Neil

7 minutes ago, MikeMcKenna said:

That Ranieri has experience is unquestionable, but his record was actually not that great after leaving Chelsea and his success at Leicester has been surprising to say the least. It is easy to look around after the event and say 'we could have signed Ranieri' but to the best of my knowledge no-one even considered him as a possible manager. Leicester are this years Southampton - people talk of copying another teams 'blue-print' but imho it never works like that. Leicester are a total one off and frankly other than Ranieri, getting lucky with Vardy and Mahrez I am at a loss to see what their 'blueprint' is. Like Southmpton they will fade from the limelight when they start to lose a few key players. 

Well just as I'd pointed out, and even since Chelsea, he has demonstrated improving teams as well as some not so good appointments.  It's a long career and has a lot of ups and downs, but you'd take a punt that the downs have been learning experiences.

Ranieri just wasn't at the forefront of anyones mind I would say, but if you'd asked me at the time Garde or Ranieri - I'd have said Ranieri because Garde has such a small CV of nothing note worthy.  Overall Ranieris win rate is enough to give us a top 10 side, for want of any better statistic.

6 minutes ago, av1 said:

I'd agree with all of that. Our managerial appointments have been terrible and I'm not trying to completely absolve them of blame regarding our demise over the last few years.

But I do maintain that our problems run much deeper than the Manager, the club is shambles. You look at cost cutting and what that's meant for player recruitment (when you buy lower league players it shouldn't come as a great surprise when you end up playing in a lower league) and those Manager's were always facing an uphill battle. 

Given all the issues at the club I think changing Manager yet again, before he is even given a window or two to build his own team would be a mistake at this stage. As you say, we haven't been able to attract a really high class Manager for years, I can't imagine that is going to change when we become a championship team. 

Yeah, your post wasn't the best example of what I was trying to address but it listed previous managers to elude that we've been through so many managers we can't keep blaming them or so it read.  I absolutely stand that you can put some blame on all their shoulders (including Garde), because they've just been crap at their job - not entirely their fault they're crap but certainly their crapness is partly at fault for our demise.

But oh yeah, don't get me wrong...the bigger portions of blame are definitely not the managers.  The biggest problem is the clown at the top driving the clown car, we're rotten throughout - the recruitment has been shocking.  But the right appointment could have pulled the right change at the right time to nick a win somewhere along the 9 game stretch, even with this basket case of players.

10 hours ago, av1 said:

At first it was because GH was out of touch, then because AM was just crap, PL was boring, TS was a tosser, now apparently Remi is don't cut the mustard. You just get to the stage when realise our problems are much much more than the Manager.

 

I take a little problem with this, in pointing out that those are all pretty much true.  For a long time now, we've taken bargain basement managers that nobody else has shown any interest in - who haven't really achieved anything worthy of note.  To put it bluntly, for a shit as the team has been - we've taken just as shit managers.

Again, so many love to discount all manner of experience when experience is our best measure of success.  Long term experience shows us consistency, and chances of success at repeating what those experiences have been.

We've really gambled on some crap along the lines, Mcleish was best known for relegating blues twice and the rest is just managing a few scotish teams.  Tim Sherwood, his managerial experience is all of half a season at spurs - that's it.  Anything else Sherwood did was not as a manager, it was the wrong appointment at the time but actually turned out okay as he kept  us up but since then the walls came crashing down.

Now our latest manager is really just a guy who managed a French team for a few seasons and spectacularly kept them run of the mill...wowzers.  There is really nothing else, because that is the full extent of his managerial experience, to give good indication that he's likely to be a success here.

All of them have been largely unknowns, none of our managers have gone on to leave the Villa and achieve anything of note for some 10 years or so.  Most of the managers we've picked up have been out of work with good reason I would suspect...

Someone said that even the best manager in the world couldn't get this team playing, how can anyone say that when we haven't even had one close.  Let's just be honest, our team is shite but we haven't done ourselves any favors in the management recruitment either.

And to put that into context, people have pinned hopes on the Leicester blue print.  They went out and got a manager with bags of experience that spans over years, and he has some great plaudits to boot in improving teams performances (as well as some not so successful tenures).

2 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I think this is ridiculous. Xenophobia? Utter nonsense. 

Our summer signings on the whole have not been good enough and the remaining players have been just as shit. Regardless of where they're from a lot of players have deservedly been criticised this season for their contribution to our relegation. The English lads we have are Richards, lescott, westwood, gabby and Grealish and all have been criticised to a similar level to the over seas players we've signed. 

Who do you think has come in for unfair stick compared to other players?

 

All names that have been ripped to pieces, rightly so...but still, like you say this fantasy xenophobia is laughable.  Any excuse?

13 minutes ago, Richard said:

I think that's a dreadfully poor excuse

I totally agree, I despair at the amount of "can't blame garde" posts.

He might not be to blame for what we were, but he is surely part of the problem of where we are now and rightly apportions part of the blame.

