Remi Garde - Departs Aston Villa

[PaulWinch again]

1 thing is for sure, Garde is not to blame for this mess

Exactly, people need way way more patience with Garde given the utter shambles he's come into.

There's no sign of improvement whatsoever though. If we had improved from being absolutely shit under Sherwood to merely being rubbish under Garde, I'd cut him some slack and have a little patience. But we've just laboured to a 1-1 draw against a side over 50 positions lower than us in the league. Not sure who's fault that is? Sherwoods? O'Neill's? It really is difficult to remain patient at the moment. 
   

Well yeah but that happens, and we didn't start our two best players in that game either. Swansea lost to a League 2 team as well, that can happen in the cup.

I'm not saying performances have been good enough, but I don't think a dozen or so games is enough time to come into the utter shambles that is our club and turn it around. I know people say Sherwood got a bounce, but it wasn't for very long and he had better players to achieve that with. Garde needs his own players and a lot more time than he's had.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Maybe not on the pitch but he is sorting things out behind the scenes. The treatment of Grealish was correct: he needed disciplining not pandering to as the previous boss did; the realisation that Gabby Agbonlahor is not that good has been a realisation far too late; his desire to get rid of the bad eggs in the squad is a good thing.
You'd have hoped for better results, but our fate looks inevitable so whilst we're in the mess we are in it's best to sort some of the manageable problems out in the meantime.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Sorry, but "sorting things out behind the scenes" sounds awfully like Tom Fox and his "look beyond the results" nonsense. Means nothing if we're as bad as ever in front of the scenes.

[themossman]

To the 'Garde's got no guts' lot - whatever the agenda for this trip is, I get the impression he's the first manager since Houllier to try and tackle a decade+ long problem to do with player attitudes and culture at villa. And Houllier did it from the a position where he was a respected football elder and where he also had big players in the team who were his signings and loyal to him.

[themossman]

Sorry, but "sorting things out behind the scenes" sounds awfully like Tom Fox and his "look beyond the results" nonsense. Means nothing if we're as bad as ever in front of the scenes.

Do you not accept that what's in front of the scenes is a direct result of what's behind the scenes?

[rob_bridge]

1 thing is for sure, Garde is not to blame for this mess

Exactly, people need way way more patience with Garde given the utter shambles he's come into.

Regardless I would give him the rest of the year 2016, a proper (summer) transfer windows and as long as we are sitting within striking range of play offs / promotion then he should carry on.

Another change of manager is an exercise in futility.

[Tom_Mc9?]

Sorry, but "sorting things out behind the scenes" sounds awfully like Tom Fox and his "look beyond the results" nonsense. Means nothing if we're as bad as ever in front of the scenes.

I hate whats happening on the pitch but as themossman says, get things right as a club and it gets better on the pitch. Or should do in theory. I'm more saying that I think Remi Garde is doing some good despite our results continuing to be bad than I think we should ignore the results. The results are more painful than anything else of course, but if there's a mess it needs sorting.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Sorry, but "sorting things out behind the scenes" sounds awfully like Tom Fox and his "look beyond the results" nonsense. Means nothing if we're as bad as ever in front of the scenes.

Do you not accept that what's in front of the scenes is a direct result of what's behind the scenes?

Of course. So tell me how Garde's behind the scenes activity has resulted in improved performances. I'd have expected a few signs of this after 12 games or whatever he's had. It looks to me, as an outsider, that he's currently managing a more fractious dressing room than the one he inherited. It's not all his fault, but I'm not confident that he'll get us promoted next season. Which is the only thing that matters to Villa. 

[PaulWinch again]

Sorry, but "sorting things out behind the scenes" sounds awfully like Tom Fox and his "look beyond the results" nonsense. Means nothing if we're as bad as ever in front of the scenes.

Do you not accept that what's in front of the scenes is a direct result of what's behind the scenes?

Of course. So tell me how Garde's behind the scenes activity has resulted in improved performances. I'd have expected a few signs of this after 12 games or whatever he's had. It looks to me, as an outsider, that he's currently managing a more fractious dressing room than the one he inherited. It's not all his fault, but I'm not confident that he'll get us promoted next season. Which is the only thing that matters to Villa. 

I'll say one that is a clear improvement, under Sherwood our two best players were marginalised and weren't playing. At least Ayew and Veretout are now key members of the first team and are performing well.

