Gerrard In or Out?

[RamboandBruno]

Saying Gerrard needs to go is hysteria of the very highest regard.

He seems to be becoming a worse manager with each passing  day and everytime another side play which is slightly odd considering we haven't played since April 9th.

Maybe it’s because we’ve haven’t won since early March.

So the manager doesn’t win for a month and we want him out, or some do. Its a shite run of form, but all the teams around us, including Southampton, Brighton, Palace, up to Leicester who are ninth, have had numerous runs of form similar to this, this season. Newcastle happened to have most of their bad run in mostly one go for half a season. We finished one place, albeit 10 points clear of Newcastle last season, and behind Leeds, but its now both pre determined and disastrous that we’ll finish behind them both.
Apart from McLeish and the most recent relegation year, i honestly don’t remember a manager getting such a short period of grace. Without trying to patronise, anyone it really does feel that anyone other than a Steven Gerrard would get more leeway and I’m no Gerrard fanboy and wasn’t over excited about his appointment.
To counter the doom laden crystal ball merchants who are predicting imminent implosion over the next few weeks, i predict we’ll get the mythical thing called a draw at Leicester, followed by a win against Norwich and if its Burnley another win up there. There you go.

No, I don’t want him out I just him to be better. It’s all just a bit underwhelming at the moment seeing teams like Brentford, Newcastle and Brighton above us in the table while we can’t buy a win and slip from comfortable mid table to having only Leeds and Everton between us and the relegation places.

As you say a win at the weekend will lift the mood considerably so fingers crossed we can reproduce the form we showed for 40 minutes against Spurs.

Fair enough Chris, although my post quoted yours, its was more aimed a lot of other more vociferous anti Gerrard posts.
I wasn’t on H&V at the time from memory, but if Dean Smith was being judged on the same criteria as Gerrard, shouldn’t there have been a similar thread in the weeks leading up to Grealish coming back from injury and the Derby game in March 2019? The better players at his disposable argument doesn’t wash as its all relative and we had a very good squad in that division.
This season is disappointing and mid table mediocrity is an apt term, its boring having nothing much to play for. I just think we need to get a few wins before the end of the season, calm down a bit and hope that we get some decent signings in the summer and a decent pre season.

[kippaxvilla2]

There is absolutely no excuse if we finish say 5th bottom.  It’s a pathetic return if that happens.  But let’s see because surely we will beat Norwich at least.

[eamonn]

If you look at the post-match threads from Feb 2019, like turgid displays at Reading where Tyrone Mings nearly career-ended a player, you'll probably find more than a few murmurs of "Smith's no better than Bruce, sling'im out!". He had managed to smash promotion rivals in his first few months mind, (0-3 at Tiny Penis's Boro the pick of the lot) whereas Gerrard gets a nose-bleed any time we play a team in the top half.

[RamboandBruno]

If you look at the post-match threads from Feb 2019, like turgid displays at Reading where Tyrone Mings nearly career-ended a player, you'll probably find more than a few murmurs of "Smith's no better than Bruce, sling'im out!". He had managed to smash promotion rivals in his first few months mind, (0-3 at Tiny Penis's Boro the pick of the lot) whereas Gerrard gets a nose-bleed any time we play a team in the top half.

Fair enough, this thread still feels very premature.

[Risso]

If you look at the post-match threads from Feb 2019, like turgid displays at Reading where Tyrone Mings nearly career-ended a player, you'll probably find more than a few murmurs of "Smith's no better than Bruce, sling'im out!". He had managed to smash promotion rivals in his first few months mind, (0-3 at Tiny Penis's Boro the pick of the lot) whereas Gerrard gets a nose-bleed any time we play a team in the top half.

The 3-0 away defeat to Wigan stands out as probably the worst performance I can recall under Smith. Absolutely clueless that day all over the pitch, and Kalinic in particular had a nightmare.

[Neil Hawkes]

The one thing I would say though is it's not entirely his fault that we've missed loads of sitters and conceded several goals through individual errors.  Even so, he should have done better.

Surely the first sentence makes the second sentence overly critical?

Possibly.  But there's more to it than missed chances and notwithstanding the almost freakish nature of the Spurs game I still think with the squad we have he should have done better.

I appreciate that, but still don't see how this equates to the manager not being fit for purpose.