Even for our lousy set of players, there is a a good fitting manager...right guy for the right circumstances and all.  At the minute he's not looking like the guy, but I think more time is required than knee jerk firing.

I just can't have these posts saying he can't be blamed.

1 minute ago, GeordieVillan said:

We should have Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles up front, with Stephen Hawking at no.10. Got to try something different.

Wed probably bag more goals by sheer luck, our current squad is that bad that they defy chance.

13 hours ago, maqroll said:

He's a glorified used car salesman

A really bad one, reminds me if the one in "true lies".  We need Arnie to come exterminate the lot.

1 minute ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

I'd hardly call him 'detrimental' to the team.

Stevie wonder wouldn't be detrimental to the team at the minute

35 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

Is he really any worse than Gestede?

I think on what little we've really seen, and know, I'd say he's possibly better...and worth finding out if that's true or not.

1 minute ago, useless said:

Everything seems just hopeless and desolate, the club is buried alive in a grave within a grave.

Just us fans left scratching to get out...

10 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

 

On the evidence so far, I certainly wouldn't give Garde too much money to spend in the January window. There's no sense at all he has a clue how to get us out of this so let's save the available money for a Championship-ready rebuild in the summer.

Seems to be popular nowadays to discount experience, relegation battle experience...championship experience, etc, etc.

The one thing that worries me a lot is a lack of experience in building a side, buying the right players, to get us out of the championship.

7 minutes ago, Richard said:

Not Sherwood is the main qualification 

I think this is what it has become.

I keep telling my self it's too early to judge, but I think this is what it may have been all along...

33 minutes ago, Richard said:

We'd be going down a club in decay having won one game all season, with a smell of failure against teams some of whom will have won 20plus games, fighting to get out of that league and back to the promised land and fighting for the last couple of seasons so well experienced . We will stay there and actually do well to stay in that league.

in addition we will be a huge scalp for some of the smaller teams in that league, some of whom we have not exactly done well against in cup competitions recently. Huge game for them.

people will then say "ah but we will have a whole bunch of new players" , great we've seen what having a load of newbies has done for us this season and if Garde does stay they will be bought by someone not exactly versed in a promotion push.

add all that to the mix with the same owner and **** wit management team that have shown they know how to successfully run a football club and have the right culture for it and it's not a recipe for success. 

Yep, if we continue like we are, and go down in this way, then we can say hello to Bolton on our way past to relegation from the championship.

Relegation on this form will be toxic for us, and only a miracle could resolve it.

I still think it's too early to judge what this guy could be ultimately capable of, though in the same time span with similar results my mind was made up with Sherwood.

I do think though, if I was forced to pass judgement I'd say Garde has been shit - and probably put him down as failure.  And if I could forsee what I've seen now, and asked whether I wanted him to come in the first place - then I would probably say no.

Losing, by two goals, to that Sunderland team...that is a double-unforgivable.

Not really seeing what we've gained under this manager, and to think we turn our noses at Allardyce in our situation...

Kozak and traore, second half double substituted to link up for 2 goals bringing us back from 1 nil down.

You heard it here first

Dunno if I'm imagining but seen his name on the team sheet today.

29 minutes ago, dounavilla said:

This thread is almost at 1000 pages so perhaps enough content for a book but I'm guessing it won't end with "happily ever after."

Happily ever after - in the championship 

*sobs*

57 minutes ago, Kingman said:

Any news on this new manager bounce thingamajig? 

It's another record we've smashed, worst new manager bounce ever.

5 hours ago, troon_villan said:

I assume the op means mathematically? Impossible to predict at present but I'd say sometime in March because the shit of Sunderland, Newcastle and Bournemouth will keep us...well..'in it'

Kind of presumptuous to assume we'll beat our fellow shit of the league.  They're all actually doing better than us, we're at the bottom of the shit pack.

21 hours ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Randy sent us down 

Well, very much my opinion is nobody is sending us down but us.

Our gutless performance from the top down has ultimately signed our fate.

22 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Plenty of midweek games home and away even if it's not on TV, you have to cram in 46 games somehow.

Yeah I know, but there in lies my problem.  I work away all week, so I won't be home for home games.

They seem to be minimized to Mondays in the prem, which is doable

New years resolution for our players must be score **** goals, hopfully make a start on that sooner than later with Sunderland.  We have to beat them just to be in with an odds against chance, don't beat them and it's officially over.

4 hours ago, supernova26 said:

The Leeds protest over Sky is interesting. This is definitely going to affect us next season.

Both Forest and Leeds have been chose 9/23 times to be on TV. The kick-off times are all over the place and it massively affects the attendances. If we go down without Newcastle coming with us you'd expect at least half our games to be televised.

If you like 3pm kick-offs, prepared to be disappointed. Good for those of us who watch via alternative methods though, but of course we'll still miss a large slice of the matches.

I will renew my season ticket, but I'm really worried how many games I'll have to miss because of the shit championship scheduling..especially mid week games as I work away all week.

To talk about Lerner, I wouldn't intervene a firing squad if the power was in my hands...with no regrets