Rich_D

Friedel; Cuellar, Collins, Dunne, Young; Downing, NRC, Petrov, Young; Gabby, Bent.

I'd rather have Walker at RB than Cuellar but when GH has taken someone off in the past he has rarely picked them the following match...Lichaj, Baker etc

3 points, or at least 1 point will be ours come Saturday evening

NRC & Petrov to start in the middle. Confirmed by Timothy Abraham on Twitter

Most of the managers that have been mentioned have done nothing in their careers

No to Mark Hughes. never done anything. His signings as just as bad as MON. Simply, no.

Love to see GG on the bench today

Walker needs to stay at RB. He is too dangerous not to be playing in his preferred position.

Cuellar and Baker at CB as no other choice. Heskey on the bench as cover.

Herd or Delph at LB. Don't really mind, but I guess would prefer Delph as I can see NRC needing to be in the middle with Makoun.

The rest speaks for itself

Friedel

Walker Cuellar Baker Delph

Albrighton Makoun NRC Downing

Young

Bent

That is what I would go with, personally

Seems the people who hate Houllier know more about him than I do. Interesting...

Still, he manages Villa. End of. People on here act as if he prioritises Liverpool over Villa.

A lot like the situation with Torres. The fans that actually care that he isn't scoring seem to be the gloating Liverpool fans saying that Chelsea but a prospective talent with a recognisable name....Give over

What about his other bad points such as his away record, losing leads continously, giving up on the FA cup, not bothering to fix things straight away, needing 24m to lift up the club when he wasn't able to do it himself, sitting bored in the dugout all time, hiring Gary Mcallister, not hiring a defensive coach.

Houllier had such an influence didn't he when Young missed the pen against Bolton.

How didn't he fix things straight away?

Houllier spent £24m and lifted the club. MON spent £100m and didn't lift it like Houllier did.

Sitting down means nothing. You want him to jump up and down like a hyperactive child from the sideline instead?

What is wrong with Gary Mac?

He could have allowed someone else to take it or said to Young to not be so predictable in his spot kicks. But even still, that's like saying Houllier didn't have any influence against Blackburn when Young scored that penalty. Honestly, if I see Young take the next penalty again, you can note down as another bad point of Houllier that he hasn't got any power or respect from the players.

When did MON actually drag us down to the bottom 3 that the club needed lifting? In his first season, we just drew a lot. There wasn't really any danger of us going down in his first season in charge and never spent that much in that time.

I would rather see a manager point orders on the touchline when players make mistakes like all sucessful managers tend to do. Ferguson who's years older than him still does it.

Gary has a terrible CV in management of lower leagues and should never be anywhere near the Premier League.

So you want a manager to tell a player where to put the pen? Rubbish. Young is the pen taker. He has scored in the past. I never credit Houllier with an assist when Young scored from the spot and therefore would never blame Houllier when Young missed. Young missed. Youngs fault. End of.

So if a club is doing well, a new signing can not give them an extra boost. Do you think the fans and players weren't excited to see C Ronaldo turn up at Real Madrid?

A CV means nothing though, remember Houller won lots at Liverpool but people don't like him here because he has not been able to emulate anywhere near what he has been able to do elsewhere.

Is he not losing, is he taking us into a relegation battle? So I'd hardly call it like Harry Redknapp would you?

He is losing, he is also winning and he is also drawing. You just like to highlight the losing part moreso.

We are near a relegation battle but look outside the box and you will realise that there are a lot of teams in the same situation.

The fact we finished 6th the past 3 seasons is completely irrelevant to this season. If you take the attitude that we should be up in 6th because we have been previously, then you will sooner or later turn in to a Plop fan who all love their history and think they should be winning the league because they did it a few times a few years ago.

Reminds you of Harry Redknapp, he actually won games and lead them to 7th after being bottom. This guy is doing the opposite.

Yep. Losing every game and taking us from 6th to bottom......

They must be experienced in top flight football management.

They must be able to get the best out of Youth Players/ Our Youth System.

They must be able to play the attractive attacking football we are beginning to play. Is this a joke. There is nothing attractive about conceding goals aplenty and more importantly losing games. Houlliers brand of football throughout his career has been anything but attractive.

They must be able to command the respect of both senior and young players

They must be able to respect the club, it's fans, it's history and be able to take it forwards.

They must be shrewd in the transfer market and have good connections, preferably worldwide.

Have an accomplished Backroom team ready (and willing) to move in.

Be able to organise our lacklustre defence.

Of the above criterea that were listed the current manager fails in the ones highlighted in bold some he fails miserably in.

Only a handful of managers will actually attract players. SAF is respected throughout the game...would players take a huge wage cut just to play for him? I doubt it.

Has Houllier had the vision to get players that we never had of thought would play for Villa? Yes. Bent, Makoun, Walker Bradley were all, imo, unthinkable for actually pulling on a Villa shirt.

Why on earth would we have been unable to get any of those players?

We had as good a chance to sign Bent when Sunderland did. Did MON want him, no?

Did MON look abroad for a bargain like Makoun?

Did MON have the balls to take a player on loan that played a few good games for a championship club?

I know I'm comparing Houllier to MON but you can throw other managers in to the mix apart from MON and I seriously doubt that those players would be at Villa

What about his other bad points such as his away record, losing leads continously, giving up on the FA cup, not bothering to fix things straight away, needing 24m to lift up the club when he wasn't able to do it himself, sitting bored in the dugout all time, hiring Gary Mcallister, not hiring a defensive coach.

Houllier had such an influence didn't he when Young missed the pen against Bolton.

How didn't he fix things straight away?

Houllier spent £24m and lifted the club. MON spent £100m and didn't lift it like Houllier did.

Sitting down means nothing. You want him to jump up and down like a hyperactive child from the sideline instead?