Our strikers/forwards convert their chances, we win.
Individuals stop making critical errors, we don't lose.

Until certain players step up and perform as expected, we will continue to lose, despite what any manager says or does.

[kippaxvilla2]

If you look at the post-match threads from Feb 2019, like turgid displays at Reading where Tyrone Mings nearly career-ended a player, you'll probably find more than a few murmurs of "Smith's no better than Bruce, sling'im out!". He had managed to smash promotion rivals in his first few months mind, (0-3 at Tiny Penis's Boro the pick of the lot) whereas Gerrard gets a nose-bleed any time we play a team in the top half.

Fair enough, this thread still feels very premature.

Well I started it and it’s something I’ve always suffered from. 

[cdbearsfan]

The rule is:

Defence improve and make fewer mistakes, forwards score more goals.... manager takes credit.

Defence make mistakes, forwards who have pretty much always scored throughout their careers suddenly can't hit a barn door...  no blame can be attached to the manager, must be the players' fault.

[RamboandBruno]

The rule is:

Defence improve and make fewer mistakes, forwards score more goals.... manager takes credit.

Defence make mistakes, forwards who have pretty much always scored throughout their careers suddenly can't hit a barn door...  no blame can be attached to the manager, must be the players' fault.

Watkins has had one decent season at this level playing alongside someone who made chances for fun in Grealish, jurys out after this year. I think Risso has pointed out before the idea of Ings being a 20 goal a season man every year is somewhat of an urban myth.
Again, Gerrards had 5 months, it isnt enough time to judge the way he’s being judged.

[eamonn]

Watkins' conversion rate and frequency of chances this season compared to last would be interesting to check. Our Opta man, PWS, is much-missed.

[ROBBO]

Met a Spurs supporter who thought we were very unlucky, said he believed we should have been three goals in front at half-time, havn't seen the game, away on holiday, but interesting to get his perspective.

[boozey182]

The rule is:

Defence improve and make fewer mistakes, forwards score more goals.... manager takes credit.

Defence make mistakes, forwards who have pretty much always scored throughout their careers suddenly can't hit a barn door...  no blame can be attached to the manager, must be the players' fault.

Watkins has had one decent season at this level playing alongside someone who made chances for fun in Grealish, jurys out after this year. I think Risso has pointed out before the idea of Ings being a 20 goal a season man every year is somewhat of an urban myth.
Again, Gerrards had 5 months, it isnt enough time to judge the way he’s being judged.

I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but how do you think we should be judging him?

I appreciate that there are mitigating circumstances to his tenure - he has only had one transfer window so far, and the squad is certainly disjointed which wasn't his doing. He got off to a brilliant start with three wins in four matches, which showed such promise, especially the freefall we seemed to be in before that run. I'm not sure how much weight we can put into New Manger Bounce - he got those wins out of a team that had been really struggling and he deserves a lot of credit. Looking at it now, that run probably saved us from any kind of relegation battle this season.

However, if you'd have told any of us after that Leicester win back in December that we would be 15th in April, I think most, if not all, of us would have been at best underwhelmed. (I appreciate the season isn't over yet and hopefully we can get amongst the proper midtable clubs before then, but it seems silly to judge him on things that haven't happened yet).

To my mind, despite the major shortcomings of the squad, there are more than 5 worse squads than ours in this league. I would argue that the minimum requirement of a manager is to get the squad performing to their capabilities, and I'm sure most on here would concede that Gerrard isn't doing that at the moment.

The other concerns about him seem to be: tactical inflexibility, our woeful record against teams in the top half, worrying deficiencies in every area of the pitch (apart from goalkeeper) and individual player performances dropping off.

It may well be too early to make major judgements about him, and he won't lose his job unless we manage to get even worse between now and the end of the season, but I think many of the concerns are justified. We can only judge him on what he has done so far, and it hasn't been very impressive. I think he has done the bare minimum to keep his job.

As a much more eloquent poster than me put it - I don't want him to get sacked, I just want him to get better.

It was always a risk that fans would turn on him sooner than previous managers though - as a fan base, we have never liked him, have we? I know, I know, that's all water under the bridge now, and if he had been a bit more successful, I'm sure everyone would love him unconditionally now. But it's not the same as managers like Little, Gregory, Smith and Taylor II is it? There was no long-standing goodwill there to keep him going through these poor runs.

