El-Reacho

10 minutes ago, romavillan said:

He had a few in his time. Mostly to do with wingers and runners from deep, for a while he liked to play with a proper old school 10.

How can you possibly say Alex Ferguson did not have a style of football?

The Mixer by Michael Cox is a pretty good account of how Ferguson evolved United from playing route 1 ‘English’ brand of football and being hammered in Europe in the early to mid 1990s,  and turned them into European Champions. Ferguson definitely knew what he was at in terms of tactics and style.

14 minutes ago, zak said:

again, i can assure you all its not AVB

So it is Mancini then??

Hard pass for me on AVB. Bit of ‘Abramovich’s New Clothes’ about him getting the Chelsea job when he did. Not unlike Gerrard getting the Villa job.

Mancini would work for me. Would definitely signal that assurances have been made regarding transfer funds.

Think we need to be careful what we wish for with Purslow here. It was well reported that Wes and Nas were determined to bring in Thierry Henry when they arrived. It was only when Purslow came on board that a proper recruitment process was put in place and we got Dean Smith. Purslow has made a massive mistake with Gerrard. But I still think he's a safer pair of hands than Wes and Nas sacking him and making their own managerial appointment.

3 minutes ago, catanzaro said:

Yeah we really do look like Everton.. we’ve got to look at some of our senior decision makers for sure 

For me it’s only one decision they’ve got wrong. But they’ve got it spectacularly wrong and gone all in on it, when a huge number of people could see it was the wrong decision.

Truss and Gerrard in one day???

4 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I wish we had the players to pass the ball and play little 1-2s round the box. 

Pretty sure we do.

3 minutes ago, HongKongVillan said:

With talks of Poch or Emery, I think Marco Silva might be a good fit for us. 

 

 

But then again I know **** all about football

Gerrard is making any half decent coach look good against us. Fulham really know what they’re at here. We clearly do not.

Is it possible that SG hasn’t told Konsa he’s playing at right back?

7 minutes ago, mrchnry said:

Maybe he's trying to get sacked now hence the photos of him in that pub and the confirmation that he was there from the pub itself. 

Going to the pub is hardly grounds for sacking?

1 hour ago, Dale said:

Objectively he's had a good career as a manager. I think Gerrard would be fortunate to have a similar amount og success... 

I think, once departed from here, if he isn't going to Sly Sports/BT, he'd be well served by becoming a coach in the team of Klopp or Pep, or any truly top coach to learn a great deal. Otherwise he's bound to be a limited coach on the managerial merry go round. I'm pretty sure that Terry is a better coach than Gerrard for serving an apprenticeship. 

Gerrard's ego will prevent him from ever doing that. I reckon he's absolutely convinced that he's an elite manager. It's the same trait that made him such a great player, but it's stopping him from becoming a great manager.

17 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Honestly don't even care anymore, he has to go too. He's not one of a kind. There are plenty of CEO's out there who could do the job that he does with about half the ego.

Think the ego is pretty much standard for guys who're in those positions. That's how they get themselves in the door in the first place. For the most part it's probably no bad thing.

2 hours ago, andym said:

Check out some of the line ups even at the end of our 55 point season when Grealish was injured, the run of form that lead to 'Smith can't do it without Jack'

Everton at home our attackers were Barkley, Traore, El Ghazi and Davis. We had Elmo starting games at RB, our back ups on the bench included Neil Taylor, Engels and Wesley. There's two players there who retired that summer, and players like Barkley and Wesley who were pretty much done at any reasonable level.

Its also funny how other managers seem to get more out of their teams - e.g. before this season Almiron had a grand total of 9 premier league goals in 110 games; he's got 4 in 9 so far this year. Look at Brighton; Trossard's best goalscoring season was last year with 8 (so barely better than Traore), Welbeck has never hit double figures. Yet because of how well they are coached as a team, they can still get results.

Every team we would think of as rivals for that challenging top half and europe have weaknesses in their XIs and in their squad, yet their managers don't get the excuses made for them Gerrard is getting.

Its also worth pointing out that if Gerrard wanted to completely change the midfield this summer he could have - he was allowed to spend 25mil on a left back when we already had a serviceable one, he was allowed to bring in Coutinho on 17mil and mega high wages when we were already full of attacking players. 30mil on Carlos when we already had 4 centre backs on the books. If he went to Purslow saying 'i want to spend 30mil on a new midfielder', there's no way he was getting turned down. McGinn and Ramsey make up 2/3 of our midfield every game because that is what he wants, even though everyone else can see it simply doesn't work.

