Sam3773

I think we’re into the final 24 hours. Barring a miracle against Chelsea, I think the home crowd will turn fairly quickly. Owners also in attendance who will see the football, the loss and the mood amongst the fan base. I just feel that mix will prove too much to ignore. What happens next remains to be seen, and isn’t for this thread.

Just finished Arsenal: All or Nothing and I see Arteta put an image of a tweet from Toney up pre-match to fire the team up. We’ve got to be the only team that could put a quote from our own manager up pre-match to fire the players up. “They should wipe the floor with us”

Account has now been deleted it seems. I wouldn’t mind Emery. Known for developing players and has had a lot of success. Tactically astute.

With Wolves getting Nuno back, what would the feeling for Dean be? We were right to separate - It wasn’t working. But is there unfinished business there? Could we see a return?

Henry on TV last night talking about how he wants back into management but not until after the World Cup. It’s happening, isn’t it? It makes it all make sense. Keeping Gerrard despite the problems to limp us towards the World Cup when Thierry will take over. Linked with him before. Owners love him. I need to take up drinking again.

Events may have been exaggerated slightly.

I’ve seen two semi-reputable people suggest the meeting last night was largely about non-football matters although football was mentioned. Neither have said anything specific about Gerrard being on the brink/safe and I wouldn’t expect Purslow to have such a conversation at a fan meeting, unless I’ve missed something. All I’ve seen suggesting otherwise is some bloke named Josh suggesting Purslow turned up last night in a Gerrard home shirt and a ‘Vote Stevie’ baseball cap. It’s not clear what fan group Josh was representing.

I think this Sunday will make feelings pretty clear and obvious. Usually social media turns before the crowd so you never quite know what to expect, but I would imagine a very clear feeling will be at VP, amplified by the hammering I’m sure Chelsea will provide. No one can survive that.

I think it’s easy to question what we do not know. I’m desperately trying not to confuse silence with inaction. I’m hopeful our owners are sounding people out ready to take over. It seems to be their MO from previous as I recall things went very quickly between Smith and Gerrard. The days of sacking one and having a week or two of speculation over his replacement seem in the past. They’re investing heavily in the club via the stadium and the globalisation of the ‘Villans’ brand with their new MLS franchise bid. I don’t think they’ve given up interest at all. Just, hopefully, operating in the background.

Surely. SURELY that has to be it? More lives than Nyland if he survives this.

Win-win for me. Beat them and were 9th. They beat us and Stevie should finally get his marching orders. I hope we win.

Completely agree. I won’t derail this thread too much, but it feels like we had a plan and a good project to scout and develop young players. Gerrard has come in and someone, likely Purslow, has decided to abandon that plan to give him some luxury (Coutinho, Carlos). I’d be expecting the club to return to that plan, as alluded to the other day, and look at coaches who are known to be good with young players, good at developing young players and giving them opportunities. Archer sat on the bench whilst Coutinho does step overs flies in the face of everything the club sold us (I’m aware they play in different positions. Point stands.)

Hindsight is always 20/20. For every Potter there are 20 Gerrard’s. We need to look forward, not back. I don’t know what that looks like, particularly with our one in one out transfer policy (will the new manager get a ‘war chest’?) Depending on what that looks like, I’d imagine the likes of Poch would be less interested and we’re shopping again in the ‘up and comer’ or ‘old hat’ market. In the former I like Ruben Amorim but he may end up at Wolves. I also like Matthias Jaissle but is he ready? In the latter I can’t get past Brendan Rodgers - knows the league and would likely come over. But would Rodgers also look for that ‘war chest’ guarantee? I look at some of the English leagues for exciting managers ready for the leap, and honestly I really like what Smith is doing at Norwich. We’ve been there though. It didn’t work. It was right to dismiss him and it’s right to not ‘get back with the ex’. For what it’s worth, my opinion probably doesn’t count for much. I was disappointed when we gave Gerrard the keys. It was a big gamble and if we were going for a gamble, I’d have preferred Terry, a coach we nurtured who knew the club have a crack. Of course Terry wasn’t my overall first choice (that was Rodgers), but in the gamble market I’d have preferred him to Steve.

Surely it’s a matter of expectation? If the expectation was to stay up, dig in and grind out points from games then he’s doing a sterling job with his pragmatic approach. Sadly the expectation - set by the club - was to break into the top 7 with flowing, creative attacking football. By that measure Gerrard isn’t ticking any goals off, or seemingly working towards them in any way. If expectation has changed then they should be honest about it. I’m not sure it would change fan’s minds, but there may be more of an understanding. If it hasn’t changed and we’re still looking to be ambitious then there’s only one outcome.

