Steven Gerrard

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

3 minutes ago, hippo said:

..and of course whose the philosophy football will work - even with his own players ?

Seems like a lot of eggs going into one basket for me.

 

 

Not disagreeing necessarily.

If anything, it gave me food for thought about the criticisms to be honest.

[VillaParkAvenue]

2 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Was listening to a couple of the Villa Podcasts last night. Some of the opinion from different contributors are much like the thread.

In some sense, contradictory, like us as well.

They all mention that our players are too " small " , get bullied too easily, and agree that some of our " favourites " might need to be moved on and/or become squad players as they are simply not going to cut it.

Obviously they also mention that we desperately need a DM.

They've also started to have some concerns over Gerrard, but agree that he should get at least a summer.

* Is he stubbornly trying to stick to " philosophy football " at the expense of " winning football " with what we've currently got? Was one quote.

Just like on the board, it's interesting to hear that different contributors have different opinions lol. You can tell a couple of them would be ok to bin him, while others think it's crazy talk.

 

Would Gerrard really count as a philosophy manager?

Some of the complaints seem to be the same almost regardless of club. Fans often complain about the state of their own midfield, about being too nice and having strikers that don’t score.

[hippo]

8 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

Would Gerrard really count as a philosophy manager?

Some of the complaints seem to be the same almost regardless of club. Fans often complain about the state of their own midfield, about being too nice and having strikers that don’t score.

I think the width coming from the full backs - and no wingers is what is meant by Gerrard's philosophy.

 

[TRO]

On 13/04/2022 at 18:32, 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.

I accept your take...but I think it drifts in and out of context.and I disagree with you first line highlighted.....but trust in your self, is confidence and mental strength.

I am no mental therapist, but I do believe there is a close association between confidence and Mental strength.

mine was a generalisation, and I stand by it.

Confidence is intrinsic.....you can tell someone every day they are great, but they have to believe it....a confident person is usually mentally resillient.

Yes, I am still as confident as ever, that he will get this right......my doubts are to do with the ingredients in the team and until he can rectify that, I don't see it changing.

When you talk about confidence in outside forces, I think you are drifting away from the point....I don't have to be mentally strong, to believe SG will do well, that type of confidence is different, thats more judgment.

but hey, thats just my take , too.

Edited April 15, 2022 by TRO

[blandy]

10 minutes ago, TRO said:

I do believe there is a close association between confidence and Mental strength

I'll not labour my point, but sticking to SG, even in interviews and stuff it's clear that SG has mental strength, I'll grant you that, but he's said about various things in his career that he was not confident (despite that innate mental strength). Mental strength in some regards is like physical strength, but confidence is a much more fleeting thing. When players even the "mentally strong" ones like Gerrard was get a bad injury - their mental strength can help them through the injury and recovery, but they'll all say when they go into that first tackle after coming back from injury that they were less than confident about making that tackle, and then once they'd made a few and were not injured again, they regained that confidence...

And it's the same with Gerrard's team - a few defeats (like with a player getting injured) and that fleeting thing, confidence just wanes and vanishes, and then they score a goal and suddenly everything feels better. His players are not mentally weak they don't get to be Premier league footballers, beating god knows what odds without being mentally and physically strong. Gerrard himself may be mentally stronger than they are, or he may not, but perseverance, dilligence, intelligence and a load of other stuff are the things the manager and players need. Confidence is a consequence of those things working, but it comes and goes from the strongest and the weakest people, because it's a factor influenced much more by the things they can't control than those they can.

[hippo]

8 minutes ago, blandy said:

I'll not labour my point, but sticking to SG, even in interviews and stuff it's clear that SG has mental strength, I'll grant you that, but he's said about various things in his career that he was not confident (despite that innate mental strength). Mental strength in some regards is like physical strength, but confidence is a much more fleeting thing. When players even the "mentally strong" ones like Gerrard was get a bad injury - their mental strength can help them through the injury and recovery, but they'll all say when they go into that first tackle after coming back from injury that they were less than confident about making that tackle, and then once they'd made a few and were not injured again, they regained that confidence...

