LockStockVilla

I'm inclined to disregard pretty much anything he posts, but if we do end this window having landed Coutinho, Digne, AND Bissouma, that is huge! Obviously considering the club has no concerns around Bissouma from a legal perspective. This would really address some of our key areas of need and make it so that the Summer window would not have to be focused on a massive overhaul of the squad. 

15 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

After watching the interview a couple of times, I have the feeling this has been in the making far longer than we realise. It all seems far too seamless in how quickly everything came together. I also call BS on the Weds stuff because it was commonish knowledge that reps met up on Monday evening. Call it intuition or guesswork but something tells me this was always the next move on from Smith. I think conversations would have happened a long time ago about this becoming a possibility somewhere down the line. 

Anyway it's about the hear and now and good luck to him. 

There was the obscure article back in March or April of this past year that mentioned the Villa owners were interested in bringing in Gerrard to replace DS. It was Football Insider, so obviously I didn't make much of it, but perhaps this was a contingency plan for a while.

20 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Lennin 2nd spell was only cs Gerrard and got 70%

Also for context Rangers went unbeaten in the league last season and probably had an 85 percent win rate in all competitions. That definitely pushed the stats up from the other seasons 

But does that not signal consistent improvement? That’s what you’d want from a manager who is still developing. 

4 hours ago, ferguson1 said:

I think with Axel only on loan and Hause out of contract in the summer, we’re nailed on to take Connor Goldson off Rangers. He’s also out of contract in the summer, so if we pushed this in January it wouldn’t be a huge fee.

Hope we pursue a left back as competition for Targett? Hickey being the obvious one I suppose.

CDM is a must but who? Be interesting to see if Gerrard also sees this as a cause for concern.

Finally, cheeky January bid for this Alvarez guy or go after Carvalho at Fulham? 

Hickey would be class. I’m not sure about Goldson, but I would absolutely love us to take a punt on John Souttar from Hearts. Out of contract in the summer and doesn’t look likely to sign any extension. I think he is a Rolls Royce of a defender with great ability to bring the ball out from defense. He was hampered by a lot of injuries early in his career, but at 25, if he overcomes those for good, I have no doubts he can play at the top. 

30 minutes ago, GazRFC said:

Nathan Patterson is the only one who has broken through but to be fair gerrard has overseen that and don’t a great job managing him. Billy Gilnour was sold under gerrard but he wasn’t here for long at that point. He’s not great with youth truth be told 

Pretty sure Gilmour was sold before Gerrard arrived…think it was under Caixinha. Not that it really hampers the point on youth development.

I think it’s important to understand context of Gerrard’s time at Rangers and Scottish football in general though. Whilst trying to reassert themselves over Celtic, there would have been more of a reliance on established senior players (like Kent, Roofe, Kamara, etc). In Scottish football, Rangers (and to a greater extent Celtic) tend to either loan their youngsters out to other teams in the league for experience or just buy the best youngsters off the lower tier clubs once they are less raw and have more games under their belt. Developing youth just hasn’t been their main priority as of late. That’s at least my perspective as a Hearts supporter . 

1 minute ago, Genie said:

The problem with people nailing their colours to the mast is that they’ll be forever trying to be shown to right which is exhausting for everyone else.

 

I’ll be quite active with the mute button the next couple of weeks

Some folks are really nailing their colours to the mast with this one. I’d suggest if this appointment bothers you that much, that you take a few months away from football. I get skepticism, but some of this toxic energy is beyond ridiculous. 

This guy is usually clued in as it relates to Rangers. Based on this, the 7m total comp for the entire coaching staff would seem about right. 

The more I think about it, the more comfortable I become with the prospect of Gerrard.

For starters, our current group of players seem to be rock bottom in terms of confidence. Just look at the Targett interview after the Southampton match and it’s so clear to see. These players need a kick up the back side, but also someone who demands their respect and who can help get that belief back. I think Gerrard brings this, whereas I think a lot of these other names thrown around like Favre, Fonseca, etc. wouldn’t really form the connection needed with the players. 

I also believe he will be more motivated to succeed than a lot of the other candidates. There’s no doubt he wants to forge a long term managerial career in England and of course eventually land at Liverpool. As others have alluded to,  the only way that happens is if he is successful at Villa. The other managers out there will indeed want to win, but they likely don’t have as much at stake. If they fail, they’ll just move onto another job in Europe. 
 

The main condition of bringing him on is that we need to allow him to bring on his own coaching team. I’m not sure about the rumors that some of the new hires this year were forced on Smith, but if that was the case, we need to scrap that. His assistant Michael Beale is very highly rated and largely regarded as the brains behind the operation. 
 

As a side note, as a Hearts supporter, I’m okay if this goes through as it may open the door to the title for Hearts with a destabilized Rangers.

7 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

 

If we went completely left field, he’d be my choice. The primary issue is that the one trophy he hasn’t won in Argentina is the league title, which he is currently on pace to achieve. Rumors are he wouldn’t leave before that happens, so the very earliest to get him in the door would be mid December when his contract is up. Unfortunately, that timeline would be awful as we don’t have any coaches capable of leading us in the interim. 
 

Btw: definitely wrong thread for this. 

