The Official Aston Villa FC thread
Discussion
dalzo said:
cuprabob said:
JNW1 said:
rjfp1962 said:
Steven Gerrard named as new manager..
On the face of it he did reasonably well at Rangers who are undeniably a very big club; however, North of the border you basically have only one team to beat and the SPL is nowhere near as strong as the top flight in England. So I think Gerrard will face a much tougher challenge at Villa and it will be interesting to see how he gets on; if I was a Villa fan I'd be thinking it's a slightly risky appointment but only time will tell....
To help with his new challenge he will have access to much greater funds that he could only have dreamt about in the SPL.
He came in and totally modernised the place, built a team from the ground up and then stopped Celtic Winning ten in a row while playing some great football and having excellent European results. He done a fantastic job up here and Villa fans should look forward to him and his coaching staff.
Those saying it’s a 2 horse race should have a look at his euro results too, his teams were superb in the europa league and that is with the limited ( compared to the epl) funds we could give him.
This season things did go a bit stale however a fresh challenge should re-invigorate him.
I've mulled it over since my earlier post about him using it as a stepping stone.
At the start of the 2019-20 Premier League, the average tenure of a manager was 789 days - 2 years, 8 weeks and 3 days
If we get a good three years out of him, he establishes up as top half finishers - as we consistently were, before Martin O'Neill left - then I will view it as a successful appointment. We might be in for a bumpy ride for a while at first.
Of course he is going to go to Liverpool at some point though, it's a given.
I have a huge amount of respect for him as a player. Not many Villa fans like him because he was captain of a Liverpool team that used to regularly beat us, so he has a small PR challenge to undergo, but the moment he starts delivering a few wins all of that will be forgotten.
The biggest challenge now is to stop the rot. Most Villa fans loved Dean Smith - one of us, got us back in the top flight - but he's lost 7 out of 11 so far this season and just not good enough, we had to make a change to stay in the top flight.
Lots of people question his experience, not having managed in the Premier League before. I'm of the view that until he gets the job, he's not going to get the experience, it is somewhat chicken and egg. I'm expecting him to be tough on discipline, not suffer too many prima donnas, able to relate to the players well, lead by example - I bet he is still decent on the training pitch - and progress some of our young academy talent.
All in all a calculated gamble which I hope will pay off. Let's see!
PurpleTurtle said:
dalzo said:
cuprabob said:
JNW1 said:
rjfp1962 said:
Steven Gerrard named as new manager..
On the face of it he did reasonably well at Rangers who are undeniably a very big club; however, North of the border you basically have only one team to beat and the SPL is nowhere near as strong as the top flight in England. So I think Gerrard will face a much tougher challenge at Villa and it will be interesting to see how he gets on; if I was a Villa fan I'd be thinking it's a slightly risky appointment but only time will tell....To help with his new challenge he will have access to much greater funds that he could only have dreamt about in the SPL.
He came in and totally modernised the place, built a team from the ground up and then stopped Celtic Winning ten in a row while playing some great football and having excellent European results. He done a fantastic job up here and Villa fans should look forward to him and his coaching staff.
Those saying it’s a 2 horse race should have a look at his euro results too, his teams were superb in the europa league and that is with the limited ( compared to the epl) funds we could give him.
This season things did go a bit stale however a fresh challenge should re-invigorate him.
I've mulled it over since my earlier post about him using it as a stepping stone.
At the start of the 2019-20 Premier League, the average tenure of a manager was 789 days - 2 years, 8 weeks and 3 days
If we get a good three years out of him, he establishes up as top half finishers - as we consistently were, before Martin O'Neill left - then I will view it as a successful appointment. We might be in for a bumpy ride for a while at first.
Of course he is going to go to Liverpool at some point though, it's a given.
I have a huge amount of respect for him as a player. Not many Villa fans like him because he was captain of a Liverpool team that used to regularly beat us, so he has a small PR challenge to undergo, but the moment he starts delivering a few wins all of that will be forgotten.
The biggest challenge now is to stop the rot. Most Villa fans loved Dean Smith - one of us, got us back in the top flight - but he's lost 7 out of 11 so far this season and just not good enough, we had to make a change to stay in the top flight.
Lots of people question his experience, not having managed in the Premier League before. I'm of the view that until he gets the job, he's not going to get the experience, it is somewhat chicken and egg. I'm expecting him to be tough on discipline, not suffer too many prima donnas, able to relate to the players well, lead by example - I bet he is still decent on the training pitch - and progress some of our young academy talent.
