Would We Have Gone Down Under Gerrard?

[Axl Rose]

Gerrard put me off football.

I don't think I ever watched a full game when he was in charge.

I've hated him throughout his whole career, and hate him now. Twat.

I hate him more than I hate Grealish

[SoccerHQ]

No.

Would've been a similar finish to last season though and us all wondering what the point is.

[SoccerHQ]

I only started this as I know someone who is still blaming the owners for not giving him enough money or time.  This isn’t me by the way!

Generally curious what the mindset of these people are, was he a massive fanboy of Gerrard as a player or something?!!!!!

Emery has spent pretty much 15m so far (given Duran is more of a club project signing who was probabl coming in anyway) and yet in six months he's vastly improved most of our senior players.

Such a lazy and stupid argument to say only chance Gerrard had here was needing 100s of millions to spend on Liverpool reserves. He needs to go away and learn actually how to coach rather than just waiting for Beale to get sacked by Rangers.

[SoccerHQ]

I must say I kind of turned after Bournemouth. Can't say I totally gave up, but it was so astonishingly poor that I just could not honestly see how it could get better, what there was to build on.

And I'd managed to convince myself to be hopeful before that too! Just goes to show, sometimes your first impression is the right one.

We should've sacked him after West Ham at home. They'd lost their first three without scoring and came to VP for a 0-0 and still beat us.

I remember the MOTD punditry after the game and whoever was on it was agog that Ings kept on getting the ball wide left.

Only issue is Emery probably wouldn't have come in early September but we really did waste six weeks especially given we had the likes of Leeds and Forest in that run.

[Brend'Watkins]

Him being so poor with what he had at his disposal helped us greatly get the manager we've been after long before H&V first went to print.  For that we all should be grateful to SG. I'm also grateful in his part for landing Kamara if he had a part in it that is but let's assume he did. 

john e alluded to Gerrard's Philosophy in an earlier post. What was his Philosophy that players clearly didn't buy into?  The only thing I can think of is "Run fast like I did, pass the ball like I did, read the game like I did, dive like I did and shout Ref like I did." Not proper coaching but parrot coaching. I'm being flippant to make a point but there didn't appear to be any coaching as such. We played to a rigid formation which might have been okay up in Scotland but not the best league in the world where 'proper coaches' will know how to counteract a basic style.  We would have been right in the smelly stuff if we continued in that vein so yes, we would have gone down if he'd stayed on.

[Drummond]

I think Beale made the calls, and was found out. Gerrard had no clue and was just the face. Then he brought in Critchley who couldn't fix what was already broken.

[Simon Page]

I don't really get the concept of paying someone millions to be a figurehead masquerading as a leader. Obviously that's the structure at the BBC, but why would Villa feel a need to do that? Just spend the money on someone who can coach. I can only assume the club thought Gerrard was a competent coach as the alternative displays dangerous levels of stupidity.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I think the only positive thing Gerrard achieved (look away Footy) was to toughen up the team. Before we were a bit of a soft touch, he had us running around kicking the opposition. Didn't get us very far but even now the lads like a good 'challenge'.

That is it. Everything else was at best eye bleeding boring, at worst had me questioning for the first time ever, do I need this weekly misery in my life.

[Drummond]

I don't really get the concept of paying someone millions to be a figurehead masquerading as a leader. Obviously that's the structure at the BBC, but why would Villa feel a need to do that? Just spend the money on someone who can coach. I can only assume the club thought Gerrard was a competent coach as the alternative displays dangerous levels of stupidity.

I agree Simon, the whole thing was a farce. Now we have a figurehead who can coach and knows how to get others to help him.

[LeeB]

The Bournemouth game set off huge alarms but I didn't see it, didn't need to, I know what it would've looked like. It was Palace away for me, we were miles off them all over the pitch, and they're the definition of 'nothing special'.

I remember sat in traffic coming away, hearing about the deal for Sarr and just thinking so what? It's not going to fix our problems.

[Dogtanian]

The Bournemouth game set off huge alarms but I didn't see it, didn't need to, I know what it would've looked like. It was Palace away for me, we were miles off them all over the pitch, and they're the definition of 'nothing special'.

I remember sat in traffic coming away, hearing about the deal for Sarr and just thinking so what? It's not going to fix our problems.

I'll never forget that Bournemouth game, it seemed to change everything.

We walked from the hotel in the sunshine, excited and thinking up a song, had a few beers in a bar near the ground watching the Fulham game. Went off to the stadium, all happy and thinking this was it, the start of the new era. He's had his pre-season, he's had his signings...

Then everything turned to shit. And afterwards, it felt like it had all been bullshit, built on sand yet again. It really did suck the belief out in record time and we never recovered.

[manic-road]

Would we have gone down under Gerrard? Don't know but thankfully we never got to find out.

[Somniloquism]

We could raise our game in some matches. Man Citeh at home where we happened to get the only Linesman to raise their offside flag when a goal could still be scored, and Chelsea at home where we should have been the ones walking away on a 4-1 scoreline and lost 2-0 due to a goal keepers game of the their season,(although the reverse happened at their place). But all the other games we were woeful, especially against teams who we would have been fighting against going into the second half of the season. Even the ones we won were just about. Everton for example, 80 mins of domination and then 10 mins where they peppered us and would probably had won if there were a few extra minutes.

[Risso]

The Bournemouth game set off huge alarms but I didn't see it, didn't need to, I know what it would've looked like. It was Palace away for me, we were miles off them all over the pitch, and they're the definition of 'nothing special'.

I remember sat in traffic coming away, hearing about the deal for Sarr and just thinking so what? It's not going to fix our problems.

Same here, you can sometimes put the first game of the season down to "one of those games" but Palace we were absolutely shite. Then there were games like Leeds and Forest where there was just absolutely no idea at all how to break a team down. At Forest, the midfield literally sat in a line on the halfway line, passing it sideways for about an hour, interspersed with the odd Cash run into the box.

[frank]

The Bournemouth game set off huge alarms but I didn't see it, didn't need to, I know what it would've looked like. It was Palace away for me, we were miles off them all over the pitch, and they're the definition of 'nothing special'.

Same here, you can sometimes put the first game of the season down to "one of those games" but Palace we were absolutely shite. Then there were games like Leeds and Forest where there was just absolutely no idea at all how to break a team down. At Forest, the midfield literally sat in a line on the halfway line, passing it sideways for about an hour, interspersed with the odd Cash run into the box.

After the dismal performance at Selhurst I said to my Palace-supporting friends "I wish we had your manager". Viera, later to be sacked, completely outthought Gerrard.