He's a born winner though, right? I'm sure it doesn't matter what we think of him, whether we want him sacked or think we're lucky to have such a superstar as our manager. He'll either get it right with us, or turn up in a TV studio quite soon.

[kippaxvilla2]

Anyone ever noticed that when a Villa manager is sacked the squad the new manager inherited is a mixture of crap or disjointed or both.  The same squad less someone who was special albeit had three months a season off that finished 11th.

[RamboandBruno]

The rule is:

Defence improve and make fewer mistakes, forwards score more goals.... manager takes credit.

Defence make mistakes, forwards who have pretty much always scored throughout their careers suddenly can't hit a barn door...  no blame can be attached to the manager, must be the players' fault.

Watkins has had one decent season at this level playing alongside someone who made chances for fun in Grealish, jurys out after this year. I think Risso has pointed out before the idea of Ings being a 20 goal a season man every year is somewhat of an urban myth.
Again, Gerrards had 5 months, it isnt enough time to judge the way he’s being judged.

I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but how do you think we should be judging him?

I appreciate that there are mitigating circumstances to his tenure - he has only had one transfer window so far, and the squad is certainly disjointed which wasn't his doing. He got off to a brilliant start with three wins in four matches, which showed such promise, especially the freefall we seemed to be in before that run. I'm not sure how much weight we can put into New Manger Bounce - he got those wins out of a team that had been really struggling and he deserves a lot of credit. Looking at it now, that run probably saved us from any kind of relegation battle this season.

However, if you'd have told any of us after that Leicester win back in December that we would be 15th in April, I think most, if not all, of us would have been at best underwhelmed. (I appreciate the season isn't over yet and hopefully we can get amongst the proper midtable clubs before then, but it seems silly to judge him on things that haven't happened yet).

To my mind, despite the major shortcomings of the squad, there are more than 5 worse squads than ours in this league. I would argue that the minimum requirement of a manager is to get the squad performing to their capabilities, and I'm sure most on here would concede that Gerrard isn't doing that at the moment.

The other concerns about him seem to be: tactical inflexibility, our woeful record against teams in the top half, worrying deficiencies in every area of the pitch (apart from goalkeeper) and individual player performances dropping off.

It may well be too early to make major judgements about him, and he won't lose his job unless we manage to get even worse between now and the end of the season, but I think many of the concerns are justified. We can only judge him on what he has done so far, and it hasn't been very impressive. I think he has done the bare minimum to keep his job.

As a much more eloquent poster than me put it - I don't want him to get sacked, I just want him to get better.

It was always a risk that fans would turn on him sooner than previous managers though - as a fan base, we have never liked him, have we? I know, I know, that's all water under the bridge now, and if he had been a bit more successful, I'm sure everyone would love him unconditionally now. But it's not the same as managers like Little, Gregory, Smith and Taylor II is it? There was no long-standing goodwill there to keep him going through these poor runs.

He's a born winner though, right? I'm sure it doesn't matter what we think of him, whether we want him sacked or think we're lucky to have such a superstar as our manager. He'll either get it right with us, or turn up in a TV studio quite soon.

I think he should be judged as all managers should and your right, this season and this calendar year have largely been underwhelming and there are obvious concerns about his ability to motivate this group of players. I do just think the whole premise of this thread, e.g. some posters thinking he should be sacked, is questionable at the moment as its so early in his tenure. 
Your right he’s got far less credit in the bank than other managers and that is unfortunate for him but also for us as a club, as i think we need a bit of stability and not sure we need another round of sackings and new appointments just yet. I genuinely think 2 or 3 players could make a huge amount of difference to this team and he needs time to get those in.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

Great post boozey.
The unfortunate thing for our manager is that there are now stats which can be used against him. We're currently on our 2nd bad run with him in charge in what has been a relatively short tenure. Home results have generally been poor. I think we've had 1 win at home since the beginning of December (approaching 5 months!).
We're more likely to lose against a team in the bottom 3 (Watford) than beat or even draw with a team in the top 8.
Every Villa fan I'm sure wants us to do well and there would probably be very little mention of his name if we were getting results, but we're not and it's as much down to him as to some off-form players. Hopefully he's big enough to take the criticism on board and do something positive about it (and I don't mean stropping on the bench for himself) otherwise he may find himself close to the exit door.