General Krulak pt 4 - Q & A (No transfer Questions)

[ONO]

Oh, and General what about him shaking hands with Liverpool fans, smiling and signing autographs? Yet he constantly ignores Villa fans who travelled 100 miles singing whilst getting beat 3-0?

What has this club actually became? A laughing stock.

[heystally!]

Hi General,

I haven't posted on here for a while, or even thought about doing so, which would suggest that all is well at the moment. However, after the last few performances, I feel the need to echo the comments of most others on here.

Most would call it a knee jerk reaction, but it's clear that there is something fundamentally wrong at our football club right now. I can't say for sure whether it is the manager, or whether it is the team. For now, I am personally laying blame with the manager, because what I see going wrong is mainly tactical issues. We suddenly seem to have lost all knowledge of how to play as a football team.

Our defence may as well not turn up at the moment, given the amount of ball watching rather than man marking they are doing.

Our midfield may be ravaged with injuries, but I feel we still have more quality than putting Ciaran Clark, trained as a defender, into the middle of midfield, despite the two decent goals he scored against Arsenal. Personally I'd rather see him in central defence alongside Carlos Cuellar right now, doing the job he knows.

Our strikers do not seem to understand where a striker plays. For large periods of last night's game, both Gabby Agbonlahor and John Carew were drifting far out onto the left wing, giving us extremely little threat in the middle (credit to Nathan Delfouneso when he came on, he seemed to at least try and do a striker's job).

It is an utter shambles General. And this is effectively the same team (minus the odd individuals, such as Barry and Milner) who have been finishing in the top six for the last three seasons. What has changed? Because our defence is still the same as those hailed as warriors the last two years. Our striker force is still the same old outfit, and we even have some great youngsters coming through in Marc Albrighton and Barry Bannan.

Now we find ourselves fighting a relegation battle. Call me ridiculous for suggesting it, but based on our first half against Arsenal, large periods against Blues, and the entire game against Liverpool, we are going to struggle to beat anyone in this league at the moment, unless something drastic is done to reverse our performances.

People can blame injuries and bad luck, but that has nothing to do with what is happening now. I can take a defeat. If we lose at Anfield 3-0, so what? It happens, lots of teams lose there. Chelsea lost there. But it's when we show no signs of a performance, no signs of turning a defeat around, no signs of getting a win next week, that things look bad.

I was there five years ago when we lost 3-0 at Doncaster under David O'Leary. People said that was the most tragic performance of maybe a generation. Since then, I do not think we have performed nearly as badly as that night in 2005, until last night against Liverpool. Under Martin O'Neill, I cannot remember such a gutless, clueless and pathetic performance as what I saw last night.

So thanks to Gerard Houllier for making his comments about how great the Liverpool fans were. I'm not even that bothered that he failed to congratulate the Villa fans who travelled for over five hours in total to see their team get demolished without a fight. But what I wanted from him was an apology. An apology for the complete and utter waste of time that last night was.

Something needs to change General, and soon. We may struggle to beat West Brom and then Wigan, but once Christmas comes, we have a three game run of Spurs, Man City and Chelsea. Not an easy task for any team. If we lose those too, we'll have lost nine games in a row. And that is surely unacceptable for any side.

Best wishes,

heystally!

[Shillzz]

General,

A couple of years ago Spurs appointed Juande Ramos, who was achieving similar results to Houllier.

Within a few weeks Daniel Levy and co realised they had made a mistake and put things right before it was too late.

I would encourage you to do the same.

Kind Regards.

[Denis_B]

5. I will be at a Board Meeting for the next two days so will be off the site. Maybe allow things to calm down a bit. I DO BELIEVE that the Club that pulls together will, in the end, succeed. Stick with us.

Well clearly things haven't calmed down and the manager is failing to pull things together.....I hope this does not effect the potential that our young players have by having to deal with this wave of negativity being brought about by GH actions.

[markavfc40]

General,

Before the inevitable PR machine rolls in to action please tell the manager not to bother apologising or praising our supporters. Its too late. He had the opportunity last night but I and many others had to stand, freezing our nuts off and watch him clapping and waving in front of the Liverpool fans whilst failing to acknowledge us. He showed total contempt for us. No amount of spin is going to put that right.

