Steven Gerrard

[PussEKatt]

According to SG.We have bought upgraded players,strengthened the spine,had 2 transfer windows and "are in a good place"yet in only 2 games (Bournmouth and Palace ) we have scored 1 and conceeded 5.Not exactly the results I would expect from a team trying to qualify for europe ?

[daft]

1 minute ago, Made In Aston said:

The most worrying thing is that it's not just Gerrard when it comes to tactics. We have 2 other assistants who provide input, yet we look completely clueless and do weird things like deliver deep crosses all day against Bournemouth when we have no height up front. 

Most clubs do. Even Klopp and Pep depend to a large extent on assistants and coaches for tactical plans and input. Same goes for the clubs analytics department.

That said, I'm not arguing SG is even close to them, but I still think the 'he relies on his coaches' is somewhat overblown as a critique. 

[DCJonah]

8 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

35 league games into his Arsenal tenure, Arteta was on a run of 7 without a win, taking 2 points and including defeats to Burnley, Everton and us. Gerrard's worst 7 game run is 5 points and 5 games his worst winless run. Arteta's ppg at that point equated to less than 4 points per season more than Gerrard's current ppg with arguably a better squad and much higher expectations. Seems pertinent.

You don't seem to think anything is wrong at all. You don't have any concerns for this season based on what you've seen?

[KentVillan]

3 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

The most worrying thing is that it's not just Gerrard when it comes to tactics. We have 2 other assistants who provide input, yet we look completely clueless and do weird things like deliver deep crosses all day against Bournemouth when we have no height up front. 

I hope in a few years one of the key players here puts out a warts and all autobiography because I’d love to know what’s actually been going on behind the scenes at Villa Park these last few years. Are those specialist coaches really spending all week drilling floated crosses to nobody, or are the players just doing their own thing? Or is Gerrard overruling? It makes no sense!

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, PussEKatt said:

According to SG.We have bought upgraded players,strengthened the spine,had 2 transfer windows and "are in a good place"yet in only 2 games (Bournmouth and Palace ) we have scored 1 and conceeded 5.Not exactly the results I would expect from a team trying to qualify for europe ?

No excuse culture at the club. 

[Made In Aston]

2 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The sad thing is, I think most fans weren’t actually out to get Gerrard from the start.

That early performance against Man City, where we lost but probably deserved to win, was a huge improvement on what had been served up before, and he was focused on us being more compact off the ball - something that had been a problem under Smith.

What brought that to an end was the Nakamba injury.

Then he signed Coutinho, and there was a feeling that now we had a manager who could attract big names.

But as time has gone by, there’s very little evidence of that compact off the ball approach being a consistent feature of our games. Coutinho has completely faded.

Whatever’s going on is a coaching / management issue. Yes some players are underperforming, but he has a big squad, and players don’t get punished for underperforming - they seem to get punished more for not sucking up to Stevie, or not being his kind of person.

And to the people clinging to the idea that we just need a couple more signings… come on, we comfortably have at least the 10th best squad in the league. It’s madness to think that our points total this year is a reflection of the squad. It’s an expensive squad with loads of injury cover, and game changers on the bench. It’s not perfect, but most teams outside the Champions League clubs have big flaws too. Good managers work around it.

Some of the excuses in this thread are just pride, because people backed Gerrard as a big step up from Smith, and people are clawing about for an answer that doesn’t amount to “I was wrong”.

Yes we were getting expected results in the early days. Although Nakamba is limited he was performing a key role to break up opponents attacks and press.

He seems to have moved away from playing a CDM who can do that and I think that is part of the problem.  Kamara and luiz aren't going to do this as effectively and the other midfielders like McGinn and Ramsey don't really add much defensive guile either. 

I think having Nakamba breaking up the play and giving it to Kamara for distribution would be the way to go. We would be much more solid and able to dictate play from midfield more effectively. 

[tomsky_11]

12 minutes ago, DeadlyDirk said:

Just to back up what you're saying Thug.... When we look at league matches, the PPG actually looks like this....

Dean Smith - 1.39 PPG over 139 League Games

Steven Gerrard - 1.23 Over 31 League Games

If people are going to drop PPG into the equation, at least use the full figures rather then taking a small sample size to back you're own argument up. It's what politician's do, you're better than that. We all are.

If people are going to drop PPG into the equation, at least use the correct figures rather then taking a wrong sample size to back you're own argument up. It's what politician's do, you're better than that. We all are.

[Made In Aston]

5 minutes ago, daft said:

Most clubs do. Even Klopp and Pep depend to a large extent on assistants and coaches for tactical plans and input. Same goes for the clubs analytics department.

That said, I'm not arguing SG is even close to them, but I still think the 'he relies on his coaches' is somewhat overblown as a critique. 

My point is that there are 3 people giving tactical input and this dire losing football is the end result. I could understand it if it was just Gerrard who clueless, but there is no excuse with 3 people. 

[Jas10]

7 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

The most worrying thing is that it's not just Gerrard when it comes to tactics. We have 2 other assistants who provide input, yet we look completely clueless and do weird things like deliver deep crosses all day against Bournemouth when we have no height up front. 

We need a proper clearout. Worst of all are Danks and McPhee, utterly useless.

Only Cutler has any value and should remain.

Our biggest weakness is lack of effective coaching. I really don’t know what they all do because it is dire out there on that pitch, absolutely dire…

It’s embarrassing, atm we are one of the worst teams in this league which is crazy considering our resources and players… I can’t actually fathom how any of this is tolerable. The way we are going, we’ll end up in a relegation scrap unless some major changes are made.