All in all a calculated gamble which I hope will pay off. Let's see!
Great appointment IMO! Knows the league & what it takes. Players ought to respect him for his on field achievements and i can't imagine he takes fools lightly.
Imagine being a villa youth player and having Stevie G as your manager, would be great.
He has to impress to stand a chance of getting Liverpool job so there is no doubt he won't put his all into it. He could never go Rangers > Championship > Liverpool. He'd always have needed a 'stepping stone', this could be the perfect fit.
Imagine being a villa youth player and having Stevie G as your manager, would be great.
He has to impress to stand a chance of getting Liverpool job so there is no doubt he won't put his all into it. He could never go Rangers > Championship > Liverpool. He'd always have needed a 'stepping stone', this could be the perfect fit.
MikeF86 said:
Great appointment IMO! Knows the league & what it takes. Players ought to respect him for his on field achievements and i can't imagine he takes fools lightly.
Imagine being a villa youth player and having Stevie G as your manager, would be great.
He has to impress to stand a chance of getting Liverpool job so there is no doubt he won't put his all into it. He could never go Rangers > Championship > Liverpool. He'd always have needed a 'stepping stone', this could be the perfect fit.
Can't think of the last elite English player (as in tons of caps for country and great PL club career) went on to be a great club manager. It hasn't happened in the PL era. Southgate at international level yes. Gerrard could be different, but the Rangers experience is nowhere near enough for that to be a high probability. Imagine being a villa youth player and having Stevie G as your manager, would be great.
He has to impress to stand a chance of getting Liverpool job so there is no doubt he won't put his all into it. He could never go Rangers > Championship > Liverpool. He'd always have needed a 'stepping stone', this could be the perfect fit.
Gerrard was a great player and it was exciting when he came to Scottish football. The very first game he started the Rangers have been cheated for years nonsense. After that it was constant pressure on referees and ignoring huge calls that went Rangers way. They had more than their fair share, but the pressure he put on referees was uncomfortably relentless.
I was surprised when he did get motivation out of his players. He too often threw them under the bus. There was a few massive collapses of form when this was going on.
"I don't normally say/do this" followed by what he claimed he wouldn't do were grinding. What he didn't normally do, but really did, was a common occurrence.
He was a big name up here and got away with murder. It won't happen in the PL.
I was surprised when he did get motivation out of his players. He too often threw them under the bus. There was a few massive collapses of form when this was going on.
"I don't normally say/do this" followed by what he claimed he wouldn't do were grinding. What he didn't normally do, but really did, was a common occurrence.
He was a big name up here and got away with murder. It won't happen in the PL.
JNW1 said:
On the face of it he did reasonably well at Rangers who are undeniably a very big club; however, North of the border you basically have only one team to beat and the SPL is nowhere near as strong as the top flight in England. So I think Gerrard will face a much tougher challenge at Villa and it will be interesting to see how he gets on; if I was a Villa fan I'd be thinking it's a slightly risky appointment but only time will tell....
It is a risky appointment and I think he would have benefited from more experience before moving on. He is still relatively new to management and has made mistakes along the way but perhaps until recently he has shown he can improve and build a team. He will face a different challenge in England as most teams in Scotland will sit deep and rely on counter attacking football against Rangers. His achievements should not be underestimated. Rangers went 13 games without a win against celtic which has now been turned around to unbeaten in the last 7 against them. He managed to win the league against a team which had been dominant for years and had a more expensive squad. You need to look beyond his league success though. In Europe, Rangers managed to make it to the last 16 on two occasions. He achieved great results against teams that were either at or above our level and generally were more attacking. In 2019/20 10 wins,5 drawers, 3 losses and in 20/21 9 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss. Those results improved the Scottish coefficient so much we get automatic Champions League place this year.
The results in Europe should give the Villa fans most optimism. I'd maybe be concerned about his ability to sustain his success though.
hongkongdonkey said:
JNW1 said:
On the face of it he did reasonably well at Rangers who are undeniably a very big club; however, North of the border you basically have only one team to beat and the SPL is nowhere near as strong as the top flight in England. So I think Gerrard will face a much tougher challenge at Villa and it will be interesting to see how he gets on; if I was a Villa fan I'd be thinking it's a slightly risky appointment but only time will tell....
