El Segundo

What a ridiculous statement. That's pretty much what every successful club has done and will continue to do. City sacked Mancini to get Pep in, and sacked Pellegrini before that and sacked Hughes before that. Liverpool sacked Hodgson to get Klopp in. West Ham sacked Pelegrini to get Moyes in, Arsenal sacked Emery to get Arteta. All improved with the new guys. If it hadn't, they would have sacked them until they found someone who could improve them.

Saying a new manager might fail as a reason for sticking with Gerrard is ridiculous. A new manager might fail, but he might succeed, especially if Purslow and co do their jobs properly. Gerrard is an actual failure, with no sign of that changing. There's little or no upside in persisting with him in case he suddenly finds some ability from somewhere after failing miserably to do so for a year.

Other have said returned season tickets are not selling - probably not easy to even give them away as who wants to go and watch dour, boring and incompetent football being served up?

I've had to learn jobs but I've never had the privilege of being gifted a very senior and important position, paid 6 million a year for it , and being allowed to learn as I go along. Because it would be nonsensical for any organisation to do that, especially in a results based business with hundreds of millions at stake. Difficult to have empathy for someone in such a privileged position. You can blame the players as much as you want but Gerrard has had two windows and supposedly unlimited backing to bring in players who should be able to play how he wants them to. Then look at Watkins v Leeds. They guy is a great athlete and works his sock off but his technique and touch are appalling, and he lacks composure. Yet even after wasting multiple chances, Gerrard left him on, with Archer getting splinters in his arse. That's not Watkins' fault, it's not Archer's fault, that's purely on Gerrard not having the balls to give the kid a go when Leeds were there for the taking. It's not Buendia's fault that a misfiring Coutinho always gets in ahead of him. It's not Sanson's or Luiz' fault that Gerrard persists with McGinn and Ramsey even though it has been shown to be ineffective multiple times. It's not Konsa's fault that he is expected to play or bring the ball out of defence when he quite obviously doesn't have the skills or confidence to do it, while Chambers can't get a game. It's not the players' fault if Gerrard coaches them to play at a slow tempo, or to waste time in the first 15 minutes, or to try to keep possession for the sake of keeping possession, even if it means "progressing" from the edge of the opposition's box back to our keeper, as happened against Burnley last season. It's not their fault we are bloody awful to watch as well as not getting results. If you think the squad is not good enough to achieve the stated aim of European places/top 7 then who's fault is that? Gerrard has had time, money and opportunities, yet results and performances are dreadful, fans are losing interest, our image in the media is awful, and our younger players can't see a pathway into the first team. He's damaging the club on and off the pitch and the sooner he's gone, the sooner we can start to move in the right direction again..

Everton managed to get Ancelotti when they were as much if not more of a basket case than us. They had to throw a lot of money at him but he still signed up. But as with him, the danger if we did get someone like Poch or Tuchel is that if one of the bigger, richer CL teams comes calling they might be off like a shot.

Gerrard will soon have that season ticket waiting list whittled away to nothing if he carries on serving up the kind of shite we've been watching from his teams. It's so bad I'm half-tempted to ask for a refund on mine.

The only time watching Villa has bored the pants off me over several games was under Bruce - until now. Gerrard for me combines the stifling ultra caution of McLeish with the plodding, tactics free approach of Bruce. Not a great combination and the West Ham and Southampton games in particular were eye bleedingly bad. Gerrard has much better quality available, so he has far less of an excuse for serving up some of the dullest football around.

When did Gary Neville grow a beard?

Sterling is great at getting into good positions but his control, composure, shooting and decision making have always been shite. He got away with at City because he got so many chances. The number of times he runs up blind alleys, and only gets past a man because he bobbles it against the defender and then it falls for him is amazing. Most of his shots seem to be mistimed scuffs or straight at the keeper. It drives me mad watching him.

