Relegated

[QuintonVilla]

"We fancied a change, we fancied a chaaaange, just for a season, we fancied a change"

Get the right man in, give everyone a kick up the arse, clear the club from top to bottom, rebuild and come back stronger. At least it should be more fun than scrapping to try and finish 17th every season and losing nearly every week. Our away support yesterday was magnificent and it will be next season, we will take thousands and sell out everywhere and play our part in hopefully getting back to where we belong.

[Steve kirk]

Yesterday should have felt monumental but yet I felt very little, I suppose knowing weve been doomed for so long has made it much easier to bear, the only change as the season has progressed has been the increase in my utter contempt for certain players at our club who have shown no professional pride in their performances and clearly only care about the pay cheque, massive praise to our long suffering fans for their dignity loyalty and humour in this hideous season.
Up the Villa

[NeilH]

Get the right man in, give everyone a kick up the arse, clear the club from top to bottom, rebuild and come back stronger.

And again when I read this, I realise that getting back in one season seems insurmountable right now.

[john e]

Get the right man in, give everyone a kick up the arse, clear the club from top to bottom, rebuild and come back stronger.

And again when I read this, I realise that getting back in one season seems insurmountable right now.

e

Yep, mainly because it's going to be impossible to clear the club from top to bottom

[Steve67]

Get the right man in, give everyone a kick up the arse, clear the club from top to bottom, rebuild and come back stronger.

And again when I read this, I realise that getting back in one season seems insurmountable right now.

Pat Murphy's piece on the BBC website is quite sobering. Have a read.  So much to do for any manager but we simply have to get on with it. The bit about Lerner still pulling the strings is like a punch in the stomach.

[brian green]

I agree with everything you say Chris and the measured way in which you say it.  Your phrase about there being only a sketch plan for the future is particularly apt.  We do have new board members who SEEM to be better equipped to bring about a recovery but nothing concrete has been put forward since the sacking of Garde, Fox and Almstadt.  The minor convulsion about Gabby apart there is nothing positive to report about the new board and Remi Garde tried in vain to do that anyway.

It is as you say a sketch plan.  An outline that can fall apart just as quickly as all the false dawns we have seen come and go since the purchase of the club by Randy Lerner.  Appoint a manager who is too weak or too much of a yes man to fire hose the dressing room and the sketch plan will be in tatters.

If you had been in suspended animation since we last went down, when we chanted for the removal of the then owner at Old Trafford, and looked at what we are now you would believe that Ellis had been replaced by asset strippers like the scoundrels who plundered Longbridge.  I am so bitter this morning I really think we would be no worse off owned by speculators.

[PeterWithe]

Craig Burley on ESPN lays into Lescott

http://es.pn/1NfvLB1

Can he do the team talks for us?

Spot on.

[sickbeggar]

I'm quite optimistic myself. I think a hell of a lot of those players can do well in the Championship given the drop in ability IF they have the right attitude. That all depends on the right managerial appointment i guess but once those we can sell or get rid off have gone then things will start to look a lot clearer. We've had 6 months of being in limbo waiting for the inevitable and to me even a so-so rebuilding  season in the championship would be progress compared to the horror show we've experienced. Reminds me very much of our last relegation and yes we WERE comparably bad, with hasbeens, neverwillbe's and players wanting out and causing trouble - you just didn't here so much about it with today's media and Internet.

[clash city rocker]

There is a small pool of players in our squad that is good enough to stay at the club. We may have seen better performances from them if they hadn't been thrown into a cesspit with absolutely shit management to help them out.Imagine going to work and being surrounded by shisters and bullies with the management too weak to do anything about it. No wonder some of the players have been rank but with strong leadership I am sure one or two could look like totally different players.

[Rudy65]

Should feel gutted this morning. But I dont. Just accpet the inevitable, I suppose. Second relegation in 44 years for me. The previous 5 seasons of struggle ive either had a an ST or been to most of the games. We managed to avoid the drop and a lot of those end of season games were exciting and on a knife edge and it really meant some thing to stay up.

This year I just cant be bothered for all the reasons outlined by others. Stopped going to VP, not bothering to watch in the net or even yesterday bother with the score until full time.

Maybe it will hit me when the fixtures come out

[Rudy65]

Good piece. This line about Lerner, with reference to the Cleveland Browns, should be his epitaph:

“He wasn’t a good owner by any means, but he wasn’t a lucky one, either.”

I thought that was good as well. Lerner has made some poor decisions but my god this club has never caught a break the past few years.

i would say we got very lucky the previous 4 seasons given how we stunk the league out with our style of play and goals. Our luck just plain ran out this year

[QuintonVilla]

I've watched a lot of Championship football this season and while it is a very competitive league, the quality is poor. Blues are crap and have very few goals in their team but have been flirting with the play offs all season, Derby had a bad run again but never dropped out of the play offs, Wolves have been terrible but are still in no danger of relegation. I watched Hull v Wolves on Friday, very poor from both teams yet Hull are challenging for automatic promotion. I'm not saying we're going to walk the league but if we get the right manager in and the right group of players who have a bit of quality, and more importantly fight, we should do alright. Ashley Westwood is scared of his own shadow, we need someone in there who can put their foot in and be nasty when needed.

[Rudy65]

The true problem is that nothing has changed.

We have new board members and we have been lulled into thinking that means things will change for the better.  In real terms nothing has changed.  We continue to lose games and we continue to outrage the supporters.  Improvement may come but there has been nothing  different for the last three months than for the last five years.

Houllier came and we said great, things will get better.  Houllier left and we said we will get a healthy replacement and things will get better.  His replacement was sacked and we said great, things will get better.  Lambert got sacked and we said great, things will get better.  Sherwood was sacked and we said great, things will get better.  Garde was sacked, Fox was sacked, Almstadt was sacked and we all said great, things will get better.  Bernstein, King, Bevington and Brian Little came in andcwe said great, things will get better.

But things have not got better.  They have got worse.

Now we are saying the games will be much easier next season, great things will get better.

Nothing other than a slap on the wrist for Gabby has happened to correct our decline.  We have just been relegated and the only words directed towards the bedrock of the club, the fans, are insults from Lescott and banal rent-a-caretaker platitudes from Eric Black.

I see no positive sign whatsoever that anything has changed or is in the process if being changed with any degree of urgency.

I like your passion Brian

I think chnage can only really come when the season ends. The current playing staff are to ingrained with defeat and apathy. The clear out will come in the summer, along with, hopefully the right managerial appointment.

[dorsetvillian]

Like many have said, gutted we are finally down, but the actual act was quite painless. To put things in perspective I phoned a friend afterwards who although he lives in the south, was visiting his elderly mum who still lives in Aston and is very ill. Somehow, relegation didn't seem to matter. We did say that in some strange way we were both looking forward to next season and hopefully coming back stronger. We talked about being at some of the great games in the past: Roterdam, Highbury 81, etc and that it might take time but we will be back!   

Dorset Villa

[Villa Lew]

Have now witnessed 5 relegations, 59, 67, 70, 87, 16.

When we went down in 67 it took us 8 years to get back to the top tier, spending 2 seasons of the 8 in the 3rd division. Considering the state of the club now it is not inconceivable that it will happen again, if you don't get the right manager and the right players in.

Big clubs such as Leeds, Wednesday, and Forest are all examples of what the future might be.