Eric Black

[SheffieldVillain]

He had a pretty low bar to hit , just give us back a little dignity, scrape a few results and go down with a bit of fight. He has failed to hit that low bar. Yes the players deserve all the criticism they get but wow, Eric B has not made any positive impact at all.

If you were expecting him to scrape a few results or get any fight out of these players, you were expecting too much. Why would he succeed where so many others have failed? These players aren't going to fight. Whether it's Sherwood, Garde, KMac, Black or Mourinho in charge. The most rotten squad of 'Premier League' players I've ever seen.

[ciggiesnbeer]

He had a pretty low bar to hit , just give us back a little dignity, scrape a few results and go down with a bit of fight. He has failed to hit that low bar. Yes the players deserve all the criticism they get but wow, Eric B has not made any positive impact at all.

If you were expecting him to scrape a few results or get any fight out of these players, you were expecting too much. Why would he succeed where so many others have failed? These players aren't going to fight. Whether it's Sherwood, Garde, KMac, Black or Mourinho in charge. The most rotten squad of 'Premier League' players I've ever seen.

Cant argue with that. At some point he should just drop the feckers and play the kids. Right now its a seriously possibility we might end the season without another win. Thats just... well not something I expect from Aston Villa.

[brian green]

Our plight is essentially the result of the current structure of transfer windows and players' contracts. If you blunder, which we did massively, with players' contracts you get saddled with players like Agbonlahor, Richards, Lescott, Westwood, Bacuna and Okore who are unmotivatable because their contracts are get out of jail cards.  Add to that allowing players you need to go out on loan regardless of foreseeable calamities like Guzan and Bunn simultaneously mentally collapsing and you are in further trouble.
The final twist of the contractual dagger comes if you simply ignore the transfer window in January for financial reasons.  Our board made yet another losing roll of the dice by not backing Remi Garde in January, presumably on the grounds that inflated fees and wage demands should be resisted.  The net result is that we are here on the the day we will be relegated without ever since the start of the season looking like we would even try to fight let alone actually do any fighting.
Before get out clauses and buy back clauses and relegation clauses and mandatory play if fit clauses and cowards' virus, managers could demand obedience to the cause.  Now players can simply do what they did to Remi Garde.  To all intents and purposes go out to lose, like they did against Liverpool.
In the old days you did not have the utter inevitability of relegation we have suffered for most of the season.  As well as the contractual security of non performing players not existing, players could be parachuted in right up to the last day.  Our fat lady sang loud and clear on 2nd February.

[oldtimernow]

Thank heavens that we have relegation as an option then and we don't have to put up with what's been going on for the past 5 years for ever and a day just because there is no relegation from the PL.

[brian green]

Agree OTN.

[oldtimernow]

I almost long for the days when players were paid the "extras" in their boots, at least you felt they were like us.

[ldavfc4eva]

Wasn't it Gregory who sorted Gareth Barry's first big contract at the club, and then said something similar to him being on say £10k a week basic but if he plays and scores etc then his money doubled or something along those lines?

That's what is needed again in my opinion, a ceiling on wages (100k per week say) and then if you start you get x if you play 90 minutes you get x and if you score or assist you get more on top.

I think the amount they get paid these days does it really matter if you earn say 70k a week instead of 50k? You can live whatever lifestyle you want anyway and pay for any car/house etc once you have got your first contract so for some I can imagine it gets hard to be motivated to perform every week.

If you stripped it back to a basic wage and then incentivised it heavily with performance related bonuses I think you find a lot more effort week in week out, far too late for this to happen but just my thoughts.

[brian green]

Yes and Stanley Matthews was hauled up before the FA disciplinary committee for accepting a trifling sum for allowing the Co op to market boots with his replica autograph on them.  A man who put 10,000 on the gate everywhere he went.  Our heroes were really heroic back then.  They suffered just like us.

[maidstonevillain]

Black fears anarchy after relegation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36059405

Is that an improvement on what we have at the moment?

[Dante Lavelli]

Maybe he is right. Maybe Garde was right too. What harm can it do, putting it out in the public domain. It's hardly going to make things worse. Why should a manager take more than his fair share of pelters for that money grubbing lot?

Too many players at the club can't give a fuck. And will give even less of a fuck given the chance to do so. On the evidence of this season I can believe that. The players we have been putting out are not 3 wins in a season players, there has to be something else going on.

This is more aligned to my thinking.  I suspect that he's been told to make a few players' positions untenable.  He has publicly ridiculed Gabby and will probably reveal more about the unmotivated ones over the coming weeks.  Selflessly, this may damage his ability to manage the current squad however it should help crowbar a few of the wasters from the club come the summer.

[Mister E]

EB is just the latest in a long line of managers not up to the task. He comes across as clueless, TBH.
Players might just give up when relegation is confirmed? - you mean they didn't several months' ago?!
Relegation will come as a massive relief and a chance to properly lance the boil that is the squad.

[brian green]

Agree absolutely Mr E   Eric Black is another in the chain right back to MON who has been given a script and told to read it. Half the appeal of the forbidden fruit that is Nigel Pearson is that he will tear up the script that builds to the climax "we go again".

[CJ]

Black fears anarchy after relegation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36059405

Is that an improvement on what we have at the moment?

I'm probably being petty here but what's all this "they're going to get relegated"? Shouldn't that be "we're going to get relegated"? And what's this 'turning into anarchy' about - it's already chaos on the pitch with players either not good enough,not trying or, in the captain's case, finding excuses to not even show up,so I'm struggling to see how much worse it could get in terms of the players this season. At least we've taken steps at board level to start to do things the way should have been for the last 5 years

[Chris Smith]

I think Black is in an unenviable position. He knows his days are numbered and so will have one eye on his next job. Under those circumstances then just marking time until the inevitable happens is perfectly understandable.

[eamonn]

What the fuck is Black on about in those comments?