Super-Villan

Yeah. Its Houlliers fault that Ireland is shite. Well clearly that's not what I said, but feel free to only quote me selectively just to make whatever point you like. I do feel Houllier's treatment of him when he joined is part of the reason why he hasn't performed very well for us though. And the £24m signing of Darren Bent won't alter that.

So if he was on £40k per week it would be OK to show a lack of passion? £20k? What's the cut off for passion exactly? I think talk of passion is generally bullshit, and fans come out with it when they are frustrated with a player's performances. I don't think the way he plays is due to a lack of passion at all (if anything I'd say he has too much passion to succeed). I think partly it's just his style, and partly it's a lack of confidence to a) the way he was treated by our manager, and his generally fragile mental state. is a weakness for Ireland, I agree entirely, but I don't think it's something he would be slagged off for, and it certainly isn't something that a slagging off will improve.

I fail to see how he's shown a lack of respect. I think he's kept a dignidied silence in general. If you're talking about his performances, then I think if you consider his mindset when he joined and the comments of our manager then his performances are hardly surprising. And even considering that we've had worse players (Pires, notably) who keep getting places in the team and on the bench ahead of him.

Just when I thought Villa were incapable of exciting me under Gerard Houllier. It's a very clever signing, despite the money (or because of it). It tells the fans Ged is staying and to get behind him. It gives the fans a huge boost regardless. And it should give the players a boost to see that we can compete for the best players. Great stuff.

I saw the point in booing him and piling on the pressure when I thought there was a chance of getting him to walk or getting Randy to off him. That doesn't feel the case any more though. I wouldn't chant his name, but I wouldn't chant against him either.

Well I'm resigned to GH staying, but I don't have to be happy about it. It will take a lot of good performances and/or results before the end of the season to get me back on board, and I'm not going to accept that just about escaping relegation is good enough.

I agree we need 4-5-1 and a strong central midfield. I'd station Stan and Reo-Coker back there for maximum stability right now. -------------------------- Friedel --------------------------- Walker -------- Cuellar ---------- Dunne --------- Clark ------------- NRC --------------------- Petrov ------------- -------------------------- Bannan --------------------------- Albrighton---------------------------------------- Downing --------------------------- Gabby --------------------------- I'm not confident though. I'm not even convinced it's healthy for me to watch it right now. Maybe I'll find a stream if we're not losing at half time.

When a very talented player leaves your club, it's a loss.

Yes, because a football board have never backed a manager and then sacked him a week or two later, right? It's not a dead debate, it's an ongoing debate, and if we lose today there will be more calls for his head, and if we lose to Blues they will grow louder and louder. The board, unless they have buried their heads in the sand, will continue to assess his position, whatever they say in public. Equally, Ged might just decide to walk away if he keeps losing and the fans keep chanting against him.

Hahaha. And then when the team lose to Sheff Utd and Blues. Errrr...no, I mean his time starts NOW. No...NOW! No, sometime in 2012.

Even if MON was as spiteful as some posters seem to think, I bet in his wildest dreams he couldn't have imagined his departure would cause such chaos that we'd be doing this badly. It took a great effort to get us to fall this far, even from a slightly unstable position.

So how come when they don't play well it's deemed that they don't want to play for the manager? I don't think it's that simple. The fact that they don't want to play for the manager isn't simply taken from a bad performance but also all the reports of unrest within the camp. If you just looked at the results alone and said they were because the players didn't want to play for the manager, that would be pretty presumptious.

I think it's much harder from the outside to judge a good number two than it is a good number one, that's all. It's often only apparent when the partnership splits up.

Either way though, it's not 'clear' that they wanted to play for the manager against Chelsea, just that they played quite well.

I'm not sure they put that much effort in against Sunderland. It was clearly a much worse performance over 90 minutes regardless of the result. My worry is that our two best performances have been against Chelsea and Man U, and that the players may be raising themselves for the bigger teams.

I'm not really sure what proof there is for this? I mean, you might be right, but unless we actually attend all the training sessions it's pretty difficult to know if he's that crap. Unless someone has some inside information on him. Just strikes me as scapegoating a little.

Not forgetting anything. I said I thought he'd keep us up. At the time K-Mac was in charge, just keeping us up wasn't remotely acceptable, hence I didn't want him as manager. But situations change, we are in the shit, and players fighting for their manager and just about staying up sound great to me right now, thanks.

We aren't down yet! Well, no. I was saying that I don't think K-Mac would have taken us down. But I think there's a chance Houllier might.

I wouldn't say biaised, it's just an opinion piece. Plenty of room for that in journalism. And he made a suggestion that K-Mac could come in for the short term. I'd imagine we'd then reassess in the summer. I was no fan of K-mac's, but the players would at least have wanted to play for him, and I don't think he'd have taken us down.

Nail. On. Head. Yep, spot on that.

Ultimately, and eventually, yes I do. When is ultimately and eventually? Once we are already relegated? I'm not saying I know Randy's breaking point with regards fan demonstrations. But I'm sure he'll have one, yes.

Ultimately, and eventually, yes I do.

He may not be being sacked, but you don't know that any more than I do. Randy could have just given him until the Blues game. I've seen plenty of votes of confidence turned around in less time than that. And, in my opinion, chanting as loudly as possible against the manager - while also cheering the team and individual players - is the best way to help get him out as quickly as possible. And that is a much better alternative to keeping him for the rest of the season, even if it means we have to crash out of the cup and lose to Blues.

You could make excuses like that for every single match though. The players are on the pitch and they are the ones that do good or bad things. But if it were completely true then there would be no point in having managers at all, would there? Seeing as it's all up to the players. For the odd game, yes players make mistakes. Taken over a longer period, such as Houllier's tenure so far, then he has to take ultimate responsibility.

I'm gutted about this. He's got until the Birmingham match now at the very least, which means even if they sack him there's no time for a new manager to bring players in. We better hope the teams around us start playing reaaaaaally badly, I reckon.