Mark

[Ulver]

General,

Before the inevitable PR machine rolls in to action please tell the manager not to bother apologising or praising our supporters. Its too late.

Can I just point out that its not too late and the only thing he need apologise for are the results

[AngelGabriel]

I'm normally supportive of Houllier, but it comes off as if he wants a Liverpool reunion, why not have him in a director role and pick up Chris Hughton as manager, he's the type of manager that will understand the style that suits our players a lot more.

I'll wait until January when or if he gets funds to bring some of his own in, but General, we are flirting with relegation here at a crucial point of the season and this time last year we were in 3rd and I hope you realise that.

[juanpabloangel18]

I have a list of specific grievances for which I would love explanations, but will clearly never get. Regardless:

1) He stayed on at his post in the French FA for an extra 2 weeks before arriving. why? This has been massively overlooked.

2) He eventually arrives, says we are a 8-12 club (good research Hou), and that we have a reputation for being bottlers across Europe. Cheers.

3) He slags off a bunch of Villa players, publically. Whether or not they deserve it is irrelevant, Villa don't do things that way. Especially not when the manager has been there for all of a few weeks.

4) We are, all of a sudden, cannon fodder on the pitch. Tactictally naive, but, more worryingly, no motivation or confidence is visible in any of our players, young or old.

5) All of the above coincides with his strict new training regimes, and im not just talking physically - he has banned non-football related conversations on the training pitch and has banned mobile phones from Bodymoor altogether. I'm no man-manager but most modern footballers think their s**t is made of pure gold, and I can see most of them not enjoying this.

6) Signing Bobby Pires, and starting him against Arsenal. No Villa fan can deny that seeing him hobble around just so he could have his testimonial for 45 mins - stunk of a managerial howler. Honestly, what was he thinking?! did he just want someone around to philosophise in french and sip good red with?

7) He then enjoys his own testimonial last night, after a pathetic 0-3 pasting. What a f***ing joke.

Get rid, the guy might be lovely to have a conversation with, but he ain't up to modern management

[chris_avfc]

The team looks gutless, literally, some may not have agreed to MON styles, but other than the Chelsea defeat we had never even come close to looking spineless, this is the same 4 of a back 5 that just arent the same. He has players who clearly dont enjoy and even want to play under him. You think our est player in Young isnt going to wanna follow our previous best players, season after season. Im starting to think a top 8 even top 10 finish is gonna be a much bigger fight than it should have been, thats not all down to injuries, has he even signed the contract? If not thanks but **** no, we'll all wipe our mouths and move on together.

[UTVPK]

General, further to my post last night, I have had nearly 24 hours to digest the result, the performance and GH and like most, feel it is time he steps aside.

This is not only because of result's, but his conduct since he has been in charge, mainly, his love of Liverpool FC. I have never come across such a scenario before, where a CURRENT manager beams over his fond memories for his beloved reds in almost every interview. This week we have G Mcallister on the AVFC website with a snap shot of him celebrating a goal in Liverpool colours. I do not give a damn about liverpool

Did you hear or see Friedel & Warnock touching up the This Is Anfield sign? no, because those days have come and gone and its just down right out of order for your manager to do it and go on as if it was all a coming home party for him last night. Not my kind of party.

Us Villa fans get ribbed for living in the past, but thats OUR past and not another teams. GH's behaviour in blanking the villa fans and then his comments about losing to liverpool were shocking.... SHOCKING!.

If you remember, it was me who first harped up about his first few games in charge wearing a purple tie and you said you would buy him a AVFC one. It was a bit of banter at the time, but on reflection, it ishe does not give a damn about this club as he should.

He shows no passion( apart from LFC), he does not talk about the Villa in this manner either and really gives out the vibe that he is doing us a favour by just being here.

I think it is time to look at things as a whole and the reactions of the fans, as this spreads out further than these forums, every villa fan i know is well and trully pissed off with Houllier and even if we beat the baggies 6-0 (yeah right) then it will not paint over the cracks. He well and truly insulted us for the last time yesterday.

