Steven Gerrard

[paul514]

2 hours ago, Dave_jW said:

Maybe i should have said " of the right character", so can you tell me why other teams carve us open at will,.......I still say we have no backbone when things aren't going well.

It would be nice to have a few characters who 'wouldn't give you the steam off their piss'

[briny_ear]

7 hours ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not sure how many times he can do an interview and say the players aren't responding / good enough / have to work harder until they all just say go f yourself, not a great position to be in really.

 

 

Except that’s a complete travesty of what he said post match. In the interview on AVFC he said he couldn’t be more proud of the way we played in the first half - exactly how he wanted the team to perform - but we gave away soft goals and that was our undoing.

Seems hard to argue with that, it’s exactly how I felt.

[hippo]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

It does not derive from mental strength at all. It derives from many things including trust in yourself, trust in your team mates, previous experiences, an understanding of the size of the task ahead. Mental strength is a factor only in so far as a lack of it can lead to confidence being undermined by extraneous circumstances.

Confidence is important, but also over-rated. Confidence, when not supported by the reality can be extremely counter productive - "of course Russia will prevail over Ukraine in a matter of 2 or 3 days".

Managers can instil a degree of confidence, by getting players to practice things so they become better accomplished at them and feel confident as a result, they can persuade players that they are better than they are, but that only has a temporary effect - everyone's confident until they get punched in the face.

The best provider of confidence is evidence - we are confident in our owners because of the evidence of what they've already done and so on. You were (or seemed) very confident indeed as to how good Gerrard would prove to be - are you as confident now, truthfully? and if not are you lacking mental strength, or more likely able to judge/revise your level of confidence based on the evidence of your experience watching his Villa team? Even if you have revised your confidence downwards, because you think "the players aren't good enough" I'd suggest that is similar to footballers looking at their team mates, manager, opposition and feeling a level of confidence on their assessment of their ability to contribute.

Hope can be based on mental strength - the desire not to give up, the belief that however ropey things look, there's always a chance. But hope and confidence are not the same thing. I hope I will win the lottery, but I'm not confident (partly because I don't do it).

Just my take.

Cracking post mate.

[Villa_Vids]

I fully agree with Gerrard's assessment of where we are and where we need to improve. There is a mentality gap in this squad currently. The aggression and the running power isn't there when we are defending, add concentration too. I am still wound up about how we lost to Brentford, Wissa's goal should have been avoided - e.g Wissa having a big bruise on his ankle and a fk to Brentford. That game typified our weaknesses. We have quality, we just need to get rid of this soft underbelly. 

I think some players have bought into Gerrard's way, Ramsey and Cash being better examples and others haven't. I agree that you have to be "all in" for us to be successful. No half measures or jam tomorrow. The first half against Spurs was a good template going forward, we have to be optimistic about that and build on it. Over the longer term, It is possible for us to bridge that gap with further investment, upgrading and selling players and smartly integrating some youth. 

But Gerrard has been naïve in his early tenure, I think that is one of the pitfalls of being an overly enthusiastic young manager. It is about him refining his management, and those above him challenging and questioning him. I have some doubt but I am still  confident he can move us forward. I wouldn't say Villa fans are fans of Gerrard or dislike him, I think there is an indifference and an wariness to the future. I really hope Gerrard and Ramsey can  become bigger figures than Smith & Grealish were, as it means we have kicked on. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by Villa_Vids

[FLVillan]

I think our recent fortunes have exposed what very often gets exposed in managers who were once top players.  Gerrard is struggling to deal with a group of players that don't have that same inner drive and steel that came naturally to him as a player.  So many top players have struggled to make it in the coaching world for the reason stated - they cannot relate to players that don't have the ability or competitiveness that they did.  

[sne]

3 hours ago, FLVillan said:

I think our recent fortunes have exposed what very often gets exposed in managers who were once top players.  Gerrard is struggling to deal with a group of players that don't have that same inner drive and steel that came naturally to him as a player.  So many top players have struggled to make it in the coaching world for the reason stated - they cannot relate to players that don't have the ability or competitiveness that they did.  

He also doesn't have the same ability as manager as he had as a player and that might also be a struggle for him to take in.

[Anything11]

2 hours ago, sne said:

He also doesn't have the same ability as manager as he had as a player and that might also be a struggle for him to take in.

He appears to be quite humble in that regard. The high performance podcast is a great listen and he outlines how he is constantly trying to fill the gaps in his managerial abilities by learning or with others that can do it better (Beale for example).

However, he must be frustrated watching this team.

[sparrow1988]

6 hours ago, FLVillan said:

I think our recent fortunes have exposed what very often gets exposed in managers who were once top players.  Gerrard is struggling to deal with a group of players that don't have that same inner drive and steel that came naturally to him as a player.  So many top players have struggled to make it in the coaching world for the reason stated - they cannot relate to players that don't have the ability or competitiveness that they did.  

It is beginning to look very Roy Keane/Graeme Souness alright isn’t it? It’ll be a case of if he can adapt to that. Similarly with Lampard, although Gerrard seems to have a little bit more recognition of the fact that he is having to deal with that. 