Communication is such a massive part of being a manager these days - something Smith, Eddie Howe, Klopp, Potter, Guardiola etc. all excel at. Martin O'Neill and Alex Ferguson too - they know how to get in player's heads and make them feel like they're ten better than they are. I suspect this is a massive blind spot in Gerrard. His treatment of Mings is good evidence of this, but the attacking players look totally devoid of any confidence - especially when you compare them to the like of Almiron or Trossard as you've mentioned. Our players are all going backward at the moment.

7 hours ago, sidcow said:

I think losing to Chelsea is inevitable and he'll be sacked then.

At that point his mates in the press can't defend him or accuse us of acting too quickly.  He'll have less points from 10 games as Smith did at the point he was sacked.. We can reiterate the lack of progress we made after Smith was sacked.  There can be no arguments or accusations it makes no sense to get rid. 

Hopefully we're talking to Poch right now. 

I hope that you're right but I think Purslow will dig his heels in with SG and try and keep him at least until the WC break. Smith was easy to sack even though I'm of the view he didn't really deserve it. I think SG's stature will mean he gets more time than he deserves.

We’re stuck in that void of knowing there’s no sustainable future for him at Villa, but him just picking up enough points to keep him in the job by the skin of his teeth. We’ll be narrowly beaten by Chelsea on Sunday in what Gerrard and his pundit mates will construe as a ‘moral victory’.

On 02/05/2022 at 20:39, sir_gary_cahill said:

Expected of him by who? 

Tim Sherwood? I'm pretty sure that he was predicting that RHM and Andre Green were going to take the PL by storm.

20 minutes ago, TRO said:

could be, but................

Maybe thats one of the reasons for the poor start.

If that is the case, I would find that concerning, why would an unknown manager, be backed heavily, in their thinking?( sack him now, if thats the case)....when many folk think, its down to not getting the best out of what we have......that seems to be a conflcting view, just saying.

Lucas Digne is the only signing under his stewardship, I would question.

3 are cover, Chambers, Bednarek, Ludwig.......Carlos and Kamara are champions league quality, Coutinho while an enigma is Elite class.

I would find it strange to think, that has tested their confidence.......what part does Johan Lange play or Christian Purslow?

The same could be said under DS's reign.

I find recruitment with mixed views.

They'll know that a transfer kitty will be key to enticing any decent manager here. Pochettino isn't going to sign up on the basis of working with what we have. 

If we revert back to the rubbish we were playing before the City game then he really must be thick. Big game for Stevie G…

Reckon the top end signings we thought we could get toward the end of the window when we'd shifted a few had second thoughts when they realised the Gerrard project was a load of s***e. I also think the owners know they'll be giving a new manager quite a bit to spend in January so held back in last week or two. The Sarr money is still largely there. 

37 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

Yes, we've just not told him yet.

In fairness that's pretty much how Smith was sacked - Purslow was obviously doing the deal with SG in the background and only sacked Smith when he knew he could get his replacement in.

3 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said:

Thought the sell on fee expired last season.

If not, £30m gets us £27m for him, that's not terrible but I worry who we replace him with. Or that we don't are all.

Just keep him and sell him in Jan

If we don't sell him today he'll sit tight and sign a lucrative pre-contract agreement in January and we'll get nothing. 

Purslow trying to get £40m out of Arsenal apparently. Will be a first who blinks situation as the longer the negotiations go on the less likely Arsenal will be able to turn to another option (Teilemens), but if Purslow can't get a deal done today we'll almost certainly lose him for nothing....

11 minutes ago, KevinRichardsonsMoustache said:

I know this is probably an odd thing to write here, but I really hope he doesn't get cabbaged. It makes us look so stupid. 

Agreed. Or purple dildo'd for that matter.

44 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

There's a few rumblings of Lange being the problem.

It's either Gerrard and Lange or Gerrard alone that needs to go. Throw Purslow in as well for me.

I don't care who we did or didn't sign. It isn't this bad. We are set up abysmally and will finish bottom with the formation. With this broken plan. As was pointed out last season.

I suspect he'll be the fall guy here - whether deserved or not. He doesn't ever speak to the media so it'll be ideal to throw him under the bus. I reckon Purslow will clear the whole hierarchy out to protect himself from criticism.