I think you are falling into the same old trap of believing the public and media images. The vast majority have no idea what either Liz or Charles were/are like as people. The media in particular decide who is to be presented favourably and who is to be cast as the panto villain (and let's face it the monarchy is nothing more or less than a pantomime). Look at how they have cast Megan Mharkle as the baddie, rather than asking if the Queen could have done more to address the racism and other abuse she and Harry claim to have experienced not only from the media but from within Royal circles as well. Look at how they have mostly cast Diana as the wronged party and Charles as the baddie. My ex-Brother-in-Law was a sailor on the Royal Yacht for a while and he told me some tales that don't quite fit the accepted narrative. So Charles got a divorce,, like millions of other Britons and Commonwealth Citizens have done, apparently so he could marry the woman he's always loved. That makes him all the more human to me. People claim to want a modern monarchy, more in touch with the people, but then expect him to be judged by pointless rules that were in place nearly a hundred years ago that forced his Great Uncle to Abdicate. Charles hasn't got a chance of being held in high esteem if the media decide he'll be their whipping boy.

Right yeah here we go - so as with most people giving her plaudits you appear to have formed your opinion based on her public and media image. And do you know for sure how much of that is objective or truthful? Do you know if there's any horrible characteristics that have been carefully and rigorously suppressed? I doubt it. If so how can you state with such confidence that she was "undoubtedly a fine fine woman" ? I haven't the faintest idea what she was like as a person, and neither, it seems, do you.

How do you know this for certain? Did you know her? As for what the photo proves, how about that too many people in this country have their priorities well and truly the wrong way up.

Yep there's not too many other places where you'd get to see hundreds of thousands of serfs and peasants loyally tugging their forelocks and bowing and scraping, like in the olden days. Except with selfie sticks.

It's hardly "hounding him out" if he's already had 34 games worth of "patience". Who we replace him with isn't relevant to whether Gerrard's competent or not and anyway that's Purslow's job. We could have said the same when sacking Smith, many did say the same about Bruce and then we got Smith. Personally I'd have Smith back over Gerrard any day of the week, the results were no worse and the football 10 times better.

You do know how many games he's had right? 30 odd games is not turning on him quicker than usual, plenty of managers have been binned for far shorter periods of ineptitude. Reverting to his favoured midfield three last night after seeing how much better we looked with Luiz in the team against City smacks of him not being able to learn and adapt. If that's his approach, how is more time going to help?

I'd say it's potentially a pyrrhic victory but it remains to be seen. If it means Gerrard stays too long and takes us down - as some, including me, fear he might - that would be pretty devastating, and would clearly demonstrate damage to the long term progress of the club. As for the rest of the definition, I certainly felt any sense of achievement last night was negated by the latest in a long-ish line of dreadful, boring , clueless performances that really do not offer much promise of an enjoyable or successful season ahead. In response to other posts, comparing our situation to pre-Wenger Arsenal, and Gerrard's to Ferguson's in the late 80s is ridiculous, unless you are happy with 90's style dinosaur football and happy to ignore the changes in the financial structure of the game since those days. Ferguson's situation was a massive exception at a time when financial pressures were nowhere near what they are today, and unlikely to ever be repeated. If we want to play like Arsenal in the late 80s and early 90s we may as well just get McLeish or Bruce back. And just which top players is Gerrard going to get through the door by playing shite football and hovering around the lower reaches of the table?

That old paradox where you always want your team to win but doing so unfortunately serves to extend the tenure of a Manager you'd rather see gone. The first twenty five minutes was dreadful by both teams - it looked they were trying for the first ever minus 2 all draw in history. It was very like watching a Steve Bruce team, no pattern, no tempo, no intensity, no sense of knowing what they were meant to be trying to do, and hardly any creativity. I like McGinn, but he isn't playing well and he was like a runaway miniature sumo wrestler the first few minutes, just running around barging into people. On the plus side Coutinho looked a lot better, and Mings was immense. Dendoncker was strange, played about 25 minutes and only saw him touch the ball once. I didn't realise how huge he is. Looked to me as if the ref gave a foul against McGinn at the end for winning the ball with his head while colliding with a high boot? Incredible. At least it's a win - but somehow it didn't really feel like one.