1 minute ago, Kuwabatake Sanjuro said:

How about Southgate?

This is no time for jokes!

3 minutes ago, rbcuk said:

Rumour is lampard is off to norwich which I hope, don’t want him here, has to be favre,  fonseca or maybe even the Denmark manager is rumoured to be a favourite with the owners 

The Denmark manager would frighten me. He’s done well at the International level, but his club record isn’t anything spectacular. I really hope we’re going a few tiers higher in terms of experience. 

I definitely expect a currently employed manager. The out of contract options are wildly unimpressive. 

5 minutes ago, Indigo said:

Onuachu was good at Midtjylland previously, did his time overlap with McPhee's? Has also bossed it with Genk in the last couple of seasons in the absence of a certain Tanzanian great and we love a Belgium-based strikers so I'm guessing all of that is where the link has come from rather than anything based in truth.

Or this is an extreme response to us now seemingly playing Pulis ball.

I don’t believe his time in Denmark would have overlapped with MacPhee, who would have been with Hearts at the time. Probably more the latter and our previous transfer activity in Belgium. 

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Any ideas if he can speak English?

No clue. Played in MLS at DC United, but was a short spell. 

5 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Whilst I'm not against going 'left field' per se, what exactly is the difference between Fonseca and Gallardo?

Fonseca in his one stint at a club who are expected to dominate their league did exactly that at Shaktar. 

Gallardo is hardly dominating the Primera is he. 

Gallardo has been pretty successful though and won plenty of silverware. I think the length of his tenure at RP can be seen as a positive. You hardly see managers in that league spending 5+ years there, because their fans are pretty mental and you’d face the sack if results weren’t up to par. I don’t know everything about the guy but from what I’ve read he is also a  very flexible tactician. We need that so badly. 

I’d be very weary of Fonseca. Can’t say I’ve watched his teams much but just has the feel of a guy who has done a “satisfactory” job while in top level jobs..not the sort to really push us on. Gerrard would be a huge no because he’d bolt the minute the Liverpool job opened up. If we were to go the route of a manager with no PL experience, I’d love us to go completely left field with the River Plate manager, Marcelo Gallardo. If there is any truth to the links between us and Julian Alvarez, perhaps our setup has done some due diligence on him. Probably not, but it’d be a move I’d support

I think his participation in both the Copa America and Olympics has really benefitted him at the start of this season. Playing in well performing sides allowed him to pick up a bit of form, confidence, and consistency he was missing much of last season. I was worried he would come back absolutely knackered after not much time off, but so far so good. We'll need to manage his minutes, but luckily we have more squad depth than previous seasons. Hoping to see much more of the player we caught glimpses of at the tail end of the 2020 season. 

A lot has been made of a need for a specialist DM. I still think a more progressive player to play in Front of a midfield two is more vital. Buendia can carry some of the burden, but we still seem very meek in the attacking half. Curtis Jones may fit the bill in that regard. I’d still love a player like Kamada for this type of position. We need someone reliable on set pieces with more emphasis there (not to add our Japanese speaking set piece coach ). Make it happen!

I don’t see this happening. This strikes me as a case of the agent offering him to us, getting us to offer decent wages, then using that as leverage for a better deal elsewhere (Juventus, for example). Just a pawn in the game like with JWP or ESR…But if it did happen, I’d be pleased  

2 minutes ago, Kiwivillan said:

From crap team in Dutch league. Is this a joke?

It may not be the most exciting signing ever, but you’d have to imagine there’s a reason the scouting team would be after him. Rob Mackenzie has unearthed some rather cheap gems in the past. Articles online seem to say Atalanta are interested in him as well, and they do pretty well for themselves. 

Hmm, probably tosh, but I wouldn’t be against selling AEG and then using part of the fee to buy Cantwell. 

9 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I actually find the aversion to him playing left sided forward a bit odd. We haven't seen nearly enough of him there to know whether he can do that to a high standard in the Premier League, but that doesn't mean that he can't. In fact, the only times we have seen him there, Keinan Davis has been playing through the middle. I like Keinan so I mean no disrespect, but he's not Danny Ings. 

Watkins is nothing like Jack Grealish, no. Perhaps he is a better centre forward than left sided forward, I don't have the evidence to hand either way. But, at least with Baliey and potentially Buendia not ready for Watford, I have absolutely no issue with Ollie playing off the left in a 4-3-3 and it'll be interesting to see how it goes. He's certianly not going to embarrass us and I would put a fair amount of cash on him being a better option than El Ghazi (who I also do not hate, for the record).

100% on all of this. Deano has also worked with Ollie for a fair amount of time, so I’d trust him to know how he can best use/not use him. 

My hope is that we see some of the form from the beginning of last season on a more consistent basis. It may take a few weeks before all the new players build better chemistry, but I believe they are all quality enough where they can make up for that. Assuming we make one or two more high level signings, then I'm optimistic that we can be battling it out between 6-8th, and perhaps be in reasonable distance to 4/5th places. Anything below 10th will be disappointing. I'd also like to see extended runs in cup competitions. With the additions we have made plus alot of the promising youth, we should be able to put out strong sides even with giving some of the first 11 rest.