NeilS

And we also heard from Spurs fans who predicted what he would be like, but some ignored them as jealous Spurs fans. To be fair to some people on here, there have quite a few bad experiences over the years with Spurs fans telling us that Ashley Young was going to sign for them, as was Benteke to name a couple of incidents. What I am trying to say is that Spurs fans have a reputation as BS artists on here, so when the Sherwood stuff came up a lot of fans on here were rightly suspicious of what they were saying. To be fair they were correct this time, but equally quite a few on here were not sure of the appointment at the time but got behind the manager at the time as that was who we were relying on to get us out of the mess we were in at that time. And in fairness to TS he did manage to keep us up, and got us to a Cup Final (albeit a terrible experience in the final) which is all we could have asked. In hindsight, we should have sacked him in the summer and bought in someone better then, but I guessed his cup run earned him a shot at a full season.

Yeah I was watching the highlights on MotD last night and they were complimentry about his performance on there, and yes he did play well, but... The Sterling Header and De Bruyne chances came from Hutton napping at the back post, also Delph would have had a simple header near the end if Guzan wouldn't have clawed it away from his head. Hutton needs to stay switched on, and get his body in the way of the attacker making it harder for them to get in on a good goal scoring chance.

I try not to worry about what ex pros and the media say, I recall similar comments when Pochetino replaced Adkins, and even when Wenger was bought in back in the 90's. I am not saying Garde is going to do as well as those two guys, but he already strikes me as an improvement on what we had previously. We can only go on what we see, and so far he has said and shown things that make me believe he knows what he is doing, whereas Sherwood never convinced me that he had any substance behind the media friendly frontage. Also, the media was where Sherwood played his best game, so maybe some of the guys on the Sunday supplement panel have been pally with Sherwood and fed lines which has helped them form their opinons. Anyway, time will tell on whether Garde is the correct appointment, it is too early to tell for certain but I know I feel more confident now than I did after Sherwoods first game as TS never 100% convinced me that he knew what he was doing.

As previously mentioned Hart should have just left that throw in to go out, it is his own fault as he clearly moved to intercept the ball which was harmlesly rolling out of play for a goalkick. I am not sure why there was such a big outrage at the incident, there are regular occurances of bad sportsmanship that are far far worse, such as the Sterling dive in the same game trying to win a penalty which would have probably decided the match as Clark would have been sent off if the ref had fallen for it. Furthermore, Man City can go and do one, I seem to recall them being awarded a penalty against us for a Weimann handball at their ground a few years back, when in fact the ball had hit the post. I don't recall them doing the sporting thing at the time and missing the penalty.

Haha, I know what you mean this is the first time I have clicked on this thread in a few weeks. FWIW I have quietly felt that Jordan would end up coming good for us, although I did think it wouldn't be until after Christmas that he would finally reach his best. That was just my gut feeling having read an article about the lad just after he signed saying he had a strong attitude/personality having overcome adversity in his career previously. Glad to see that he is showing his promise now, and hopefully you are correct that he can get even better for us.

At the end of the day its another bloke picking 11 players from 25. - He's been training them only since Tuesday - Im really not expecting much on Sunday. Just look at what has been wring wwith the team, playing with no confidence and seemingly devoid of any planning - showing a lack of faith in the managers plans. Words alone could haxe a profound impact.. I disagree. He has to choose 11 players from 25 - everyone on here would pick a different 11. But picking player xxx won't suddenly cure all our ills. Likewise the confidence thing, you can't actually GIVE a player confidence. That comes from winning games, and playing well in those games. The most obvious thing to me is organisation and some sort of system of play. But lets be honest - I don't we have a squad of worldbeaters, just waiting for some new messiah to lead us to the promised land.....I really don't think it is that easy. I agree with that Hippo. He may be able to give a little boost in confidence to an individual player, but our confidence appears to be so fragile at the moment that the first mistake and that boost will be gone. Hopefully we can get a win or even a point this weekend just to stop the rut we are in. The confidence will start to come once the players can see an improvement in fortunes and gain a belief that the managers ideas and systems are working for them and the team, and hopefully that improvement will build week on week. That will take more than a few days working together in training though. One thing for certain, the fans need to do their bit to help now by being right behind the team, try not to slate the players when they make a mistake. I know it is gallows humour, but some of the songs sung cannot be helping the teams confidence.

