Steven Gerrard

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

1 minute ago, hippo said:

Not anymore. It used to be the thing - but modern pizza makers have moved on and its use has widely discredited.

You don't need to wait for expensive pineapples to arrive in the summer - a good pineapple maker get the best out of what he has 

And don't get me started on those narrow pizzas - it will never work.

Well played

[TRO]

16 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

His achievement of turning round a huge oil tanker shouldn’t be underestimated, neither should the time it took to achieve it. But we’re Villa and have spent a fortune, so we surely are entitled to demand better? This may be the modern thinking in this entitled world but that’s still not how things always work. 
 

Despite colossal spending Man U, for them, are massively underperforming and are yet to actually nail down a manager after how long? We have still won The European Cup more times than, Man City, Arsenal and Spurs. In fact in Spurs case we’ve won the league more recently than they have. 
 

I don’t know if SG can take us forward or not, but I’m pretty sure it takes time no matter who the manager is and how much money is spent. Many people on various social media platforms, demanded the removal of David Moyes from WestHam, a couple of summers ago. If he’d been released and we’d appointed him, you’d hear the screams from here in outer space. Now he’s got managerial property. 
 

Gerrard may or may not click for us. All those years ago an unfashionable journey man called Saunders walked through the gates. He wasn’t serenaded at the time and he was often quite a divisive character. When he sold Andy Gray, by choice and replaced him with another journeyman called Peter Withe, could you imagine the reaction on here? Now we maybe about to name a stand after him.

It may be easy on a keyboard, but success takes a lot of time and hard work. A bit of luck never does any harm either. 

Provided we have spent right......I believe, we have only partly, spent right.

[TRO]

16 hours ago, Zhan_Zhuang said:

It's pretty obvious the players are not good enough and aren't listening to the manager.

He said it or alluded to it in his first few interviews, players need to learn and listen. Some haven't listened behind closed-doors and now he's picking them up on it, hence we know a few will be out in the summer.

maybe they are listening, but just can't do.

[VillaFaninLondon]

Tried to avoid all things Villa the last 2 weeks, now realise why I did, everything still very negative and the Spurs result was embarrassing even though we never in a million years deserved to lose 4-0 (if at all). Any more defeats like that though and Gerrard's popularity will continue to wane like it has the past 3 months. 

 

I feel of the last 7 games this season if Gerrard doesn’t win at least 3 of them against the likes of Norwich, Burnley and Palace then we should be looking for a new manager come the summer. I really think any more poor results and confidence will start to be lost in him because we haven’t progressed at all under him in nearly 6 months.

 

When Smith left we were 15^th and largely considered to be underperforming, Gerrard has been here nearly 6 months and we are…..15^th. We sacked Smith because the owners/Purslow didn’t like losing 5 games in a row, having teams put 4 past us on our own patch, averaging a point a game in the calendar year….but that’s exactly what we’re doing under Gerrard too in 2022. Take away those 12 points from his opening 6 games (when I genuinely believe those results were a consequence of a new manager bounce and managers having not figured his style out yet), we’ve taken 14 points from 14 games in 2022 as well as losing a cup game. I’m sorry but that is no better than Smith and unless we’re employing double standards then I don’t understand why we would show any more patience to Gerrard.

 

I say this with no exaggeration, this season feels almost as disappointing as the one where we went down. Of course not as humiliating, but to counter that we had poor ownership, the club as a whole was rotten, and generally a poor squad that season (even though our summer 2015 dealings were in hindsight actually quite good given the vast majority of those signings have gone on to have very good careers). Despite losing Grealish last summer, and even despite not signing a CM which we really should have done, I did not expect us to be anywhere near as bad as we have been this season. An optimist would have said 7^th or 8^th at the start of the season, a pessimist 11th or 12^th, but I don’t think anyone would think we’d be 15^th and below some pretty bad teams (Brentford, Palace, Brighton, Newcastle). I also can’t believe Wolves are so far ahead of us, it’s embarrassing, we finished 10 points ahead of them last season and their owners pulled back on investing 2 years ago.

 

So is it the players or the manager? Well I definitely think our players are mentally weak and absolutely spineless, but I don’t think Gerrard’s management is helping them. I don’t think anyone has performed better than they were under Smith since Gerrard came in with the possible exception of Ramsey and maybe Cash going forward. This squad is not a 15^th placed squad at all, it should be several places higher, and in terms of underachievement this season only Everton could say they have performed worse than us compared to what was expected of them. And Everton are an absolute shambles.

 

I haven’t watched the last 3 games but I’ll reluctantly tune in at the weekend against Leicester. Gerrard needs to get at least a point and stop this horrible rot or surely they will have to start questioning if they made a mistake appointing him. He was always a risky appointment, we appointed a rookie with no experience of top-level football except in a league that is no better than League 1, we should have gone all out to bring a high-profile manager in and then maybe this season would not have been such a sh*t show.  

[Peter Griffin]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

For a less tired argument, does pineapple belong on a pizza?

The problem with that question is that some people will be just against pineapples regardless how they taste on a pizza and just won't give pineapples a fair chance. If you are anti Pineapple there is nothing can be said to convince people otherwise and they will just ignore all facts and grasp at straws to find a reason pineapple should not be included on a pizza. 

