Very strangely I was going to post today a comparison between the numbers of football players becoming managers and jockeys becoming racehorse trainers. I was going to quote Pat Eddery the only champion jockey to hold a training licence but he died today. Really lovely man. He once tripped me up with his pullalong suitcase. It was entirely my fault for being late, clumsy and pissed but he apologised and helped me to my feet.