Steven Gerrard

[lexicon]

Just now, R.Bear said:

Yep. We didnt play Liverpool off the park as the score suggests, we just took our chances and every shot on goal seemed to deflect into the net. It's not a game I would use to show our potential. That was Liverpool's only loss until the new year as well so in every way it was a freak game.

Smith also beat Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U and Spurs tbf.

Gerrard yet to beat a team of that quality or level and the point about him elevating players still stands. At Rangers, simply having better players is enough in the SPL, with momentum created through wins. He seems to set us up with his tactics rather than with any specific plan to play against the particular team we're playing on the day. Yes we were better attacking against Spurs for 45 minutes or whatever but still didn't score. Minus 7 GD in the last 4 games, yet we have Buendia, Coutinho, Bailey, Ings, Watkins etc. all available.  

[R.Bear]

2 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Smith also beat Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U and Spurs tbf.

Gerrard yet to beat a team of that quality or level and the point about him elevating players still stands.

True but he has only played them all once and lost by one goal in three of them, came back from 2-0 down in one too. We also outplayed United in the FA Cup match and as we've discussed, should have been out of sight at half-time against Spurs.

Shoula woulda coulda yes but we've been in the games at least.

[Tomaszk]

51 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

I realise most sane people arent calling for Gerrard to be sacked but lets just remind ourselves of the managers we've appointed in just the last decade.

Alex McLeish - Horrible football, some of the worst ever seen at VP and no goals.
Paul Lambert - Loads of crap signings and woefully inconsistent performances. Set us up to get relegated.
Tim Sherwood - An embarrassing joke on the sidelines and his teams on the pitch werent much better.
Rémi Garde - A complete buffoon. Somehow made the worst team in the league even worse.
Roberto Di Matteo - An absolute disaster and signed trash.
Steve Bruce - See Alex McLeish above.
Dean Smith - A standout in a terrible list. Promoted but reached his ceiling.
 

So basically a horror story of a decade. So before everyone hounds Gerrard out, just remember what history has taught us. Gerrard's crime is what? Not finishing in a European berth? Judge him on next season.

No crimes have been committed your honour. None the deserve a prison sentence anyway.

This is just an incredible opportunity and we're punting and hoping because this bloke was a good player. Why? It's a strange choice.

It is not hard at all to get a manager better than McLeish, Sherwood et al...and also be better than Gerrard.

As I've said we ARE going to get better next season. You don't spend £150-200m and get worse. (If we do, we can all chuck it in) 

I hope we do exceed what feels possible. And that I can enjoy the football a bit, been largely a tough watch as well as having poor results IMO.

[R.Bear]

11 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

This is just an incredible opportunity and we're punting and hoping because this bloke was a good player. Why? It's a strange choice.

 

No, he got the job because he won the SPL unbeaten. He got the Rangers job because he was a good player.

Every single managerial appointment is a punt. Out of curiosity, who would you appoint if Gerrard left? Look at that list, some of them came with decent records. At our level, we appoint a tried and trusted manager who will keep us stable or "punt" on a young manager like Gerrard in the hope he will be a great manager like some of the legendary players we've mentioned. We're not going to get a top class manager. But we're also never going to get better if we keep ripping it up and starting again.

Edited April 11, 2022 by R.Bear

[IrishVilla10]

3 hours ago, calcifer said:

Do we really want to trust Gerrard with a summer rebuild? Last thing we want is 29/30 year old jobbers coming in for a last payday to play under slippy G. 

 

I’m of the same opinion, but we’ve seen nothing to suggest this is actually the case. Coutinhos our best player. And the Suarez links are most likely lazy journalism 

[useless]

 

[avfc1982am]

My biggest concern with Gerrard is looking at the squad I'm not seeing any player that has shown any improvement on where they were already at. I'm not anti or out but I am wondering when we're going to see players individually improve. 

