El Segundo

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. 

8 hours ago, Peter Griffin said:

It is not blinkered nor ignoring the fact that he has been manager for 32 games and what the results have been like. There are two discussion points at the moment 1) Suggestion we will be relegated and 2) Is SG good enough

1) I believe there is no chance we will be relegated and as I have said in the last few pages, it is because we are only 6 games into this season. We can only be relegated on points for a given season, hence it is futile to include last season's games. With 32 games to play we have lots of time to improve. Yes, the current run rate is not good enough and when u include last season's run rate (valid to include now), it doesn't look like we are improving. Even at that, we are still on about a point per game which would normally be enough to avoid relegation. So our current and previous season's run rate has us at the borderline and not being cut adrift. Just about everyone agrees that the squad is better than its performance and that SG is the problem. On that basis and considering we are currently on a point per game, I see no risk of relegation as Purslow can sack SG and bring in a new manager.

2) I don't know whether SG is good enough or not but I do know he is a novice manager and has only managed 32 games in the PL. I don't want the club to waste the last 10 months investment in him and replace him without giving him a chance this season. We could live to regret that. I want to see SG staying with us for the next 5 or 6 weeks to see if he can demonstrate improvement. If he can't then he should be fired.

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. 

17 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

I am not sure I have seen people's judgement clouded by SG's name. I have seen me and others want to give him more time to try and prove he can do the job as we are only 6 games into this season. If he can do it great, if he can't then he should be sacked regardless of what his name is

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.         

Well done to all.  Maybe Gerrard is finally learning after all.  Cash's injury maybe a blessing in disguise - I think he's been poor at both ends and Young looks much better.  It looked like Ederson made only a token effort to save the shot as he knew the whistle had gone, but doesn't alter the fact it was the usual bad/corrupt officiating against us and pro sky 6 yet again.  Coutinho should at least have been given the chance to get the shot off.   

9 minutes ago, tinker said:

Think he had a bad game? Watch our goal , Arsenals keeper was horrendous.

I don't care what other team's keepers do, that's their problem.  It's what ours does that matters, and for me too often he's found wanting.

The second half performance was better (not hard) and may have been acceptable had we been 1-0 up and trying to add to it.  We weren't and therefore it was not fit for purpose.   

I've never bought into the hype over Martinez and I think he could and should have done better for both goals, deflection or not.   

Dullard got the midfield wrong yet again.  If he's meant to be "learning" there is scant evidence of it.

Cash was awful, Digne was arguably worse.  

2-1 was a lot better than I expected and more than we deserved.

The only consolation is it should take us another step nearer to the end of Gerrard's reign.  

4 hours ago, HalfTimePost said:

Just spotted this article on twitter, it puts into words almost exactly how I feel watching us play. It's a shame it's on an obscure site rather than a mainstream one.

 

This article hits just about every nail bang on the head, especially the bit about us being boring to watch. 

Briefly listened into Talksport last night when they were debating Gerrard and to be fair the presenter was making the case for Gerrard being a disaster as were most of the callers, although a few still seemed  to think Gerrard shouldn't go just yet.  And there was the guest, Anton Ferdinand, saying "he needs to be given more time" and proceeded to blabber on in such a way as to make Gabby sound like Einstein. 

He's had almost 40 games, two transfer windows, a full pre-season and numerous lessons in what doesn't work.  Yet he changes little or nothing and hopes it will work eventually.  How is more time stubbornly applying the same failed tactics, shape and personnel, making the same brainless mistakes, and refusing to try something different going to make a difference?  Except to see us even lower in the table than we are now?  If nearly 40 games isn't enough for the penny to drop, another 6 or 8 really isn't going to help.   

Abject.  We're bottom 6 and hard to see us getting anything from the next two on this showing, so expect we'll be bottom 3 after 6 games.  Purslow needs to admit his mistake and earn his money.  We'd have been better off keeping Deano than employing this Charlatan.

Cabbage time, surely

Not sure how much we can gauge from that performance.  We should expect to win comfortably playing a mostly first choice 11 against a team two leagues below us and the scoreline, on the face of it,  suggests we did.  But it certainly wasn't comfortable or anything like competent first half. 

Three of our goals owed something to a flaky keeper and two to decisions that VAR may well have overturned, and our defending was a joke for Bolton's goal. 