At what point is the role of a head coach simply tactical? They’re rightly highlighted a lot because Gerrard seems utterly clueless over and above parking the bus and hoping to bore the opposition into submission. But is Gerrard’s job simply to bore us to death? Or is there perhaps an element of coaching and developing players technically as well? I only ask because, whilst Watkins has been poor, hasn’t this been identified in the last 11 months he’s been ‘coached’ and ‘developed’? Or perhaps in the two transfer windows Stevie’s had? OK, benefit of the doubt, it was simply a one off bad game for Watkins. Wasn’t this identified in the 60th minute yesterday? I’m not afraid to say there’s an element of player responsibility, of course there is, but let’s not hide behind the players as an excuse to let Steve off the hook. For almost a year he has been responsible for training these players. He’s been responsible for developing these players. He’s responsible for identifying if these players need replacements. He’s been responsible for selecting these players. He’s been responsible for deciding how much game time is afforded to these players. He’s been responsible for an arm over the shoulder or a stern chat, to berate or motivate. Watkins may not be up to the task, but there’s been a few opportunities to identify this prior to missing sitters late on yesterday.

While Smith had credit in the bank with the fans, Gerrard has credit with Purslow, with the latter said to be ‘infatuated’ with Gerrard prior to his appointment. Purslow will be selling the dream to the board still. Unbeaten in 3, injury problems, look at Arteta, etc. You can then turn your attention on the owners. I suspect if he is to get his marching orders, they will come from Edens. I feel he probably takes more of an active role being an experienced club owner. He’ll know what he’s seeing is poor and will have a good handle on the feeling amongst the fan base. I sincerely hope Wesley has seen enough.

And us.

I sincerely hope this is in Other Football this evening.

If it’s positivity you’re looking for, let me assist. Perhaps we’ve spoke to Poch to get an idea if he would be interested. The win v Southampton has stayed our hand briefly and now the Nice story is being leaked by Poch’s agent in an attempt to panic us. I hope.

4 days between our lord and saviour Smith getting the boot and Gerrard getting the nod tells me we will almost definitely be exploring a few back channels right now.

I’m so out of love with Aston Villa at the moment and it’s honestly infuriating the direction we seem to be heading in. When we announced him Purslow mentioned Gerrard’s “aims and ambitions” as matching the clubs, as well as a “coaching philosophy”. The site even mentioned him bringing an “attractive, attacking style of football”. I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen sloppy, slow turgid football which yesterday was replaced by some sort of anti-football. Every game is depressing to watch, even with a narrow win like yesterday. The club need to ask itself what our aims and ambitions are. Are we an ambitious club looking to break into the top 8 while playing good football, or is this where we’re happy? It honestly astounds me that some were happy with last night. Yeah, 3 points is great, but against that Southampton team we should be getting 3 points comfortably. We should be steamrolling them, but instead we looked about on par. And then Stevie makes those comments after. I think he was open and honest about the Mings situation and I liked that, but he was talking utter nonsense when it came to tactics. How can he say he’s tried changing things “too fast”? He’s nearly been in a year now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen us look so bad. He also has multi-million pound professional footballers at his disposal, not kids in the park. If they can’t pick up his ‘style’ after a year, he needs to look at himself. Regressing to the football of last night is not the answer. So here we are. We got a win and that’ll probably be enough to save him, but it shouldn’t be. The club are either happy with another relegation battle, in which case nicking 3 points from a relegation rival is huge, or the club want to progress and push on, in which case none of this should sit right. I’m not convinced the club will pull the trigger now, but at least be honest about what we’re expecting rather than selling us an ‘ambitious’ line backed up by little evidence. Currently this feels like the final 3/4 years of the Randy Lerner era. Just sleep walking through relegation scrap after relegation scrap and hoping we survive.

How, on Gods green, is sacking our manager remotely related to the death of the monarch? I struggle to see how anyone in the world would link the two enough to care, aside from a few twitter trolls. I’m sure the gents with hundreds of millions invested in the club won’t even link the two (or care). Unless we have someone waiting in the wings, I don’t particularly believe it’ll happen before Monday anyway, so it’s kind of a moot point but here we are. Anything short of a win tonight should see him done. The draw against City could prove a good base to move from, but I have little faith. Sometimes it’s easier to set up against teams at the top because you’re not expected to be playing expansive attacking football. Just sit deep and try to nick something on the break. Against Southampton at home, we will be expecting some nice attacking football which will, in my option, revert Stevie to type.

No. I don't call for a managers head if we have one awful performance in a run of good games, I won't say he needs more time because of a good performance in a run of awful games.

You can be happy with today's result and still think the manager's time is up. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I've no idea how one game has made everyone happy for him to have the next game. We often get called a fickle fan base and I never saw why until today. 30-odd games of complete tactical ineptitude. He got it right today, accidentally I'd imagine, and suddenly were deciding his fate on a game by game basis? Not for me. I'll enjoy a good result, but he needs to go.