It is largely due to our players that we don't get anything from refs. I agree, altgough I think there are also other factors that help also, firstly the players need to be more street smart which we haven't been for years and learn how to manipulate referees and situations to our advantage, secondly the crowd can help by piling pressure on the referees. I remember seeing matches with Liverpool and Everton on tv where they are claiming for more or less every decision in a quite a loud aggressive manner, and that builds pressure on the referee as the game moves on. The last time we received any favourable decisions from referees tends to date back as long ago as the MON years. Therefore I tend to think the manager also plays a part as MON was a cantankerous sod which rubs off on the players, however it is finding that fine line between influencing the referee in your favour and ending up on a charge for failing to control your players like we did under Lambert about this time last season.

Good news that Remi is getting his team into place, we just need to hopefully prise the coaches Remi wants away from Lyon's grasp and we are set.

Socially awkward fellow? Haha, not quite what they said.

The international break can't come quickly enough for me. If I were Remi Garde I would use the time to get the squad together, take them away to somewhere far away from here, somewhere remote, away from the pressures of the relegation battle for some relaxation and bonding time. Then I would leave the usesless buggers there.

I can confirm what you all probably suspect already, and that is Mike Dean is a bit of a you know what. A few of my friends have played in charity days at the local golf club which organises rounds of golf with sports personalities etc. The first year they had Sean Dyche, and my friends said that Dyche was brilliant and great fun with lots of great tales to tell and joined them in the bar afterwards for a customary beverage or two. Last time out they had the misfortune of getting Mike Dean as their personality. They said he was very closed, and wouldn't talk about anything during the round of golf, and to top things off at the end of the round he jumped in his car and legged it without saying anything. This was after saying that he would be joing them in the bar after packing his gear into the car, and that he would have a beer of some description. Another of my friends is an amateur level referee, and knows a few of the referee's notably Anthony Taylor whom is his mentor. He also confirms that Mike Dean is a bit of a ........

Welcome Rémi, good luck.

Oh dear, It looks like carelessness and mistakes are not only confined to the pitch.

I remember most people had an instant dislike for Houllier because he said we were traditonally a mid table team in one of his early press conferences. Personally I think if Houllier had been replaced with a manager in a similar mould back then we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now. We went from the MON British approach to trying to implement the Houllier continental approach mid season which caused us problems at the time, but if persevered with over the summer break could have put us on a sounder footing moving forward, especially as we enjoyed some decent form towards the end of the season. Lerner though, decided to rip up everything and start again on the British route again with McLeish and the rest we all know.

i'm glad your not the manager picking the team every week !!! I appreciate its all about opinions, but Gestede is only good for one thing, headers so who is going to supply the crosses from wide in that set up? The protection the defence will get from that midfield is as about as good as using a condom with a hole in it!! I am not having a go at you, but for me it just highlights the serious lack of quality we have in our team/squad. I think you have misunderstood KSV's line up, his is the top one without Gestede, the second is Sherwoods line up vs Swansea.

We still have a chance of staying up, but things need to change quickly. If we can string a few positive results together we will close the gap on the teams above, some of whom I expect will have bad runs at some point this season. The big IF is us, and stringing together some positive results to build confidence and momentum. We have not managed that in quite a while and that is going to have to change. Leicester showed last season how it can be done, we need to show similar battling qualities, and we can help ourselves here by not shooting ourselves in the foot virtually every game by gifting the opposition a goal. Hopefully the new man coming in can organise them better at the back, and get them back to at least doing the basics right so we make ourselves hard to beat again and then build from there. I do wonder whether the defenders are being asked to do something that is out of their comfort zone which is leading to these errors, the sheer volume of errors made is ridiculous.

Combined with not being able to keep his stupid mouth shut. Whats the saying....best to let people think you are an idiot, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I think it is a case of he Richards can't play there as his body won't stand up to the rigours of getting up and down the pitch anymore, which is concerning for someone in their mid 20's imo.. Well it is concerning if it were true. Is this just a hunch or is there anything to actually base that on? he doesn't struggle getting up and down the pitch at times playing CB I think I remember him alluding to it in an interview a month or two back. I will see if I can find where he said it. Edit: having had a quick skim through, I think I have mis-interpreted a jokey comment made by Micah about being too old in one of his interviews. In an earlier interview back in July Sherwood talks about Micah's versatility and that he can play CB, RB or right side of a three. So I guess it is down to preference.