When Purslow sacked the previous manager, he claimed it was because there was no “continual improvement”… well… there is nothing of the sort and those look like completely hollow words… why are stuck with this guy then? What has he done to warrant time?

All I see is a sinking ship and the captain (SG) is the biggest culprit…

Other teams are making us look even more ridiculous… and they don’t have anywhere near the finances and resources we have. Man for man, we have better players too but we can’t get any from out of them whereas other managers are getting the very best out of players that no one really even rates…

it’s a disaster…

[PussEKatt]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

No excuse culture at the club. 

Out of all the managers we have had,SG can really talk up a great performance.

[KentVillan]

18 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

35 league games into his Arsenal tenure, Arteta was on a run of 7 without a win, taking 2 points and including defeats to Burnley, Everton and us. Gerrard's worst 7 game run is 5 points and 5 games his worst winless run. Arteta's ppg at that point equated to less than 4 points per season more than Gerrard's current ppg with arguably a better squad and much higher expectations. Seems pertinent.

Arteta had been a key figure in Guardiola’s setup at City, though, and won the FA Cup early on. I think most people saw him as tactically astute but a bit of a David Brent. You could see what he was trying to do, but maybe his man management wasn’t up to scratch.

With Gerrard, I don’t really get a sense of what his plan is. In fairness to him, that may simply be because he doesn’t want to talk about it in public, and maybe he’s working flat out behind the scenes to get the right players in and implement a system.

The Carlos injury is very unlucky, and maybe that’s why we’ve gone back to hoofing it from the back (although if he wants us to play it out from the back, why not start Chambers?).

There are definitely some mitigating circumstances, but it’s getting harder and harder to justify with each passing week.

West Ham are playing badly at the moment, so maybe we’ll get something out of that game. After that it’s a really nasty run of fixtures, and something big needs to happen to stop all this Gerrard Out chat.

Edited August 23, 2022 by KentVillan

[danceoftheshamen]

5 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

The most worrying thing is that it's not just Gerrard when it comes to tactics. We have 2 other assistants who provide input, yet we look completely clueless and do weird things like deliver deep crosses all day against Bournemouth when we have no height up front. 

Exactly, add to that you are playing a team who have one thing in attack, (a load of tall heads on sticks) so you put in your smallest & least physical defender (Konsa) and leaving out your bigger more physical guys who would most likely have nullified that threat whilst also contributing with goals & assists going forwards and was possibly the stand out defender at the club since his arrival (Chambers & Mings) 

The baffling insistance on leaving Chambers out, who I think we have all been impressed with,  when we are conceding goals for fun is simply bizzarre. 

[Thug]

41 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Given the end of last season keeps being brought up, what does it mean that the last 11 games of last season our only defeats were City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham and Wolves

You do realise smith was sacked for defeats against:

Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, wolves and Southampton.

This was despite having 10pts on the board from the previous 5 games? 
 

We’ve not progressed at all.  We’ve gone backwards.  To replace Smith with a rookie manager was an utterly appalling decision.

Getting rid of Smith should only have happened for an elite manager.

Such an amateur move.  

[DeadlyDirk]

5 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

If people are going to drop PPG into the equation, at least use the correct figures rather then taking a wrong sample size to back you're own argument up. It's what politician's do, you're better than that. We all are.

Don't follow.

[duke313]

2 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

My point is that there are 3 people giving tactical input and this dire losing football is the end result. I could understand it if it was just Gerrard who clueless, but there is no excuse with 3 people. 

You'd think one of them would have the balls to say " Stevie, whatever this is, it ain't working".

[danceoftheshamen]

6 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

Yes we were getting expected results in the early days. Although Nakamba is limited he was performing a key role to break up opponents attacks and press.

He seems to have moved away from playing a CDM who can do that and I think that is part of the problem.  Kamara and luiz aren't going to do this as effectively and the other midfielders like McGinn and Ramsey don't really add much defensive guile either. 

I think having Nakamba breaking up the play and giving it to Kamara for distribution would be the way to go. We would be much more solid and able to dictate play from midfield more effectively. 

Again I agree with you MIA, Most of last season Gerrard was singing Nakamba's praises and was gutted when he got injured when our results dipped also. His reward? He gets bombed out into the "sell" group! I mean what the heck?! We know he is limited but talk about confusing messages.

[nick76]

38 minutes ago, tomsky_11 said:

Yeah, I mean if that line keeps going we'll be getting negative ppg before long...

Just commenting on your comment that if form continued we would be top half this season but the form shows that it's not true.  I'm not sure saying the comment about negative ppg is supposed to help the case you are presenting rather it just shows the flawed conclusion. 

If the form continued then we were more likely to be fighting relegation that challenging for a top half position. 

The first three games of this season we have 1 point per game over three games which carries on the trend and we have difficult matches coming up. 

It's plain to see the trend is not backing up the argument you were presenting. 

The brilliant six games at the beginning of his tenure that never continued is propping up the stat that helped the argument you were presenting but when analysed in detail it was heavily flawed to be of use in the conclusion you made about this season

[tomsky_11]

Just now, DeadlyDirk said:

Don't follow.

As in your figures were wrong.

[nick76]

40 minutes ago, weedman said:

then levelled out a bit. 

9 points in the last 11 games is not levelling out

[PussEKatt]

Just now, danceoftheshamen said:

 

The baffling insistance on leaving Chambers out, who I think we have all been impressed with,  when we are conceding goals for fun is simply bizzarre. 

Thats not baffaling at all.He consistantly leaves Emi out and made McGinn captain.The sooner he learns that what works in the SPL will not work here the better.