Rank every Villa manager post MON

[TRO]

13 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Allegedly he wanted Maupay, Webster and Phillips - but I don't think any of those players would really have made us much if any better off than we are now and all their clubs were asking ridiculous fees for them.

 

You're right we don't want to throw money at players willy nilly, we've done that too much over the years and been fleeced. What has disappointed me somewhat is there doesn't seem to be any enticement for bigger name players to come here. We haven't been in a good place for a while of course, but neither had Wolves when Fosun bought them and look at the level of players they've signed. Suso was supposed to help us get those slightly under the radar players with massive potential, but he seems to have done a poor job on the whole.

 

I think when you buy a player they have to have the right quality but also the right attitude and application. SJM had those qualities, but we will do well to get a deal that good again. The best players on the whole in this league have either come through the academy at their clubs like Kane, Rashford and Arnold, or were bought for big money like KDB, Van Dijk and Aubameyang. Dele Alli is the only player I can think of who could be described as 'cheap'. All the teams in the PL seem to be spending lots these days (with the exception maybe of Burnley), so it's not out of place to do that, what we have to do is learn to spend our money much better than we did last summer. 

The funny thing for me is, if you look at Burnley and Sheff Utd as just 2 examples, i would guess very few of their players would attract us....we seem to be a bit obsessed with footballing types, who ironically are not that good anyway....creative players are great, but they have to BE creative, not just watch games pass them by.

I think we need a few more of their types ,a few durable, "man for all seasons" types, who can stop the opposition bullying us.....the townsends, the richardsons, the Barry's, the petrov's.....where have they all gone?

Edited March 4, 2020 by TRO

[tonyh29]

No shouts for Doris the tea lady yet   ?

 

Can't really compare as they all had different budgets / owners and agenda set by the club  , so no ranking from me , just a few ramblings

 

Houllier alienated the fans with his love for Liverpool and never really recovered from it , started to turn the corner but then ill health meant we'd never know what he could have achieved for us  ... fairly positive on the whole though  .. it could be argued it was Gary Mc who engineered the late turn around though

McLeish i watched a few games and then vowed never to watch again until he left  , negative negative and more negative

Garde - looked an inspired choice for about 35 seconds then it looked  a dreadful appointment

Lambert kept us up for a  few seasons when Lerner had lost interest  ,  so lots of plus points for him  ... but eventually even he he looked like he'd given up and would most likely have taken us down   ... then Sherwood came along and kept us up  ..alas Sherwood  and the board contrived to buy players that didn't fit the club or manager  .. an amusing appointment for a while but soon the joke wasn't funny anymore

Most disappointing would have to be DiMatteo  , he was given funds and a decent squad but couldn't manage them

Bruce steadied the ship but the football was shit , he then stayed on under difficult circumstances when he could have cut and run  ... but the football was still shit and he was rightly fired ... his dignity and commitment with the loss of both parents  and the end of the Dr T regime though means I'll always think kindly of him

Smith  - over achieved to get us out the league , but the football he's served up at times (Sheff U , Watford , Bournemouth , Southampton , away) has been as bad as anything I've ever seen Villa play  ..in his defence he's also had us put in some great performances ,  but on the whole I still think he's out of his depth and needs to be replaced

[villalad21]

7 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Smith  - over achieved to get us out the league

Highly disagree.

Finishing 5th with arguably the best squad in the league isn't overachieving. It got even better in January. A core of Mings, Axel, McGinn, Grealish, El Ghazi and Abraham is some team in the Championship. I'd even argue we had a better starting eleven last season than what we have this season.

And it's not like we were cut off drift when he took over. If i remember correctly we were only 3-4 pts off 6th when Bruce got sacked.

[VillaFaninLondon]

13 minutes ago, TRO said:

The funny thing for me is, if you look at Burnley and Sheff Utd as just 2 examples, i would guess very few of their players would attract us....we seem to be a bit obsessed with footballing types, who ironically are not that good anyway....creative players are great, but they have to BE creative, not just watch games pass them by.

I think we need a few more of their types ,a few durable, "man for all seasons" types, who can stop the opposition bullying us.....the townsends, the richardsons, the Barry's, the petrov's.....where have they all gone?