[DaveAV1]

3 minutes ago, Zatman said:

He was sacked after losing 5 in a row. Is that not a fact

Yes that’s a fact, but you’ve left out other facts, such as our results throughout a much longer period had also been poor. He was sacked on the back of 9 months of poor results culminating in 5 defeats. The board no longer believed that we were continuing to make progress. 

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, DaveAV1 said:

Yes that’s a fact, but you’ve left out other facts, such as our results throughout a much longer period had also been poor. He was sacked on the back of 9 months of poor results culminating in 5 defeats. The board no longer believed that we were continuing to make progress. 

Ok while some of it is true. In comparison our current manager is on month 4 of poor results and we look like making no progress and also on the verge of losing 4 on a row

He also doesn't even have the credit in the bank Smith had

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, meregreen said:

We were shit for some time before those defeats though.

I think the 5 in a row, was just the straw that broke the Camels back......The calendar year of 2021 was Annus Horribilus.....and Dean was making so many unusual changes towards the end searching for answers.

This is the same team almost, with a new manager.....and we are still searching for answers.

[Newry_Villan]

He's been here from November and apart from the "new manager bounce" he hasn't got a tune out of this squad. We are getting worse under him . Out of his depth. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

7 minutes ago, Zatman said:

our current manager is on month 4 of poor results and we look like making no progress and also on the verge of losing 4 on a row

He also doesn't even have the credit in the bank Smith had

Didn't we win 3 in a row like 1 or 2 months ago?

[Steero113]

2 minutes ago, Newry_Villan said:

He's been here from November and apart from the "new manager bounce" he hasn't got a tune out of this squad. We are getting worse under him . Out of his depth. 

We won 3 in a row, conceded zero and scored 9 literally 40 days ago. 

[IrishVilla10]

3 minutes ago, Newry_Villan said:

He's been here from November and apart from the "new manager bounce" he hasn't got a tune out of this squad. We are getting worse under him . Out of his depth. 

if you ignore the three wins in a row, yeah

 

[Zatman]

First 14 games of 2021(the apparent bad year) we got 18 points thats after a huge covid outbreak. Grealish played 8 of them games, we picked up 8 points in the 6 he missed 

2022 we have 14 points from 14 games 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Didn't we win 3 in a row like 1 or 2 months ago?

EDIT: We won 2 in a row emphatically, literally last month. Lol

[Zatman]

1 minute ago, Steero113 said:

We won 3 in a row, conceded zero and scored 9 literally 40 days ago. 

Then the "manager" changed back to his system and we lost 4 in a row

[Peter Griffin]

I think a lot of people are ignoring, deliberately or otherwise, that Purslow employed SG in the full knowledge that he is a young manager and inexperienced in the PL. Even when the SG announcement was made Purslow stated (I am paraphrasing here) that it is SG's attitude to football, his desire to win and his pedigree as a winner that made SG a standout candidate for the job. Everyone in the media and everyone on here debated SG's inexperience. It is naïve to think CP expected SG to become an error free PL manager overnight. SG has only managed in the PL for 20 games and he is still learning as a manager. As long as SG sticks to his principles his job at Villa is safe till at least next Oct/Nov regardless of remaining results this season. Just like NSWE and CP  gave Deano time, they will also give SG time. If u are not a fan on SG, be prepared for a lot longer having to see him as our manager.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Then the "manager" changed back to his system and we lost 4 in a row

Ok, but your original statement is still non fact.

He changed back to that system, and we performed well in the first half, but lost 4 - 0.

As a matter of fact, in the prior game against Wolves, Ings was out due to his baby being born... So you don't know if he would have played it or not.

This moving goalposts game is..... 

Edited April 18, 2022 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[VillaFaninLondon]

17 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Yes, he was.

However, we were actually linked with Managers, as early as the season before, during a tough run.

We were linked with the likes of Bruno Lage, who people laughed off, as we had no clue who he was ( Myself included... Looking stupid about now. Lol )

As even you might agree, the 5 in a row was just their final excuse/reasoning to do what they probably wanted to do for a while.

Look, aside from actual results, there will 100 percent be things behind the scenes which none of us know.

They will have known what they liked and didn't like from Deano, what they thought his ceiling and characteristics were etc, and if they thought he could take us to the next level. Whether the cons outweighed the pros etc. They will not have taken getting rid of such a popular character at the club lightly. IMO

Of course it could all turn out to be wrong, but the notion that keeps coming up " he was only sacked for losing 5 in a row " is grossly inaccurate.

In fairness I did mention that the form of 2021 was a key factor too.

 

Would he have lost his job if we'd lost 5 in a row but our form in the calendar year had been good and consistent? I'm not sure, maybe not, but I think 5 defeats in a row looks bad on any manager's CV especially for a team that says it wants to be knocking on the door of the top 7.

[PussEKatt]

FFS.Surely he should be given "at least"one full season.

What the squad is doing now ( not turning up for games ) they were doing under D.S. and he was in charge for 3 years.I didnt see it but apparently when he bought Norwich to VP a banner was unfurled for him.So, taking all that into consideration,how high did we finish under D.S, how much " total" did he spend and what did we achieve from all that ?  

[Newry_Villan]

4 minutes ago, IrishVilla10 said:

if you ignore the three wins in a row, yeah

 

Ah that changes everything. He changes tactics for them 3 games and then reverts back to that Christmas tree formation. Seems like stubbornness to me. Should play to the strengths of the squad not force formations and tactics for which we don't have the players.