Superior technique and fitness held sway second half but we won't have that advantage in most games.   

Great team move for Digne's goal and brilliant individual skills from Bailey for the fourth - like Traore on speed. 

Thought SG should have brought Archer and Tim on after the third went in to give them a better run out. 

If we learned anything it's that Luiz deserves a chance instead of Ramsey or McGinn in the PL.  Whether the manager takes the hint or not, who knows?

Sad about this, love his skill and I think he's the ideal player for home games where we struggle to create much against a  low block - less so for away games where more work off the ball may be needed. His goals at Albion and the one in the League Cup are among my favourite ever Villa goals, just nonchalantly passed into the net.  Good luck Bert.

An own goal and conceded a penalty from 3 games so far.  Unlucky I guess but still.  Targett was a better defender, more solid, and linked up well with Grealish when going forward.  Might have been able to do likewise if given a fair chance.  I don't see much improvement going forward with Digne.  Crossing maybe, but he can't shoot to save his life. 

I hope Purslow can take a leaf out of Levy's book and be ruthless when it's obvious a manager isn't going to cut the mustard. Nuno had about half a pre-season and transfer window,  a win rate of 47.06%  and was axed after 17 games with Spurs in 7th place because of a bad run of defeats.   Gerrard's had much more time than that to work with and has achieved a lot less - practically nothing in fact.  TIme to be ruthless if there is someone better we can get.    

1 hour ago, Made In Aston said:

He is probably just guessing, as it seems the most sensible approach to take to give Gerrard until the international break. 

Or perhaps he has connections with one of our Brazilian players....

All the criticisms aimed at Gerrard were on display today, front and centre.   To be that bad with the players at his disposal is quite something, A great player but a novice coach completely out of his depth. The sooner Purslow realises this the better.

Should have been a pen for Buendia before they broke away if you ask me.

Depends on who we might replace him with.  If we could interest someone like Pochetino then it's out for me.  When we recruited Gerrard my thoughts were Meh!.  He was a big name but totally unproven as a coach (I don't count winning a one a and a half horse race in Scotland as proven).  But I decided to keep an open mind and give him a chance.  The plusses are he helped us to attract some sought after players like Diego Carlos and Kamara, as well as Coutinho - I'm not sure the latter was such a good idea though - and has raised our profile.  Not really enough though is it?   I can't say I've seen any improvement in style of play, creativity, defensive solidity or an overall game plan.  In some areas we've gone backwards.  He doesn't seem to know what his best 11 is, keeps picking Coutinho over Buendia when it's obvious to a blind man that the latter is way more effective,  and has handed the captaincy to a player who many feel should not even be first choice.  He seems to have frozen out or fallen out with some players and possibly caused some rifts in the dressing room.  He doesn't seem keen on giving youngsters like KK-H and Iroegbunam much of a chance in the first team and his transfer policy seems to be to mostly target experienced players at the older end of the scale.  The latter is a lot like what Ron Atkinson and Steve Bruce used to do.  It worked for Atkinson for a while, but Bruce had no tactics and just relied on the experienced player to "do something special".  To me Gerrard's approach resembles Bruce's at times.  The narrow formation and over reliance on the FBs for width isn't great to watch and is easily exploited.  The coaching and tactics seem naive and inflexible.   I think if we don't see significant signs of progress after 12-15 games then Purslow has to ask himself some serious questions about his mate.        

Went for 7-10th but think bottom end of that is our level.  The squad is probably capable of 7th or 8th but I've not seen anything to convince me that Gerrard will get the best out of them, or that things will be a whole lot different to the second half of last season.  I hope he does convince me but don't really expect him to. 

On 02/08/2022 at 06:25, TheAuthority said:

It seems to me (if I'm reading it correctly) that a couple of posters are suggesting the following:

If a country (or more its leader at that specific point in time) believes that a neighboring country's land is traditionally part of the formers country, then they should be able to take it back by force.

The idea that the nasty (New World Order) UN or NATO should step in and stop the slaughter of innocents is just a cover for their imperialistic, nefarious hidden motives.

Let's follow this to its logical conclusion. At any point in time the leader of a country can decide to take by force any land which at any point had any ties to the former's country. Ignoring all accepted borders and land treaties etc. Any organization that tries to maintain a global consensus of right and wrong should ever get involved because we can't trust their motives. 

