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Author Topic: Where Did It All Go Wrong....  (Read 25255 times)

Online Rory

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #105 on: July 01, 2020, 12:25:59 AM »
Not defending anything MON did after the Moscow/Stoke debacle, but I certainly felt like there was a sense of standards and accountability when he was manager. For all of his faults, there was somebody running the football side of things with whom the buck stopped. I'm not sure we've had that since, whether through lack of commitment, ability or respect.

We've seemed like a rudderless ship which, to me, explains why there are still such discussions about our subsequent managers: Was Houllier just a victim of ill health, despite most of that season being quite painful?; McLeish, it is commonly accepted, wasn't up to the job, but who appointed him and why?; Was Lambert an up and coming manager who was undermined and became the fall guy for Lerner's withdrawal or was he a one-job wonder who chose to fill the squad with crap?; Was Sherwood found out at the end of his season and we lacked the ruthlessness to bin him?; Did RDM have the right idea but got unlucky by not being a strong enough character to revive a club in decline?; Was Bruce a failure who wasted resources superior to the rest of the division with his negativity, or did he arrest our slide, make us a bit more difficult to beat and get us at least looking upwards?; Is Smith a lower league manager who is indulged because he's one of our own, or is he hampered by recruitment that is out of his hands?

MON was the most recent manager where most people feel confident to believe the narrative. He was a great motivator who set up teams to play very well on the counter, but was one-dimensional, wasted a lot of money and left us in the shit out of spite.

I don't intend to resurrect arguments about the MON era, or any of the managers since, but the day MON walked out was the last time I felt there was any semblance of  leadership at the club, for better or worse. Who is the figurehead? Who is the person you look to and think 'despite our frustrations, he won't let things get too bad'?

Offline ROBBO

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #106 on: July 01, 2020, 02:01:50 AM »
Football has changed, at one time the managr went to the owner and told him who he wanted and the owner said yes or no, but at least the players bought were who the manager wanted. These days you have people like Suso bringing in players whether the manager wants them or not, yet it's the manager who gets all the stick. This is not a shout out for Smith whom i believe is out of his depth.

Online ChicagoLion

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #107 on: July 01, 2020, 06:46:30 AM »
I find it hard to believe the manager has no say in recruitment.

Offline Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #108 on: July 01, 2020, 06:57:45 AM »
bloke who sits next to me at work reckons if DOL had the cash MON had it wouldn't have gone wrong...

Tell the bloke at work to move his chair a full 2 metres away as you don't want to listen to his ridiculous comments. He's probably a nose who wanted us to finish up the 3rd division like Leeds did.

Offline Steve67

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #109 on: July 01, 2020, 08:02:21 AM »
bloke who sits next to me at work reckons if DOL had the cash MON had it wouldn't have gone wrong...

Tell the bloke at work to move his chair a full 2 metres away as you don't want to listen to his ridiculous comments. He's probably a nose who wanted us to finish up the 3rd division like Leeds did.

I spoke to a couple of people in the game and they both, independent of one another, said that Mr Sugarbag was very lazy and wasn't a good manager. Hence the open letter from the players.

MON also had his faults as a manager, particularly around training cultures but at least he got the club earning the respect of other fans.

Offline brian green

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #110 on: July 01, 2020, 08:17:28 AM »
And ultimately very little respect from our fans.  I would put him in the top three of the most loathed ex Villa managers.  And he has plenty of competition.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2020, 08:19:29 AM by brian green »

Offline Risso

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #111 on: July 01, 2020, 09:25:10 AM »
And ultimately very little respect from our fans.  I would put him in the top three of the most loathed ex Villa managers.  And he has plenty of competition.

I agree Brian, and it's mostly to do with how he left us, which was done with as much spite and intention to cause damage as possible.  If he'd left at the end of the season, he'd have been remembered as as pretty successful manager, but whose limitations had ultimately stopped us taking that extra step.  As it is, he's an abslute Grade A thundercunt.

Offline brian green

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #112 on: July 01, 2020, 10:06:00 AM »
Yes Martin, my views exactly.  His departure was not even angry or cold.  It was premeditated vengefulness designed and executed to cause the club as much damage as possible.  There have been other Villa hating managers to leave us, DOL, Southgate, Tactics Tim, Eric Black and KMac  to name but five but their bile stopped short (just about in some instances) of actually trying to damage the club.  MON not only did act proactively against us but then enjoyed having the supine rich kid owner shit his pants and throw money at him after doing it.

Offline Billy Walker

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #113 on: July 01, 2020, 10:53:11 AM »
We've simply had really poor leadership from the top down running the football club for decades.  In the Premier League era we've had no vision, overarching plan or joined up thinking from owners down to CEOs and first team managers ever, as far as I can tell.  The vision, ambition and targets ultimately must come from the owners - could any club survive the misfortune of being hit by the treble whammy of Ellis, Lerner and Xia in rapid succession? I really think not.

The bottom line for me is that we need ambitious, driven winners, who consistently put the success of the football club first, in our boardroom. 

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #114 on: July 01, 2020, 01:28:25 PM »
And ultimately very little respect from our fans.  I would put him in the top three of the most loathed ex Villa managers.  And he has plenty of competition.

Thought you were on about O'Leary! Who wouldn't shut up about Leeds for 12 months after coming here although the good end to 03/04 made people forget that.

He never really got us or seemed to want to hence the banners. For all MON's fault he did at least seem to relish managing us for first 3 years at least. After Moscow the connection between him and a few fans started to erode.

Offline dave.woodhall

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #115 on: July 01, 2020, 02:09:16 PM »
The biggest, most frustrating, irony of the lot is that when we did have relatively big money to spend we gave it to the most myopic managers imaginable.

Offline Risso

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #116 on: July 01, 2020, 02:22:22 PM »
The biggest, most frustrating, irony of the lot is that when we did have relatively big money to spend we gave it to the most myopic managers imaginable.

This situation feels similar in a way.  New owners who are stupidly wealthy, and we gambled (and look likely to lose) our hard won Premier League status on a bog standard Championship manager and a completely incompatible Director of Football, who between them have arsed things up completely.

Online TonyD

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #117 on: July 01, 2020, 02:34:03 PM »
Yes.  You would think very wealthy people would be reasonably astute. 

Offline mr underhill

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #118 on: July 01, 2020, 02:43:13 PM »
they are, but for some inexplicable reason, most successful billionaire businessmen transform into Gerald Ratner the moment they buy as football club

Offline Allan C

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Re: Where Did It All Go Wrong....
« Reply #119 on: July 01, 2020, 06:47:51 PM »
In spades.  Replaced an England striker with one who does not like heading the ball.  How bad do you have to be in football before you get a boot up the arse.
It’s why I don’t like loaning players. In effect we gave our leading international class goal scorer for about 30 years a free transfer

 


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