[useless]

The Liverpool 7-2 was a freak one off, that doesn't mean to say the players or manager don't deserve credit we actually should have scored more on that day, but it was a one in a lot result and a lot of circumstances came together for it to happen, it's silly to use that against Gerrard, we could spend another £500m in one summer and appoint the world's best manager and we wouldn't get a result like that again against Liverpool.

But it does bring to mind another problem we've had with Gerrard and that's struggling against the better teams, something that needs to be improved upon.

[R.Bear]

Unfortunately for us we have two problems that have hit at the same time. We can’t score and we’re a shambles at the back. After those three clean sheets in a row I thought we’d turned a corner but in the last few games we've been worse than ever and it’s been individual errors rather than setup. Spurs opened us up but often it was from one simple pass. Far too easy and top class forwards will run riot as they did with charity like that.

[DCJonah]

It's slightly concerning that the answer seems to be spend a shit load on some new players. If that's what's needed then I'm not sure why we jumped to bring in Gerrard. 

I want him to build his own squad but I'd hoped to see some benefit of his management and coaching. We do nothing better than what we saw under Smith over the last few years. 

[Woody1000]

Was the plan all along just to spend our way back into Europe and we’ve gone for Gerrard as he is more of a ‘draw’ for players than Dean Smith is/was?

[hippo]

12 minutes ago, R.Bear said:

Unfortunately for us we have two problems that have hit at the same time. We can’t score and we’re a shambles at the back. After those three clean sheets in a row I thought we’d turned a corner but in the last few games we've been worse than ever and it’s been individual errors rather than setup. Spurs opened us up but often it was from one simple pass. Far too easy and top class forwards will run riot as they did with charity like that.

Contradiction overload !

[hippo]

2 minutes ago, Woody1000 said:

Was the plan all along just to spend our way back into Europe and we’ve gone for Gerrard as he is more of a ‘draw’ for players than Dean Smith is/was?

No - good player - therefore he will be a good manager.

[sharkyvilla]

3 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

It's slightly concerning that the answer seems to be spend a shit load on some new players. If that's what's needed then I'm not sure why we jumped to bring in Gerrard. 

I want him to build his own squad but I'd hoped to see some benefit of his management and coaching. We do nothing better than what we saw under Smith over the last few years. 

I'm also worried about how much the players will cost.  We are talking about giving up on players who cost £15m-£20m or more, are still relatively young and I'm sure other coaches would be more than happy to work with and improve.  It's almost like it's too challenging to work with them to get them back to levels they showed last season.

[Steero113]

37 minutes ago, avfc1982am said:

My biggest concern with Gerrard is looking at the squad I'm not seeing any player that has shown any improvement on where they were already at. I'm not anti or out but I am wondering when we're going to see players individually improve. 

Cash.

But agree, would have liked to have seen half a dozen at least improve. 

[romavillan]

9 minutes ago, Steero113 said:

Cash.

But agree, would have liked to have seen half a dozen at least improve. 

Nakamba before he got injured too. 

[VillaParkAvenue]

1 hour ago, R.Bear said:

We're not going to get a top class manager. But we're also never going to get better if we keep ripping it up and starting again.

Depends on your definition of a top class manager. Someone who is brilliant at improving teams, or someone who has worked at the highest level?

Premier League is currently the most attractive league for players and managers, since the money is gone elsewhere but remains here. After the big 6 clubs, Villa are probably the most attractive english job for a manager. Big club, previous managers underperformed leaving room for improvement, owners ready to invest heavily.

If Purslow wanted to, he could more or less take his pick among current managers in the Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga or Ligue 1. He could probably also attract almost anyone currently managing the other 14 in the Prem.