And it's the same with Gerrard's team - a few defeats (like with a player getting injured) and that fleeting thing, confidence just wanes and vanishes, and then they score a goal and suddenly everything feels better. His players are not mentally weak they don't get to be Premier league footballers, beating god knows what odds without being mentally and physically strong. Gerrard himself may be mentally stronger than they are, or he may not, but perseverance, dilligence, intelligence and a load of other stuff are the things the manager and players need. Confidence is a consequence of those things working, but it comes and goes from the strongest and the weakest people, because it's a factor influenced much more by the things they can't control than those they can.

I think I got this off here a while back - about good players not making good managers - because they are naturally gifted.

Anyway a guy was on holiday and the hotel entertainment was rifle shooting. The rep who took the shooting had won trophies all over being good at rifle shooting.

But he then said to the client 

"I'm not really a very good instructor- because I just picked up a rifle and could pretty much do it straight away"

I think there may be shades of that with Stevie - he had so much energy, natural athletic ability - he can't comprehend those that don't.  

 

 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, hippo said:

I think I got this off here a while back - about good players not making good managers - because they are naturally gifted.

Anyway a guy was on holiday and the hotel entertainment was rifle shooting. The rep who took the shooting had won trophies all over being good at rifle shooting.

But he then said to the client 

"I'm not really a very good instructor- because I just picked up a rifle and could pretty much do it straight away"

I think there may be shades of that with Stevie - he had so much energy, natural athletic ability - he can't comprehend those that don't.  

There maybe a bit of that, I agree, but I think he got the players certainly believing in themselves more when he came in, and working harder, but I'm not sure he's got them believing in the tactics and stuff so much, and I'm not sure he's demonstrated he knows what to do when things don't go to plan - not because he's terrible at it, but because the other managers of the other team are generally more experienced and wiser - it's where you'd hope the other coaches could support him more, but collectively it's not working, or only works on limited occasions now. I dunno if it's a bit of determined inflexibility, or something else, a genuine gap in capability.

[Zatman]

20 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Very good video.

Interesting that he thinks Suarez is the best player he's ever played with, even over Coutinho!

Mentions that he's as intense in training as he was in games.

Xabi Alonso was better than both of them but sure he couldnt tell an elite DM to save his life

[tezzaleed]

18 hours ago, hippo said:

I think the width coming from the full backs - and no wingers is what is meant by Gerrard's philosophy.

 

This.   Imo this is the big flaw.  playing with wing backs instead of full backs in a back 4 is insane in the prem.  we're effectively playing with only 2 full time defenders.   its no wonder konsa and mings suddenly look shit. 

[hippo]

Just now, tezzaleed said:

This.   Imo this is the big flaw.  playing with wing backs instead of full backs in a back 4 is insane in the prem.  we're effectively playing with only 2 full time defenders.   its no wonder konsa and mings suddenly look shit. 

Exactly.

And if fans on an internet forum can see that -im sure opposition managers can.

[messi11]

He needs to go
He's always blaming the players but tell me. do we have better players then Brighton and Brentford? 
 

[STO]

1 minute ago, messi11 said:

He needs to go
He's always blaming the players but tell me. do we have better players then Brighton and Brentford? 
 

 

Perhaps better to answer that question at the end of the season, but the table doesn't lie.  We have a lot of mid-table players at Villa, they are far too comfortable and being paid really well.  It needs a shake up. 

[Sam-AVFC]

1 minute ago, STO said:

 

Perhaps better to answer that question at the end of the season, but the table doesn't lie.  We have a lot of mid-table players at Villa, they are far too comfortable and being paid really well.  It needs a shake up. 

I've always found this a weird cliché. Teams perform above or below their relative abilities every season.

[messi11]

2 minutes ago, STO said:

 

Perhaps better to answer that question at the end of the season, but the table doesn't lie.  We have a lot of mid-table players at Villa, they are far too comfortable and being paid really well.  It needs a shake up. 

So Brentford and Brighton have a better side then us?
No its a tactics issue not a players issue. 

[Villa_Vids]

6 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I've always found this a weird cliché. Teams perform above or below their relative abilities every season.