I think some posters on VT secretly love watching people like Alex Jones and other internet crack pots. They are just bright enough not to admit it.

 

I'd say you're not reading it correctly on several points. 

In Kosovo the Serbs weren't trying to take anything back, Kosovo was Serbian sovereign territory prior to the establishment of Yugoslavia,  far enough back for it to be the seat of their Orthodox Church.  It was no more a neighbouring country than Donbas is a neighbouring country to Ukraine or the Basque Region is a neighbouring country to Spain.  The only party attempting to ignore accepted borders and land treaties was the ethnic Albanians seeking independence, along with those who backed them. .  

The logical conclusion of the actual situation is that that it sets a precedent for separatist groups anywhere in the world to agitate for independence using violence and provocation if necessary.    The Basque Region, Catalonia, Donbas,  South Ossetia, perhaps even Northern Ireland, could be examples of where this kind of precedent might represent a threat to the integrity of sovereign territory.  There is a fairly lengthy  list of countries who do not recognise Kosovo's independence, and some of the objections are for this very reason, most notably Spain.  Others object because it was a unilateral declaration made outside of the UN framework, in breach of International Law, and because it bypassed the UN Security Council - hence the inability of Russia and China to veto it.    

As I've said previously it wasn't as simple as slaughter of innocents. The KLA operated as what the West/NATO/UN considered to be a terrorist organisation for many years - not dissimilar to the likes of ETA in the Basque Country, the IRA in the UK, the PLO in Palestine etc.  Their goal was independence of Kosovo by any means possible including violence and civil war if necessary.   No doubt the Serbs went in way too viciously but this was a huge provocation to them and the horror was far from one way traffic. 

I've no idea who Alex Jones is but will look him up.  From my perspective I think it's quite obvious that the USA, aided and abetted by the UK, the EU and a few others, uses the UN and NATO to further it's Geopolitical aims and ambitions.  Kosovo is an example of how blatantly they have been willing to do this.             

Just to outline where I'm coning from on this issue.  I went to work in Kosovo in 2005 initially as a Consultant working for the Provisional Institutions of Self Government.  At the time my view of the situation there was pretty much as you outlined in your post, as gleaned from the media in the West.   I remained working in Kosovo until 2012 and was there when independence was declared.  I worked for the EU for much of that time, and was involved in setting up the International Civilian Office which was supposed to take over from the UN for International supervision and oversight of the region.  Along with various EU colleagues I worked with Americans from the State Department and had contact with other US Diplomats and Government employees, including one who just seemed to hover around doing not very much expect chatting to people and digging into their backgrounds.  I had my own views on who he worked for.   To a degree, I witnessed first hand how they operate, what their motives are, and how supremely confident they all were that Kosovo would gain independence.  This was at a time when the only way for that to happen was for Serbia to agree to it and the UN Security Council, including Russia, to sanction it. From where I sat, in 2006, that was never going to happen in  a million years so my Consultant colleagues and I were a little surprised at this confidence among EU and US staff.  In short they knew all along that Kosovo would simply declare unilateral independence in breach of the UN resolution and bypassing the Security Council.   The US promised immediate recognition of the independence, as did most, but not all, EU states. It left the Serbs and Russians with nowhere to go except to revert to military action,  protest, or just suck it up.    It was widely discussed in the International community in Pristina and beyond that the Kosovan PM never made a decision or signed anything without the US Ambassador looking over his shoulder.  To say the scales fell from my eyes during my time in Kosovo is a massive understatement.

I could tell you a lot of things about the situation in Macedonia as well,  it's where my wife is from and where I lived for a number of years, but that's another story. 

By the way Yugoslavia was far more open than other Communist states and my wife's family have told me there were many good aspects to it -  however it was still authoritarian and you could still be jailed for speaking out against the Government or even (in the specific case of my late Father-in- law) for making a mistake in your job, and you still had bread queues etc.  This authoritarianism allowed Tito to keep a lid on resentment, hatred and desire for revenge that had been centuries in the making, and which of course came flooding back after his death and the fall of the Communist state.   

I think he's been kept for cup games like last season, and the odd PL appearance.  If out  of the league cup early and not made much of an impression in the PL by Christmas, then might well go on loan second half of season.