I think it is a case of he Richards can't play there as his body won't stand up to the rigours of getting up and down the pitch anymore, which is concerning for someone in their mid 20's imo..

I hate losing (which makes my support of Villa such hard work), it puts me in a bad mood no matter how much I try not to care, so would never wish for a loss. I would love for Tim to prove most of us wrong and turn things around, sadly I don't see it happening.

Haha I did exactly the same OBE. I must admit that I had to google what BBC Alba was, as I had no idea what language they were talking. Turns out is was Scottish/Gaelic. On a side note I have noticed a programme called Bannan also on BBC Alba, imagine my disappointment when it wasn't what I expected it to be.

Things look very bad at the moment, and there is a good chance that we will go down, but come on...nobody is nailed on to go down at this point of the season. Others will have dreadful runs of form, and we may find a purple patch of form at some point who knows. If we are cut adrift still at January then I will agree with you and think we are nailed on to go down.

We were broken under Lambert, and Lambert was broken under Villa. We had two spells, maybe more of not scoring for a number of games under Lambert, I think we were clearly headed in one direction at that point in time. We will never know for sure if Lambert could have kept us up, but from memory we looked very much doomed. Sherwood did just about enough to keep us up, and did well to get us to a cup final albeit the cup final was a disaster we all would like to forget. I think the final was partly down to us not turning up, but mostly down to Arsenal being on top form that day. They are a team that can destroy any team when they are firing. The result that did worry me most at the tail end of last season was the Southampton game, that was more concerning to me. As a club, our biggest mistake was keeping a rookie, unproven manager in the summer. We should have got rid then in my opinion and got in a better guy. I do understand the reasoning for keeping Sherwood, but that would have been the time to go and get ourselves a decent manager, not part way through a season. At this moment, if it was a toss up between Rodgers and Moyes for manager, I would go all out for Moyes. I just think he would be a better fit for us at this moment in time.

Yeah I remember the last relegation, I was 11 years old when that happened and it was horrible. Luckliy Graham Taylor came in and got us straight back, we still meant something back then so could lure the man required for the job to us. These days it is a different playing field, and lots of teams that have gone down in recent seasons have not come back. The financial implications of going down would pretty much put us back many years. Lerner and Co need to go, we need someone in charge who knows what they are doing and how to appoint a good manager. I now make that 4 bad choices on the trot now. As we are stuck with Lerner and Co for the foreseeable future we are going to have to take our chances and roll the dice again and hope this time it is 5th time lucky.

Foreign coach with new ideas please. Save that for when we're a boring midtable team. Too risky I understand this point of view, but with the amount of foreign players bought in during the summer transfer window maybe a foreign manager wouldn't be such a bad idea? Also, changing from a British to Foreign manager mid season didn't hurt Southampton, although at the time I thought that appointment was the final nail in their coffin. Also the last three managers we have had have all been British and that hasn't helped our performance at all, maybe a time to change things around and think outside the box. The sooner we stop the expectation that the next manager should be someone to lead us for decades, the better. We need to take much smaller steps and look shorter term with appointments. The short term goal of this club should be to re-establish ourselves as a premier league team. Not a shit team scrambling around to survive every year. If a foreign coach fits the spec of a manager who can do that then obviously I'm fine with it. But we're not in a position to be gambling on the next big thing from the continent, imo. It's all well and good saying we want "attractive" or "progressive" football, but I couldn't give a shit what we look like when we play. At this stage I want results that keep us in the league. We don't NEED the next big thing. Continuously searching for that is why we're appoint unproven chancers like Sherwood. What we need is experience and proven ability to make a team play well relatively consistently. If it means we're boring for a season or two then so be it. I'd much rathe rbe borign and safe to give us somewhere to build from than attractive and relegated. I agree, no more up and coming managers We have had our fill of those. It doesn't matter to me where they come from, I just thought with the influx of foreign players that maybe a foreign coach could get them playing to their potential. I wouldn't be overly disappointed with Allardyce, as he is a safe pair of hands and will most likely get us to a steady mid table position. If not him, then we are starting to struggle on the British managers front, unless we go and take a manager who is already employed like Pardew, Hughes or Moyes. If none of those can be tempted then we have to gamble on a foreign coach who is experienced at a big-ish club.