Sheffield Utd being a strong example in recent years.

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, messi11 said:

He needs to go
He's always blaming the players but tell me. do we have better players then Brighton and Brentford? 
 

To be honest, I haven't heard him blaming the players with any regularity, to warrant reporting that he does.

In places where defending is required, possibly no....Brighton have a better defensive record than us,despite us getting the double over them...but we score more goals than them, so its hard to say, collectively we are better or worse...better at somethings ,worse at others.

We are already linked with Brightons CDM, so, its possible the club think he is better than what we have......Not much between us and Brentford, maybe certain individuals out flank on both sides.....we just pay more than them for our players, than them.

 

[TRO]

On 15/04/2022 at 11:13, tezzaleed said:

I'm worried about the rumours of a mass clear out.  konsa, Bailey, buendia, ings, mcginn, mings all been mentioned.   mass change is rarely good and usually results in a short term backwards step.  hope its all bullshit.  if not then I'd rather we got shot of Gerrard now before we start going backwards and sink the club into crippling debt.  the squad is good enough for a top ten finish with the right formation and manager.

You have to have buyers to do that.....I'm not so certain we have.

but, its not, as it stands.....it needs rectification, it needs specific additions, it has holes in it, that even the dogs around Aston know about.

If he is the wrong manager, we will soon find out when he has the tools( new players to suit him) to fix his squad.

[Peter Griffin]

25 minutes ago, TRO said:

If he is the wrong manager, we will soon find out when he has the tools( new players to suit him) to fix his squad.

I am not so sure we will find that out too soon. So far SG has shown he can have a great run of results and a bad run of results. He has also shown us that he can play lovely football and that he can play fairly poor football. Sometime subs are good and sometime subs are bad. SG has done alright as manager, nothing more nothing less. But SG has something about him, he is a winner and he knows the game inside out. When we appointed SG, many people didn't want him due to his lack of experience at the top level. This was a very valid concern but CP appointed him due to his other attributes. SG is still a novice at PL management. I think he has only managed 20 games in total. He is still learning and he will likely improve. I think we need to give SG a couple of years as our manager to see the true manager that SG is, be that a good one or a bad one. As long as we are doing reasonably well and have no threat of relegation I hope CP gives him the time to make some mistakes and learn PL management and get comfortable in the job. We may then see a really good manager. If we don't then I would hope we would be in a better position than when he joined us

[sne]

6 minutes ago, Peter Griffin said:

I am not so sure we will find that out too soon. So far SG has shown he can have a great run of results and a bad run of results. He has also shown us that he can play lovely football and that he can play fairly poor football. Sometime subs are good and sometime subs are bad. SG has done alright as manager, nothing more nothing less. But SG has something about him, he is a winner and he knows the game inside out. When we appointed SG, many people didn't want him due to his lack of experience at the top level. This was a very valid concern but CP appointed him due to his other attributes. SG is still a novice at PL management. I think he has only managed 20 games in total. He is still learning and he will likely improve. I think we need to give SG a couple of years as our manager to see the true manager that SG is, be that a good one or a bad one. As long as we are doing reasonably well and have no threat of relegation I hope CP gives him the time to make some mistakes and learn PL management and get comfortable in the job. We may then see a really good manager. If we don't then I would hope we would be in a better position than when he joined us

Nice for Gerrard that he gets to learn the job here before applying for the Liverpool gig but in that scenario Villa would be a bit like Meg

Not sure that's what our owners are aiming for with the club.

[STO]

1 hour ago, messi11 said:

So Brentford and Brighton have a better side then us?
No its a tactics issue not a players issue. 

 

Brentford have played two games more than us and at the moment have more points than us.  Let's wait to see how the season finishes before we say who is better than who.  When the season ends, we will finish in the place we deserve to have finished in.  Some teams around do indeed have some better players.  Bissouma is better than what we have, Toney is arguably a better finisher than what we have at the moment.  It doesn't make Brighton or Brentford better than us, it simply means that they have the odd player here and there that we'd probably like in our side.  What you argument does show is that both of those teams are above us, so we need our players to live up the level that we THINK they should.