Edited April 14, 2022 by sparrow1988

[Risso]

It doesn't look anything like Roy Keane to me at all. Roy Keane is a belligerent arsehole completely ill-suited to dealing with people in a reasonable and fair manner. He's perfect in his role as loud-mouthed argumentative pundit. Gerrard is just struggling to get consistent performances out of a team who have performed inconsistently for pretty much the last three years. He took over a team that was getting sucked into a relegation scrap and has at least established us in midtable. It's not as good as we were hoping, but it's not fair to judge him until next season and he's had the summer to bring his own players in.

[gwi1890]

4 hours ago, sparrow1988 said:

It is beginning to look very Roy Keane/Graeme Souness alright isn’t it? It’ll be a case of if he can adapt to that. Similarly with Lampard, although Gerrard seems to have a little bit more recognition of the fact that he is having to deal with that. 

As annoyed as I am at the recent  results that and a feeling of doubt creeping in my head regarding Gerrard , I’d still be more concerned if he started chopping and changing swapping formations and the way we play, I’m not saying he’s in the same bracket as the managers I’m about to mention but it took time for Arteta , Pep and Klopp even David Moyes at West Ham to build a playing style, It’s obvious what our game plan is we just can’t execute it at present even Conte was under pressure a few months ago. So no he’s nothing like those you mentioned, none of those had a clear identity in how the play.

Edited April 14, 2022 by gwi1890

[duke313]

4 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

As annoyed as I am at the recent  results that and a feeling of doubt creeping in my head regarding Gerrard , I’d still be more concerned if he started chopping and changing swapping formations and the way we play, I’m not saying he’s in the same bracket as the managers I’m about to mention but it took time for Arteta , Pep and Klopp even David Moyes at West Ham to build a playing style, It’s obvious what our game plan is we just can’t execute it at present even Conte was under pressure a few months ago. So no he’s nothing like those you mentioned, none of those had a clear identity in how the play.

In a way that was Smith's undoing.

[El Segundo]

I read today that Gerrard's win percentage with us is less than Lampard's at Everton which I found hard to believe, however Wikipedia (I know) suggest it's true though.  Gerrard 38.1% from 21 games, Lampard 38.46% from 13 games.   Points per game slightly better though at 1.24 compared to 1.15 because we've drawn a couple of games and they haven't.  Not sure what this says about Gerrard's performance so far but Lampard doesn't seem to be generally considered a successful appointment by Everton.

[duke313]

9 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

I read today that Gerrard's win percentage with us is less than Lampard's at Everton which I found hard to believe, however Wikipedia (I know) suggest it's true though.  Gerrard 38.1% from 21 games, Lampard 38.46% from 13 games.   Points per game slightly better though at 1.24 compared to 1.15 because we've drawn a couple of games and they haven't.  Not sure what this says about Gerrard's performance so far but Lampard doesn't seem to be generally considered a successful appointment by Everton.

Lampard's includes an FA Cup win against Boreham Wood.

[DCJonah]

 

I enjoy seeing this and hearing him makes me want to give him time. 

 

[PaulC]

36 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

 

I enjoy seeing this and hearing him makes me want to give him time. 

 

Yes it was entertaining

[Laughable Chimp]

50 minutes ago, El Segundo said:

I read today that Gerrard's win percentage with us is less than Lampard's at Everton which I found hard to believe, however Wikipedia (I know) suggest it's true though.  Gerrard 38.1% from 21 games, Lampard 38.46% from 13 games.   Points per game slightly better though at 1.24 compared to 1.15 because we've drawn a couple of games and they haven't.  Not sure what this says about Gerrard's performance so far but Lampard doesn't seem to be generally considered a successful appointment by Everton.

Gerrard's PPG is 1.3. Lampard's is 0.9

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, El Segundo said:

I read today that Gerrard's win percentage with us is less than Lampard's at Everton which I found hard to believe, however Wikipedia (I know) suggest it's true though.  Gerrard 38.1% from 21 games, Lampard 38.46% from 13 games.   Points per game slightly better though at 1.24 compared to 1.15 because we've drawn a couple of games and they haven't.  Not sure what this says about Gerrard's performance so far but Lampard doesn't seem to be generally considered a successful appointment by Everton.

He has less mates in the media.

[briny_ear]

1 hour ago, El Segundo said:

I read today that Gerrard's win percentage with us is less than Lampard's at Everton which I found hard to believe, however Wikipedia (I know) suggest it's true though.  Gerrard 38.1% from 21 games, Lampard 38.46% from 13 games.   Points per game slightly better though at 1.24 compared to 1.15 because we've drawn a couple of games and they haven't.  Not sure what this says about Gerrard's performance so far but Lampard doesn't seem to be generally considered a successful appointment by Everton.

Any decent statistician would tell you the  difference between 38.1 and 38.46% is not significant, especially when there is such a big difference in the denominator. So I think we can safely say this tells us nothing of much interest.

We know both Gerrard and Lampard have been struggling to get consistent performances out of squads that at the moment look to be less than the sum of their individual parts.

[PerryBarrPet]

26 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Any decent statistician would tell you the  difference between 38.1 and 38.46% is not significant, especially when there is such a big difference in the denominator. So I think we can safely say this tells us nothing of much interest.

We know both Gerrard and Lampard have been struggling to get consistent performances out of squads that at the moment look to be less than the sum of their individual parts.

All this just seems to confirm the old saying “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Use stats with care as there is often far more to consider.

[nick76]

2 minutes ago, PerryBarrPet said:

All this just seems to confirm the old saying “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Use stats with care as there is often far more to consider.

Statistically this statement is 100% correct