The idea that Villa should be happy for anyone who is willing to come is laughable.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

23 hours ago, El Segundo said:

My worry with Gerrard and hs stated desire to bring in a few "finished articles", is that it ends up like Lerner/MON mk II where the coach is given the keys to the bank vault, spends it on a bunch of 28-29 olds, it doesn't work out, and we're left with an expensively assembled but ageing squad with little or no sell on value and not able to cut it in the top 6.   I don't think Gerrard has (yet) proved himself worthy of being trusted with a huge transfer budget in the summer and beyond.  I can't see that he's really taken us forward from where we were under Smith, and I think a really good coach would get more out of the squad we have than he has managed.   I am far from convinced that buying a few finished articles is going to fix the tactical and coaching shortcomings. Surely his job is also to coach unfinished articles to make them better.   I don't think there has been a great deal of evidence of that apart from maybe Nakamba.   

Ok, again, these " worries " would hold more value if we didn't currently have one of the best Academies in the country and a plethora of outstanding young talent already on our books. ( Haven't we just signed another 2 promising young teenagers over the last few months as well )?

Unless you are the likes of Dortmund, to improve, you are not going to be signing all the best 21 - 26 year old players in the world, unless you are spending hundreds of millions.

People also continue to ignore that the plan ( As stated by Owners and CEO ) was always to develop this way, and get to the point where we could attract more " seasoned " players to compliment our young squad, and add more quality and experience.

We would all like to sign young players like Haaland, Mbappe, Alphonso Davies, Camavinga etc but it's not happening for obvious reasons.

Most importantly, the board aren't idiots.

Alot of the same people used to moan about us signing young " Championship players " instead of PL ready and experienced types ffs.

This is nothing like the MON era for a multitude of reasons.

Also, to date, with SG we have sign two 28 year olds ( One a world class player on loan ), One 27 year old, and two teenagers. Yet people are having mini meltdowns about speculation which is yet to come to fruition,.

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[TomC]

On 10/04/2022 at 04:54, lexicon said:

At the moment the list of criticisms:

- Tactically inflexible
- Unable to impact games with subs/changes in tactic
- Poor man management
- Unable to develop players/contribute to their regression

The first two are my worries. But poor man management? The players seem to like him, and several have said that they like how clear his instructions are. Unable to develop players? He's been here half a season, which isn't much time. The regressed players had already regressed under Deano.

 

On 10/04/2022 at 05:14, nick76 said:

Smith got the best out of Watkins, Gerrard doesn’t know how to use him or use him to his strengths.

I disagree...Watkins had a bad start this year and it was under Smith. The question to me is whether Watkins overperformed last year or is underperforming this year...we'll find out next year.

 

On 10/04/2022 at 06:05, IrishVilla10 said:

What could be interesting is seeing if Nakamba makes a difference in the next weeks, assuming he’s going to be starting after Gerrards comments.

I don't know if SG will start him but we will probably see him. I think we would have seen him on Saturday if we had been defending a lead instead of chasing one.

 

On 10/04/2022 at 08:25, DCJonah said:

What's so special about Gerrard?

Frankly, I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that Gerrard is anything special...but how many special managers are there in world football right now? Maybe half a dozen? Two of them are Guardiola and Klopp, and I know that those two aren't coming to Villa. I'm not aiming this criticism at you, but some people on VT seem to think that players and managers are either crap or special, and recognize no levels in between. While Gerrard is not special, he may yet prove to be above average, and he certainly is not crap. We've seen true crap at this club, as some posters have reminded us in this thread.

 

23 hours ago, Rightdm00 said:

This setup requires massive quality at key positions. At Rangers, Steven had that. He is not going to get that level of quality here and that's where I begin to worry. 

I wouldn't say that he had better quality at Rangers in absolute terms. Certainly in relative terms compared to the rest of the league, he did, but that's because the quality in the SPL drops off after the top two.

 

23 hours ago, Zatman said:

8 goals conceded in the first 10 minutea so far this season. Also on the management as this should have been addressed ages ago

I disagree with most of your posts about SG, but this is one thing I agree about. Again, it began under Deano, but this is something that should not require a squad rebuild for SG to resolve.

 

[picicata]

Well, I for one, am hoping that Gerrard is a good cheque book manager as he doesn't appear to be a tactical/ player improving/ youth promoting manager. 

It is very important that all his signings improve us immediately.