Steven Gerrard

[Jas10]

5 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

That is, unsurprisingly, a completely reductive and ahistorical take on what happened.

We started that season with 3 wins in 12, picking up 15 points, before Bruce was dismissed, playing such dour football that it caused someone to throw a cabbage onto the pitch in anger.

Interestingly enough, Grealish didn't even get injured until 9 games later, by which point we'd already amassed a further 16 points under the new manager; a 42% increase in point accrual rate. Only 1 variable changed at this point.

To keep things equal, in the first 12 games under Smith we picked up 21 points, with some truly great performances if you'd recall (if you've suppressed them for whatever reason, you can peruse some of the respective reaction threads, they're very handily archived on the front page. I've linked the ones in question) away to Derby and Boro among them and an exciting 5-5 draw with Forest. You couldn't (well, maybe you could) call it anything but a marked improvement.

If we were to extend this run even further to your cutoff point of 4 months where we supposedly didn't improve at all, we picked up 27 points in 17 games by the end of January, or 1.59 PPG. Before Bruce got sacked we were picking up 1.25 PPG. I would posit that your assertion "made no difference to our performance for four months." is just categorically untrue.

To illustrate this, over a full Championship season, 1.25 PPG would have had us finish 16th that particular season with 57 points, and 1.59 PPG would have had us finish 7th on 73 points, incidentally just 3 points and 2 places shy of where we actually finished. That is a 16 point, and 9 position difference. The stats say it was an improvement, and the eye test said it was. Any Villa fan who says we didn't immediately improve under Smith either didn't watch us, doesn't remember what happened or quite frankly, is lying.

But you know it's strange, all that aside...I could have sworn Steve Bruce also had Jack Grealish among his ranks throughout the duration of his tenure, and I'm pretty sure the mad lad didn't just appear alongside Dean Smith in October of 2018. Yet for some reason, we never did go on a record-breaking 10 game winning run under Bruce did we? Nor did we ever manage to get promoted. Perhaps Grealish was holding back under Bruce, waiting to unleash his true potential for his successor? Did Smith make him a shadow player-manager? Maybe he let him pick the first XI every game?

Or maybe, and hear me out here, maybe Dean Smith was just a better manager and got more out of this team? He did in 34 games what his predecessor couldn't do in 92. With his squad. Jack Grealish played in both playoff finals. Jack Grealish was also there when we finished 13th in the Championship.

There are no guarantees in football, but managers do vary in ability and experience, and changing managers can absolutely have a positive effect. Dean Smith's appointment and subsequent successes are a case study in the matter. No amount of revisionism can change this.

We had hoped Gerrard would have the same effect once it became clear Smith couldn't progress is further, but that's okay. I'm sure there are plenty of managers out there willing to come here that have more managerial pedigree than our current incumbent who can get this giant ship back on course. And if we fail to appoint one, maybe our board should come into scrutiny. But make no mistake, our current malaise can be traced to a deficiency in coaching. Either this deficiency is corrected by the current coaching staff (based on the evidence, this seems highly unlikely, but it is the preferable option), or we get in another coaching team to do it.

[Laughable Chimp]

Before I forget, the current table since Gerrard's appointment

 

United and Liverpool are actually on 30 games and United have 3 more points due to their win over Liverpool. For some reason the website I'm using hasn't updated it yet.

[nick76]

31 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Before I forget, the current table since Gerrard's appointment

Why?

[UpTheVilla26]

One win against League 1 opposition,  playing a full strength team doesn't change anything for me. 

Yes, we won 4-1 but if you pick apart the goals, 1 was a freak goal, Ings would of been flagged by VAR for the pen & their 'keeper lost the plot for Digne's. Bailey's goal was nice but by then Bolton had had it. 

For large parts of that game we looked disjointed, got exposed in the full back positions again - especially down the left, the Midfield was poor and at times we looked like a bunch of strangers who'd met an hour before kick off. 

I'm of course happy my team have won but it won't gloss over anything. The formation Gerrard continues to force us to play has major problems and weak areas that in the Prem, are being exposed weekly. He won't change that, last night was a chance to try something different and he didn't and for 45mins we looked awful again. 

My one hope is some of them players will take confidence from that win and take it on themselves to perform at the weekend as we have to rely on the fact they are better than who they play now, because Gerrard and his management of this group is making no difference. 

[DCJonah]

3 hours ago, Keyblade said:

That is, unsurprisingly, a completely reductive and ahistorical take on what happened.

We started that season with 3 wins in 12, picking up 15 points, before Bruce was dismissed, playing such dour football that it caused someone to throw a cabbage onto the pitch in anger.

Interestingly enough, Grealish didn't even get injured until 9 games later, by which point we'd already amassed a further 16 points under the new manager; a 42% increase in point accrual rate. Only 1 variable changed at this point.