It is a risky appointment and I think he would have benefited from more experience before moving on. He is still relatively new to management and has made mistakes along the way but perhaps until recently he has shown he can improve and build a team. He will face a different challenge in England as most teams in Scotland will sit deep and rely on counter attacking football against Rangers. His achievements should not be underestimated. Rangers went 13 games without a win against celtic which has now been turned around to unbeaten in the last 7 against them. He managed to win the league against a team which had been dominant for years and had a more expensive squad. You need to look beyond his league success though. In Europe, Rangers managed to make it to the last 16 on two occasions. He achieved great results against teams that were either at or above our level and generally were more attacking. In 2019/20 10 wins,5 drawers, 3 losses and in 20/21 9 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss. Those results improved the Scottish coefficient so much we get automatic Champions League place this year.
The results in Europe should give the Villa fans most optimism. I'd maybe be concerned about his ability to sustain his success though.
France , Spain , Italy , Liverpool who were dominant the year before had a shocker and Scotland all had major upsets for whatever reason.
Gerrard has a good back room team around him but this is a totally different test for him and success will be keeping Villa in the Premier League not Europe or silverware IMO.
RudeBoy said:
Gerrard has a good back room team around him
Interesting (and very positive) background on Michael Beale herehttps://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56298826
We now have an extensive back room team, I've seen a few online memes about them extending the dug out at Villa Park!
Hopefully not a case of 'too many cooks'. I see that Austin MacPhee who arrived with great fanfare as our set piece coach is staying (for now), let's hope we can win more than a corner as he's hardly pulled up stumps so far.
PurpleTurtle said:
Interesting (and very positive) background on Michael Beale here
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56298826
We now have an extensive back room team, I've seen a few online memes about them extending the dug out at Villa Park!
Hopefully not a case of 'too many cooks'. I see that Austin MacPhee who arrived with great fanfare as our set piece coach is staying (for now), let's hope we can win more than a corner as he's hardly pulled up stumps so far.
Michael Beale is the tactical brains of Gerrard team, he is a phenomenal coach and probably the biggest loss for rangers. He had rangers playing some wonderful stuff at times with a team that presses like hell, defends as a unit and then releases the front three to cause havoc. It’s a similar system to Liverpool’s.https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56298826
We now have an extensive back room team, I've seen a few online memes about them extending the dug out at Villa Park!
Hopefully not a case of 'too many cooks'. I see that Austin MacPhee who arrived with great fanfare as our set piece coach is staying (for now), let's hope we can win more than a corner as he's hardly pulled up stumps so far.
Rangers vs Porto double leg a season or two ago was probably the best example, rangers midfield 3 cost fifty grand in total and absolutely ran porto ragged getting a draw in porto and winning 2-0 at ibrox.
Can’t see macphee lasting long with Gerrard as he’s a total donkey and Tom culshaw will see him out , he was our defensive and set piece coach, we set a defensive record last season.
A win and a clean sheet. Glad too see Ollie Watkins really take the ball on and take responsibility in the finish, there was space for Bailey on the right but he did the right thing and got the job done.
Palace away looks a tough one, Vieira seems to be doing well and they've got goals in them.
Palace away looks a tough one, Vieira seems to be doing well and they've got goals in them.
Off to a flying start - so far I've thought Marvellous Nakamba is more Average Nakamba but his winning of the ball and precision pass to Watkins was exceptional.
I've enjoyed watching how Vieira has got Palace palying so it should be an entertaining game. Obviously Benteke is on fire at the mo, so he could break a few Villa hearts.
I think it's great that we have Gerrard and Vieira going toe to toe as managers, it only seems like five minutes since they were both mixing it in the centre of the park, two giants of the game in their times.
I've enjoyed watching how Vieira has got Palace palying so it should be an entertaining game. Obviously Benteke is on fire at the mo, so he could break a few Villa hearts.
I think it's great that we have Gerrard and Vieira going toe to toe as managers, it only seems like five minutes since they were both mixing it in the centre of the park, two giants of the game in their times.
Spanna said:
A win and a clean sheet. Glad too see Ollie Watkins really take the ball on and take responsibility in the finish, there was space for Bailey on the right but he did the right thing and got the job done.
Palace away looks a tough one, Vieira seems to be doing well and they've got goals in them.
I almost looked away when Ollie didn't play a little through ball for Anwar. And then when he shaped to shoot instead of rolling the ball to the unmarked Bailey I did look away.... Just caught the side of the side of the net ripple out of the corner of my eye.Palace away looks a tough one, Vieira seems to be doing well and they've got goals in them.
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