Both their goalkeepers are good but on paper they do look very average and none of their outfield players much appeal to me, though I'd love us to be where they are in the table. They've clearly got more fighters in their team than us and don't bottle it when things don't go their way. After we beat Burnley on New Year's Day they looked deep in the brown stuff, since then their run has been remarkable and that's down to the sheer determination and fighting spirit with which that team plays. In complete contrast to us whose heads go down at the first sign of adversity more often than not. 

 

I'd love to get a Gareth Barry and Stilyan Petrov back in this team, remember that they were actually very good technically as well but had a very strong mentality and were leaders on the pitch. We have no one in the middle of the park like that now, the closest we have would be McGinn and he's injured. 

[VillanousOne]

I know he doesn't count as he was only a caretaker manager but can we include Eric Black as the worst person to have ever managed Villa!?

[John]

Smith, Bruce, Lambo, Houlier, Tim "Gillet" Sherwood,  Big Eck, RDM, Garde.

[tomav84]

1 hour ago, VillanousOne said:

I know he doesn't count as he was only a caretaker manager but can we include Eric Black as the worst person to have ever managed Villa!?

if you do then mcallister has to go right at the top...7 points from 3 games which included wins vs arsenal and liverpool!

[Guest av1]

7 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

Sherwood last, Smith first, the rest in any order really.  Lambert and Garde got a pretty rough hand from Randy.

100% agree. 

6 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

It didn't really have anything to do with that. I'm adamant. 

Ok yes it means we'd naturally not take to him, but the biggest issue for Villa fans at the time was that McLeish was awful. He'd spent 3 season in the top flight of English football and been relegated twice. Even north of the border he'd managed to finish 3rd in a two horse race.

The biggest issue Villa fans had with McLeish wasn't that he came from Blues, it was that he was a shit manager. We had just gone through a period of relative success, being a genuinely good team, and were now scraping survival playing utterly dreadful football.

 

Hindsight may have shown us that there was more going on behind the scenes that meant McLeish's performance wasn't as bad as we thought it was at the time. But still, I'm adamant that at the timethe Blues thing was far far less of an issue than his actual ability as a manager.

Agree again. One thing I would also add is, for me anyway, there was a lot of  frustration with the boards selection process. 

The choice was seemingly between McLeish and Martinez. Now I'm not going to get into debating the virtues of both, but when your final 2 candidates are chalk and cheese it shows that you have no long term plan about how you want to achieve your aim. 

There will have been a very small minority against McLeish due to his blues connection, but by and large the whole "doomed from the start" argument is/was complete nonsense. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

Reading this thread it seems pretty much everybody has put Smith top of the list. Not really sure what the OP expected out of this thread. Whether he is the right man for the job right now only time will tell. But we all rate him much higher than the crap that preceded him.  There is no mob.

You’re just wrong and we’re all right

Edited March 4, 2020 by Vive_La_Villa

[Keyblade]

Only counting full time managers.

1. Smith

2. Houllier

3. Bruce

4. Lambert

5. McLeish

6. Garde

7. RDM

8. Sherwood

[DaveAV1]

8 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Smith

Bruce

Houllier

Lambert

McLeish

RDM

Garde

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sherwood

I couldn’t agree more. The others are all managers at least. I’m really not sure what Sherwood was, but it wasn’t a football manager. 

[DaveAV1]

I can recommend an excellent book, “The Weir and The Wonderful” published by the club. It’s a collection of photographs, many snapped behind the scenes, by legendary club photographer Terry Weir. I’m looking through it now, I think the wife might be peeling onions.....

[avfc1982am]

9 hours ago, sne said:

What an absolute shower of shit we've had for managers.

Granted we've changed owners more than some teams change managers but where is the red line with managers? 

I get Houllier appointment, but from that to McLeish? Then I guess Lambert is Scottish so there is that.

And then on to Sherwood who isn't a manager but just some guy who used to play football and same goes for Garde I don't even think wanted to be a manager, at least not then.

RDM? Same there he hasn't even managed since. Bruce was a panic appointment, job for the boys short term thinking that stayed on too long.

Smith? Again a total 180, thank god. Worked wonders in the Championship, PL probably a couple of years too soon for the PL

Not even a fraction of a hint that any of our appointments have been thought over, well planned or done with long term thinking.

Shambles of a club for so long. Would be great if these new guys know what they are doing. Time will tell, just hope they don't lose interest.