To keep things equal, in the first 12 games under Smith we picked up 21 points, with some truly great performances if you'd recall (if you've suppressed them for whatever reason, you can peruse some of the respective reaction threads, they're very handily archived on the front page. I've linked the ones in question) away to Derby and Boro among them and an exciting 5-5 draw with Forest. You couldn't (well, maybe you could) call it anything but a marked improvement.

If we were to extend this run even further to your cutoff point of 4 months where we supposedly didn't improve at all, we picked up 27 points in 17 games by the end of January, or 1.59 PPG. Before Bruce got sacked we were picking up 1.25 PPG. I would posit that your assertion "made no difference to our performance for four months." is just categorically untrue.

To illustrate this, over a full Championship season, 1.25 PPG would have had us finish 16th that particular season with 57 points, and 1.59 PPG would have had us finish 7th on 73 points, incidentally just 3 points and 2 places shy of where we actually finished. That is a 16 point, and 9 position difference. The stats say it was an improvement, and the eye test said it was. Any Villa fan who says we didn't immediately improve under Smith either didn't watch us, doesn't remember what happened or quite frankly, is lying.

But you know it's strange, all that aside...I could have sworn Steve Bruce also had Jack Grealish among his ranks throughout the duration of his tenure, and I'm pretty sure the mad lad didn't just appear alongside Dean Smith in October of 2018. Yet for some reason, we never did go on a record-breaking 10 game winning run under Bruce did we? Nor did we ever manage to get promoted. Perhaps Grealish was holding back under Bruce, waiting to unleash his true potential for his successor? Did Smith make him a shadow player-manager? Maybe he let him pick the first XI every game?

Or maybe, and hear me out here, maybe Dean Smith was just a better manager and got more out of this team? He did in 34 games what his predecessor couldn't do in 92. With his squad. Jack Grealish played in both playoff finals. Jack Grealish was also there when we finished 13th in the Championship.

There are no guarantees in football, but managers do vary in ability and experience, and changing managers can absolutely have a positive effect. Dean Smith's appointment and subsequent successes are a case study in the matter. No amount of revisionism can change this.

We had hoped Gerrard would have the same effect once it became clear Smith couldn't progress is further, but that's okay. I'm sure there are plenty of managers out there willing to come here that have more managerial pedigree than our current incumbent who can get this giant ship back on course. And if we fail to appoint one, maybe our board should come into scrutiny. But make no mistake, our current malaise can be traced to a deficiency in coaching. Either this deficiency is corrected by the current coaching staff (based on the evidence, this seems highly unlikely, but it is the preferable option), or we get in another coaching team to do it.

Ran out of likes but my word what a post. The thing I still find staggering is that the odd few who clearly had an agenda against Smith, as you've just demonstrated, seem absolutely stunned that anyone could be negative towards Gerrard. So much so, they openly mock any negativity. 

I can't get my head round it. 

[Laughable Chimp]

16 minutes ago, nick76 said:

Why?

I just think its interesting.

[nick76]

1 minute ago, Laughable Chimp said:

I just think its interesting.

Fair enough!  

It’s the only stat that doesn’t make Gerrard look too bad all because of those first six games which then hide the whole raft of issues we are faced with now.

[Demitri_C]

44 minutes ago, UpTheVilla26 said:

One win against League 1 opposition,  playing a full strength team doesn't change anything for me. 

Yes, we won 4-1 but if you pick apart the goals, 1 was a freak goal, Ings would of been flagged by VAR for the pen & their 'keeper lost the plot for Digne's. Bailey's goal was nice but by then Bolton had had it. 

For large parts of that game we looked disjointed, got exposed in the full back positions again - especially down the left, the Midfield was poor and at times we looked like a bunch of strangers who'd met an hour before kick off. 

I'm of course happy my team have won but it won't gloss over anything. The formation Gerrard continues to force us to play has major problems and weak areas that in the Prem, are being exposed weekly. He won't change that, last night was a chance to try something different and he didn't and for 45mins we looked awful again. 

My one hope is some of them players will take confidence from that win and take it on themselves to perform at the weekend as we have to rely on the fact they are better than who they play now, because Gerrard and his management of this group is making no difference. 

Doesnt sound like youe very happy about it. Just being negative with all the goals, the opposition and the fact he went strong.

Im not a gerrard fan but  he did well yesterday. It could have been 6 or 7 as the finishing was poor at times.

If he went weak and we lost people would have moaned cricified him. Or if he went weak and we won 1-0 he would havw been hit with "struggled to beat a league one side"

We absolutely dominated 2nd half. I have no complaints yesterday. Gave playees like ings amd bailey a boost too scoring. Also that will do the woeld of good for digne

[DaveAV1]

14 minutes ago, The_Steve said:

ironing out some deficiencies

Very good deliberate or not. 