We all make mistakes and the board need to accept they have done so here, I do not blame you/them, but the board need to take action. I think GH has put the nails in his own coffin with his behaviour.

We need to stop being a nice, polite club and realise we are in the brown stuff and wield the axe. There are players that do not want to play for GH and there are now fans that dont want to watch GH in the dugout.

I hope you do not think this is all because of the defeats.It is about the man at the wrong club.

[AngelGabriel]

5. I will be at a Board Meeting for the next two days so will be off the site. Maybe allow things to calm down a bit. I DO BELIEVE that the Club that pulls together will, in the end, succeed. Stick with us.

Well clearly things haven't calmed down and the manager is failing to pull things together.....I hope this does not effect the potential that our young players have by having to deal with this wave of negativity being brought about by GH actions.

This or, it maybe a board meeting about what went on against the Blouses.

[imavillafan5]

General,

A couple of years ago Spurs appointed Juande Ramos, who was achieving similar results to Houllier.

Within a few weeks Daniel Levy and co realised they had made a mistake and put things right before it was too late.

I would encourage you to do the same.

Kind Regards.

Superb post General, simply echoes how we are feeling as fans at the moment.

[NowDoINotLikeThat]

Its not a "superb post". It's not even true for starters - Ramos was manager at Spurs for a season and a half - he won a league cup in his first season at Spurs . He was sacked into his second season not after a few weeks of having the job.

[QuintonK6]

Hello again General.

I can see since the result last night you haven't...

A - Had the time to reply ?

B - Haven't read the thread yet ?

C - Waiting for the dust to settle and then reply to us all at once ?

I've done all my ranting and obviously the last 8 pages are full of rants towards Mr Houllier and you (Board).

I think one thing is 100% obvious now Mr Krulak and I said this after the Arsenal game when I stated if we loose to the scum and Liverpool the fans will turn...... Well I'm sorry to inform you but I was right !!

I've seen it so many times before as a Villa fan(atic) and once the fans turn against a manager more specific the HOLTE END on match days his days are numbered. His actions last night along with the pathetic performance have finished him amongst the most import part of our famous club ..US !!

If we were to go on a 15 game unbeaten run now that would not matter one bit because as far as were concerned the damage has been done.

I honestly felt cheated last night and no matter what Mr Houllier does now for the remainder of his Villa stint I will never forgive him or Sing his name ever again.... Unless of course there's a stint of WE WANT HOULLIER OUT ring around Villa park.

General I trust you and the board to do right by us.

All the best and VTID.

[thegiddygambler]

General you may be aware that talksport is a national radio station in this country. It is not just Villa fans solely who are raising concerns. The presenter on talksport has just had a phone in debate and said "Former European Champions, Aston Villa, shouldn't be treated like that. He has insulted Aston Villa."

The presenter was refering to GH waxing lyrical about Liverpool when he is visiting as Aston Villa manager. I have NEVER, EVER before called for a Villa manager's head so soon after he has taken over but for once I'm gonna have to. Please feedback to Randy that GH is losing the fans rapidly and a lot of it of his own making, irrespective of results on the pitch!!!

[AngelGabriel]

Don't know if anyone on the board has just listened to talkSPORT - sure they usually spout s**t but the presenter here has told the truth..

"Former European Champions, Aston Villa, shouldn't be treated like that. He has insulted Aston Villa." The presenter went on about him harking about Liverpool.

Feed that back to the board.

[QuintonK6]

Post removed.

[diand]

General

Sorry, I'm not impressed with the manager's statement just posted on the official site. No apology, patronising platitudes and not even a slightest sense of backtracking.

Nothing has changed as far as I am concerned.

[Moorski]

General,after last night at Anfield, Houllier has lost the Villa supporters backing what little he still had, parting of the ways by mutual consent could save everyones blushes here.

Time to get in a hungrier, younger Manager who cares about his job at VP rather than memories of his time at Liverpool.

[Mantis]

General, I'm not happy or angry about the statement. I'm willing to give him a second chance and I hope you don't cave in to fan pressure. As long as he learns from this I'm satisfied.