Proof that he really isn't learning

Good question - must be hard to fit a 12 foot tall green lizard creature into a box the size of a little old lady.

And "Still dead"

When we signed Watkins Brentford used the money for Toney - we should have gone straight for Toney. Would like him as a future signing too. Not sure how strong the links were but Bergkamp would have been a brilliant signing.

Last season's games and the whole of Gerrard's reign are a much stronger indicator of whether we are in danger of relegation than the 6 games this season taken in isolation. 38 points might well be enough to stay up, but the points per game trend has been downwards, so we won't even achieve a point per game moving forward if that continues. Who's to say a new manager could turn it around? You said yourself there is a risk a new guy won't' work out. That risk is the same whether we get a new manager now or in 6 weeks time, but at least if we recruit now and it doesn't work out we would still have more time to change things again. I also agree the squad is better than the performances but that is irrelevant - it's the actual results that count. You don't want the club to waste 10 months investment in the Manager. So far there is little or no return on that investment - it's already been wasted. For me there is a much greater risk we will lose our PL status costing us tens if not hundreds of millions in future revenue. We could live to regret sacking him. We could live to regret keeping him. Which one involves the greater risk? I just don't see why, after 32 games and 9 months, you think Gerrard might suddenly turn into Arteta or Potter over the next 5 or 6 weeks when there has been absolutely no indication that he is capable of that. We will have simply wasted another 5-6 weeks and have a much harder job of protecting our status and revenue streams.

The problem with your stance is it ignores the fact he's already had 30+ games to try and prove he can do the job. All he's shown in that time is that he can't, not to the standard required. He's also shown he hasn't learned, and we have been in near-relegation or relegation form for the bulk of his time in charge. Basing your case on the fact we're only 6 games into the season is rather blinkered bearing in mind the trajectory, performances and results under the whole of Gerrard's reign. What do you think is going to change, after 30 odd games? The squad should be good enough to stay up, sure, but then they should have been good enough for top 10 last season, but under Gerrard they failed miserably to get near that. I do wonder if you and others would be so generous with Villa's time and future for a lower profile Manager.

Obviously there is no immediate risk of relegation because it's early in the season. But you have to look at the bigger picture, and all the signs point to us being under serious threat if we stick with Gerrard. We have already given him time to "learn". 30 odd games. Is that not enough? That in itself was ridiculously risky in the multi billion dollar business that is the PL, and it is plenty to be able to tell if a manager can cut the mustard or not. He has shown scant indication of improvement or having learned anything. If anything, we have gone backwards, on and off the pitch. Can you think of any other multi million/billion pound business where a novice would be given 9-10 months in charge, fail to show any improvement, take the organisation backwards, and still be in a job? Of course there is a risk to bringing in a new manager who might not be up to the job. But some would argue could he be any worse than Gerrard, and also the earlier we get him in and see the more chance we have of fixing that without going down as well. Or should we also give that individual time to learn on the job as well? If so how many games will it take?. I think some people's judgement is clouded because it's big-name Stevie -G we're talking about.

To say we are not under threat of relegation just flies in the face of the facts. Of course we are. We're bottom 4 after 6 games and only out of the bottom three and bottom two on goals scored and goal difference respectively. More importantly, while there are 7 or 8 other teams who might be said to be under similar threat, the "direction of travel" for some of them has been a lot more positive than ours in terms of performances, shape, tactics, creativity and all sorts of other metrics. One plucky draw against Man City is not sufficient to say our direction has changed or will change. If it doesn't, then we will be well and truly in the relegation mix. Having a novice manager "learning" his trade on the job is a suicidal approach in the PL.