What is wrong with Gary Mac?

They must be experienced in top flight football management.

They must be able to get the best out of Youth Players/ Our Youth System.

They must be able to play the attractive attacking football we are beginning to play. Is this a joke. There is nothing attractive about conceding goals aplenty and more importantly losing games. Houlliers brand of football throughout his career has been anything but attractive.

They must be able to command the respect of both senior and young players

They must be able to respect the club, it's fans, it's history and be able to take it forwards.

They must be shrewd in the transfer market and have good connections, preferably worldwide.

Have an accomplished Backroom team ready (and willing) to move in.

Be able to organise our lacklustre defence.

Of the above criterea that were listed the current manager fails in the ones highlighted in bold some he fails miserably in.

Only a handful of managers will actually attract players. SAF is respected throughout the game...would players take a huge wage cut just to play for him? I doubt it.

Has Houllier had the vision to get players that we never had of thought would play for Villa? Yes. Bent, Makoun, Walker Bradley were all, imo, unthinkable for actually pulling on a Villa shirt.

Has he got mutual respect between the players and himself? I believe he has. He proved that he could man manage players that were willing to conform to his ways, such as Dunne. The difficult ones left. You telling me SAF hasn't got rid of players in the past that do not fit in with his way?

Yeah in honesty I meant to say most of the above, as those are 2 major problems with Houllier, hence why I even put the defence one there in the first place.

2 people mentioned Van Gaal, I wrote this about him before my thread got moved here:

Somebody in the generals thread mentioned:

Louis Van Gaal

Today sacked from managing Bayern Munich, who he won the German double with, reaching the Champions League Final last season only to be beaten by his protege (Mourinho) in Madrid.

Previously Managed:

Ajax,

Barca,

Holland National Team

Barca Again

AZ

Bayern.

That ticks off 'Top Flight Management Experience'.

Managing Barca and Ajax gives him unrivalled experience (having come through Ajax's system himself) in 2 of the best Youth System's in the world, first hand. He constantly gives upcoming youth players their starts. Recently giving Badstuten and other future stars their starts. 'Youth Experience and Youth Systems' Ticked off.

'Beautiful Attacking Football'. His teams are always playing fantastic possession football. He could move in and take us forwards and not backwards with the style of play he uses, not doing any detriment to what we have seen building in recent weeks. To me that shows he would be good in transfer market but I don't know what he would be like in the transfer market if im honest (other than part of the reason he began to fail at Bayern was because he refused to sign new players as he felt he didnt need too).

Respect of players. Apparently on his first day at Bayern he walked into the dressing room and dropped his trousers to 'show he had the balls to drop any of them from the starting line up'. Defender Lucio turned up late to training once and was promptly sold to Inter Milan. He fell out with his senior players this year after selling Captain - Van Bommel because he was unhappy about being second choice to a new youngster, this annoyed Arjen Robben (reportedly) leading to a mutinous performance vs Hannover which they lost. From what I have read he is not a loveable manager. Not one players would come out and back up to the media. He is strict with his players, maybe we cold do with a bit of that?

Personally. I think he is too good and too big for us. But I would take him in a heartbeat (I am pro-Houllier).

Just as strict as Houllier.

Respect is not a one way thing. If I didn't respect Ferguson, for example, I would get chucked. That is what happened with Carew etc.

Houllier has the respect of the players!

I think people need to stop obsessing by the fact that they think Houllier is doing a good job thus far.

But as you have pointed out, he firs a lot of the criteria.

He will be heavily backed in the summer too, if you thought Darren Bent was a coup.

I also think this.

Randy always wanted the best for the club. He will let Houllier have a good wedge in the summer to make the team the way he wants.

The cynic in me thinks that both these loan moves are to aid cash flow.

if paying bannan and delfouneso's wages have us concerned, then we should start looking for another team to support coz villa wont be around for much longer

its hardly financial ffs, it's because ged probably fancies them as first teamers next season and wants them to get competitive experience in while he puts the players theyre replacing in the shop window until the end of the season

The money comment was tongue in cheek but just dont see how two players knocking on the first team door should go out on loan, especially with this being a very important end of season for us. Injuries are never too far round the corner especially with the lovely Karl Henry heading to Villa Park in just over a weeks time.

Neither player have been knocking long or hard enough on the door. Delfouneso is behind Bent, Heskey and Gabby.

Bannan is behind NRC, Makoun, Delph, Petrov imo.

I can clearly understand where you are coming from but giving them experience will help us wonders. We aren't going to get relegated.

The cynic in me thinks that both these loan moves are to aid cash flow. I too would prefer him ahead of Emile.

2 potential stars get experience and we save on the wage bill. Win win.

It is not as if they were starters all season etc. plus if the money we save goes towards a signing, then it makes sense.

Glad he is going to get a better chance at playing regular football. He needs to play games in order to get the experience and get some maturity.

He could be a very good player in the future, and hopefully he will be a Villa player for a few years to come.

Whatever you do, do not try and emulate Gabby, please!

why couldn't we send **** Heskey on loan?

I presume as a result of this then we are playing 4-5-1 until the end of the season.

4-5-1 was always the plan anyway. Nothing wrong with the formation

Looking forward to seeing how we got on today after resting a number of our players.

Do you understand that the players rested will be fine, but it is the inexperience and youtfulness at the back that will potentially let us down.

Stop being so anti Houllier all of the time FFS

WM says

L Young Walker Clark Baker

It should be

Walker Clark Baker L Young

What personal issues is L. Young suffering from? I thought he was out because of a hip injury

Back from injury. Was on paternity leave. Available for todays game

I've heard Luke Young is available and playing, therefore.....

Friedel

Walker Clark Baker Young

NRC Delph

Albrighton Young Downing

Bent