[SoccerHQ]

To the 'Garde's got no guts' lot - whatever the agenda for this trip is, I get the impression he's the first manager since Houllier to try and tackle a decade+ long problem to do with player attitudes and culture at villa. And Houllier did it from the a position where he was a respected football elder and where he also had big players in the team who were his signings and loyal to him.

Houllier got so much stick from the fans compared to Lambert and Sherwood. Even McLeish got an easier ride apart from the very end.

I wasn't a huge fan of Houllier, indeed I think his season is a bit more generously remember than it actually was as we were dire for large parts with a much better team and squad than we do now.

However if we knew what the next 5 years would bring, I along with many others would've been more patient and understanding I'm sure.

It's odd with Garde. I'm unconvinced with what he's producing results wise (not so much this season but my gut feeling is he won't win 25 games in the championship next season) but I'm fully behind what he's doing with the squad e.g. calling out long serving members who should know better like Gabby, Guzan, Lescott, Jack etc.

It's been long needed. Gabby won't play for us again under this manager imo (although he might get luck again and outlast Garde if he only moves on loan this window) and Jack has been made to sweat getting back in the team so you'd hope he'll learn know to dedicate himself a bit more professionally.

These are Villa boys who would've been indulged under previous manager so I'm happy with that.

[olaftab]

Why  are we assuming that Garde , in that picture, was getting abused? May be supporters were telling him to get rid of the  bunch of non triers we had on the pitch?

[Karl Bridges]

Does anyone else find it strange that once the signal was given to Kozak to get ready to come on Richards suddenly developed a life threatening injury prior to which he didn't seem to be suffering.

No. That is a top of the pile conspiracy post.

It may be top of the pile but it is unexplainable, why get the player ready to come on and then Richards decides he has to come off. This is more to do with Richards than Garde though.

He was blatantly suffering with it. He slowed down considerably after taking the blow to the ankle when scoring and we were less effective down that side of the pitch. Just seems he  played on until he couldn't any more.

[themossman]

I half agree Chico. If he can't get his plans to improve the performances on the pitch significantly by the start of next season then maybe that outweighs any long term benefits he's trying to create. I also hoped when he joined that we'd be watching noticeably better displays, with the results to reflect that, by now. That his tactical abilities would have a degree of instant impact in games (encouraged by the Man City game).

But, I also feel we may be facing a choice between necessary short term pain and keeping things afloat with more short term solutions. TS was the ultimate short term thinking. Gave us a bounce, got the players fired up, kept us in the league. But it's now apparent that this was at the expense of taking us three steps back as far as dysfunctional dressing rooms and clueless players and bad attitudes go. It may be that at the point RG was appointed there was a TS type appointment that would have kept us up this year (Pearson?) but would that have been the best thing for us?

[Steve67]

To the 'Garde's got no guts' lot - whatever the agenda for this trip is, I get the impression he's the first manager since Houllier to try and tackle a decade+ long problem to do with player attitudes and culture at villa. And Houllier did it from the a position where he was a respected football elder and where he also had big players in the team who were his signings and loyal to him.

I think that we also have to accept that the Premier League has moved on a lot since the likes of Houllier managed in it and Garde played in it.  The game is awash with money and that seems to be the only thing that some of these players think about.  Graham Taylor, in his second bash at managing the club said as much.  He was taken by surprise about how much the game had moved on, hence him standing down.  He might be flogging a dead horse in trying to change that sort of mentality. However, I would like him to succeed.  I wasn't over-enamoured with the appointment but would like to see what he can do.

[Phil from the upper holte]

1 thing is for sure, Garde is not to blame for this mess

Exactly, people need way way more patience with Garde given the utter shambles he's come into.

There's no sign of improvement whatsoever though. If we had improved from being absolutely shit under Sherwood to merely being rubbish under Garde, I'd cut him some slack and have a little patience. But we've just laboured to a 1-1 draw against a side over 50 positions lower than us in the league. Not sure who's fault that is? Sherwoods? O'Neill's? It really is difficult to remain patient at the moment. 
   

I don't disagree, we appointed Sherwood who shouldn't have been appointed, we've now appinted a man who has no experience of the league, and probably shouldn't have been appointed but I wouldn't have wanted Pearson either. We've a lot of dead wood that needs to be moved on and Garde isn't a god, In fact In think God himself (although he doesn't exist) couldn't keep this shower up