[BG_Villa_Fan]

I’m convinced it’s his narrow formation that is the main problem, or one of them anyway. He has the central midfielders covering for the wing backs all the time, which leaves the center of the field too open and allows teams to go through it effortlessly. Just watch a random game, say Totenham and Wolves, and observe how they cover the pitch so much better - no huge empty spaces anywhere, players always available for a pass, moving together, not just staying around while a few players who overload the side where the ball is like we do. We’re always a good long pass away from having opponents go1 on 1 or even 2 on 1 against our defence and non existing midfield.

This puts everyone in an uncomfortable position and makes them look worse than they are. Of course defenders would make more mistakes when the central midfield is so open in front of them. Of course the wing backs will be left vulnerable when a midfielder doesn’t track back and so on. The whole system puts everyone in a position to fail and they do, naturally. I suppose he tries to play in a similar way that the Mane-Salah-Firmino Liverpool did but that team had so much more tactical nous it’s like we’re watching different sports.

And all of the above only (slightly) covers the defensive issues. The offensive lack of creativity is not dissimilar - players not knowing where to be, not having enough space to take advantage, etc. 

Gerrard is trying to play a system that is quite difficult, that requires better players and most importantly - that is too tactically demanding for his abilities as a manager. It’s not inherently bad but it’s also inappropriate for our team in many ways and ultimately results in the team being worse than the sum of the parts. Our players are better than this but they’re constantly put in a position to fail.  Realistically, we don’t have the ability to attract the kind of players, who are tactically and positionally good enough to play this way as a team. Take each individual of our players and they could probably fit on a team playing this way, but you need all 11 to do so at the same time and we’re a long way from getting there.

[UpTheVilla26]

27 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Doesnt sound like youe very happy about it. Just being negative with all the goals, the opposition and the fact he went strong.

Im not a gerrard fan but  he did well yesterday. It could have been 6 or 7 as the finishing was poor at times.

If he went weak and we lost people would have moaned cricified him. Or if he went weak and we won 1-0 he would havw been hit with "struggled to beat a league one side"

We absolutely dominated 2nd half. I have no complaints yesterday. Gave playees like ings amd bailey a boost too scoring. Also that will do the woeld of good for digne

I'm not happy in the fact for 45mins we looked very poor again against a side 2 divisions below us. 

Any poor manager will have a decent result here and there. But a poor manager doesn't learn from their mistakes and continues to do the same thing expecting a result, regardless of the opposition. That is my worry with Gerrard. 

Bolton are a side we should be beating, full strength or not. Yes,  second half we asserted our dominance but that is where fitness levels and ability come into play and you could see Bolton were done by 60mins.

We will see what the West Ham game brings but I didn't see anything last night to suggest against better quality opposition, we will look a better side or this tactic will work. If I'm an opposing manager, I know exactly where to hurt Villa, where we are glaringly weak and that is my fear that this isn't being addressed by Gerrard and his coaching staff. 

 

[VillaParkAvenue]

We looked fine in that second half yesterday.

But I can't help comparing it to the first cup game last year against Barrow when we started this team. That game was when Archer first was noticed by a bigger audience. Carney has since been sold, JPB is at Cardiff. The league cup used to be an opportunity for the kids to prove themselves and I fear not giving them enough chances could be negative for the club -- at least if that becomes the norm.

Edited August 24, 2022 by VillaParkAvenue

[DCJonah]

4 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

We looked fine in that second half yesterday.

But I can't help comparing it to the first cup game last year against Barrow when we started this team. That game was when Archer first was noticed by a bigger audience. Carney has since been sold, JPB is at Cardiff. The league cup used to be an opportunity for the kids to prove themselves and I fear not giving them enough chances could be negative for the club -- at least if that becomes the norm.

It won't become the norm. We had to put that team out because things have been awful for too long. 

You can blame Gerrard for it getting to that point but he did the right thing last night. 

[KevinRichardsonsMoustache]

5 hours ago, Keyblade said:

That is, unsurprisingly, a completely reductive and ahistorical take on what happened.

We started that season with 3 wins in 12, picking up 15 points, before Bruce was dismissed, playing such dour football that it caused someone to throw a cabbage onto the pitch in anger.

Interestingly enough, Grealish didn't even get injured until 9 games later, by which point we'd already amassed a further 16 points under the new manager; a 42% increase in point accrual rate. Only 1 variable changed at this point.

To keep things equal, in the first 12 games under Smith we picked up 21 points, with some truly great performances if you'd recall (if you've suppressed them for whatever reason, you can peruse some of the respective reaction threads, they're very handily archived on the front page. I've linked the ones in question) away to Derby and Boro among them and an exciting 5-5 draw with Forest. You couldn't (well, maybe you could) call it anything but a marked improvement.