As for ranking the managers? Smith goes first since, well promotion (and a cup run). After that I don't care. At least Houllier tried to change stuff and had an idea moving forward. He failed thou.

Just utter crap, no real point ranking the most polished turds.

Houllier didn't fail. His heart did. 

[VillanousOne]

Smith just edges it, but to be honest I think he will drop down the list a few places if we get relegated and he leaves.

Smith - Got us promotion when perhaps we didn't expect it and tries to play attacking football even if it means we lose heavily at Premiership level. I like him and want him to do well, but I still think if we get relegated he is not the man to stick with but depends on how we play in the remaining games of the season (i.e. will we fight hard and stop conceding huge numbers of goals, if we keep getting our arse handed to us then he has to go IMO).

Bruce - Stabilised the club when it was at its lowest point, then slowly began to undo all of his previous good work by abandoning most of the already expensively assembled squad in favour of expensive loans and a scary lack of defenders. He also became scared of losing so set us up every game to literally 'not lose' even against crap teams.

Lambert - somehow kept us afloat with 'young hungry' players who were mostly cheap and crap (Benteke aside), he actually reminds me of Dean in terms of lack of plan B, crap substitutes and team talks, likeable bloke though.

Houllier - him and McCallister seemed to be repairing a broken team but health issues meant this experiment ended early.

McLeish - I remember he got players up for the fight but was crippled by lack of a transfer budget and clueless tactics (I think in one game he played 7 or 8 defenders).

Sherwood - Actually played some good football under him very briefly and had a fit and form Benteke and Grealish and Delph showing what they could do. Unfortunately after that all our good players left he claims it wasn't him signing all the expensive french players that never settled (although he can be blamed for signing dross like Richards and Lescott) all said and done he was a car salesman not a manager.

RDM - He/The Club made what looked like great signings but we were a shambles and it didn't last long, maybe he should have had more time to settle in? Maybe not. 

Garde - Truly awful manager

[thabucks]

One of the reason we got relegated was because of Sherwood's calamitous pre season ( or lack off ) and his refusal to integrate the french players ... Garde was wrong choice at the wrong time in ... Chinks of light were appearing under Houllier. Bruce steadied the ship but wasn’t great and built **** all... RDM wasn’t here long enough to be fairly judged but it was a crap appointment by the fraudster... Lambert was found out as being a flash in the pan manager. The less said about McCleish the better what a disaster that was from the start...

Edited March 4, 2020 by thabucks

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

5 hours ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Allegedly he wanted Maupay, Webster and Phillips - but I don't think any of those players would really have made us much if any better off than we are now and all their clubs were asking ridiculous fees for them.

I think he would have made a difference.

[MaVilla]

Smith no1 based on success (shows how far we fell that the greatest success of the last 8-10 years is a promotion)

My second favourite in that time was probably houllier, based on nothing more than "the one that got away" (like a girlfriend who leaves you and you pined for them), and you never got to realise what an ass they were because you weren't with them long enough.

Houllier tried really hard early on to get us playing attractive football, he really pushed bannan and apparently kept telling him "dont worry about your size, just look at messi", always stuck with me how he tried to promote and develop some of our younger more "ball to feet" types.

As we know his tenure was cut short, whether he would have succeeded or not i dont know, but i think he was doing the right things until he got ill.

[KentVillan]

Just watching Bannan tonight on BBC and wondering what his career might have been like if the club hadn’t been so **** up and Houllier had had longer to work with him. He’s a top flight talent IMO, but needed to be in the right environment with good role models and a culture of hard work. Not the succession of stag weekenders he’s played for since his teens.

[nick76]

20 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Just watching Bannan tonight on BBC and wondering what his career might have been like if the club hadn’t been so **** up and Houllier had had longer to work with him. He’s a top flight talent IMO, but needed to be in the right environment with good role models and a culture of hard work. Not the succession of stag weekenders he’s played for since his teens.

You have to be kidding, Bannan is a championship player at best.

[PaulC]

4 hours ago, John said:

Smith, Bruce, Lambo, Houlier, Tim "Gillet" Sherwood,  Big Eck, RDM, Garde.

Yes I will go along with that except I might have Lambert ahead of Bruce as he did keep us in the top flight for a number of years with a very low transfer budget and if we get relegated this season lambert is better than smith in my opinion