If we were to extend this run even further to your cutoff point of 4 months where we supposedly didn't improve at all, we picked up 27 points in 17 games by the end of January, or 1.59 PPG. Before Bruce got sacked we were picking up 1.25 PPG. I would posit that your assertion "made no difference to our performance for four months." is just categorically untrue.

To illustrate this, over a full Championship season, 1.25 PPG would have had us finish 16th that particular season with 57 points, and 1.59 PPG would have had us finish 7th on 73 points, incidentally just 3 points and 2 places shy of where we actually finished. That is a 16 point, and 9 position difference. The stats say it was an improvement, and the eye test said it was. Any Villa fan who says we didn't immediately improve under Smith either didn't watch us, doesn't remember what happened or quite frankly, is lying.

But you know it's strange, all that aside...I could have sworn Steve Bruce also had Jack Grealish among his ranks throughout the duration of his tenure, and I'm pretty sure the mad lad didn't just appear alongside Dean Smith in October of 2018. Yet for some reason, we never did go on a record-breaking 10 game winning run under Bruce did we? Nor did we ever manage to get promoted. Perhaps Grealish was holding back under Bruce, waiting to unleash his true potential for his successor? Did Smith make him a shadow player-manager? Maybe he let him pick the first XI every game?

Or maybe, and hear me out here, maybe Dean Smith was just a better manager and got more out of this team? He did in 34 games what his predecessor couldn't do in 92. With his squad. Jack Grealish played in both playoff finals. Jack Grealish was also there when we finished 13th in the Championship.

There are no guarantees in football, but managers do vary in ability and experience, and changing managers can absolutely have a positive effect. Dean Smith's appointment and subsequent successes are a case study in the matter. No amount of revisionism can change this.

We had hoped Gerrard would have the same effect once it became clear Smith couldn't progress is further, but that's okay. I'm sure there are plenty of managers out there willing to come here that have more managerial pedigree than our current incumbent who can get this giant ship back on course. And if we fail to appoint one, maybe our board should come into scrutiny. But make no mistake, our current malaise can be traced to a deficiency in coaching. Either this deficiency is corrected by the current coaching staff (based on the evidence, this seems highly unlikely, but it is the preferable option), or we get in another coaching team to do it.

*erection*

 

Evidence-based posts on VT. Can we have more of this please? You’ve raised the bar @Keyblade

Agree with this post or not, it’s nice to have something substantive as the basis of discussion. Thank you.

[Rolta]

8 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said:

We looked fine in that second half yesterday.

But I can't help comparing it to the first cup game last year against Barrow when we started this team. That game was when Archer first was noticed by a bigger audience. Carney has since been sold, JPB is at Cardiff. The league cup used to be an opportunity for the kids to prove themselves and I fear not giving them enough chances could be negative for the club -- at least if that becomes the norm.

Then before that the League Cup used to be something teams took seriously as a chance of getting into Europe and winning something. The training ground for youngsters and game opportunities for people out of the team is a new thing. 

[VillaParkAvenue]

1 minute ago, Rolta said:

Then before that the League Cup used to be something teams took seriously as a chance of getting into Europe and winning something. The training ground for youngsters and game opportunities for people out of the team is a new thing. 

I'd like it to be both things. Give some kids a chance but also have more first team regulars on the bench, ready to come in early in the second half if needed. In the later stages, start the strongest team. That is what most PL clubs do.

[Zhan_Zhuang]

In the build-up to the Cup game some fans were using a disconnect between Gerrard, team and fans as another stick to beat him with.

From last night's performance, after the game and comments from Gerrard in the interview on Sky he praised the fans twice.

Fake news is the norm it seems these days and some rubbish gets posted on here all the time.

With the game Luiz added the supports and fluidity we desperately needed, he must start games now.

[HKP90]

I don't really understand the criticism about the team selection yesterday. Confidence was low after the weekend, so it seems perfectly reasonable to me to try to get the first team to play through the bad form against technically weaker players, but who will give a right good go. Bring them down to earth while trying to instill confidence. 

 

[The_Steve]

Respect his comments about picking a strong side out of respect for those who made the trip and how important the cup and fans are to him. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by The_Steve

[Thug]

3 hours ago, Laughable Chimp said:

Before I forget, the current table since Gerrard's appointment

 

United and Liverpool are actually on 30 games and United have 3 more points due to their win over Liverpool. For some reason the website I'm using hasn't updated it yet.

And here’s another from January 1st 2022.  After the new manager bounce wore off, and Smiths ideas were starting to be replaced by Gerrards…