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A fans message


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A fans message

To the manager who travelled from France to be with us and to the coaching staff of Aston Villa football club, there are some things I’d like to say about the situation we find ourselves in.

I’m sure that you’re working as hard as you can to achieve the level of success that this great club aspires to. I’m sure that you’re hurting because of recent results; professional pride would guarantee that if nothing else. I know you’re a proud man; you don’t get the career you’ve had without determination and dedication. We appreciate that.

No one likes to lose 3-0 to any team and comments that suggest that the bitter pill is sweetened by a fondness for the opposition don’t sit well with us. That those comments are intended to be humorous only brings into question your judgement of the situation.

I know you have a bond with Liverpool; I’m not looking for denials – just tact, a little sensitivity. A man who gets into bed with his wife at night and tells her how much he misses his ex-girlfriend is playing a dangerous game and one that is not without consequence.

You see, when you arrived I couldn’t help but be pleased – as a coach you have a reputation for technical excellence, some tactical nous and a history of success. More than that though, I was pleased because you carry the authority of a man of thought, a man who sees the bigger picture, who wants to build something and leave a legacy - a reasonable, quiet man who could bring us a brighter future.

It’s not so much the performances, for there have been bright spots and occasional glimpses of progress, I’m worried by results sure, but I know we can improve them. I know it’s not been the easiest of times to be manager of this football club either; you took over at in awkward moment and since then we’ve had more injuries than at any other time I can remember, that’s not an excuse, it’s just the way things have panned out.

I want you to succeed, because if you do then we all do. You tell us you’re hurting as much as anybody and I hope that’s true, you say emphatically that we will battle through and I sincerely hope we can. I read that you want to build a lasting success at Aston Villa and you reaffirm that your commitment to this challenge is resolute - I wish you the best of luck.

You can’t do it alone though, the club moves forward best when we all move forward together and your job is made more difficult by the alienation of a section of the support. It’s your job to make that right – not just to coach a football team but to lead a football club – us included.

It is down to us collectively as a club to work hard to bring joy and success to the fans because the fans are the most important; we are passionate, vocal and fantastic – sometimes.

We want to show you our best, to show the team our best, to show the world our pride in this club. We need somewhere we can plant our flag, this is not a club that will willingly retreat into mediocrity and we need you to be that rallying point. We want leaders.

Your ability to empathise with us, to show that leadership and to represent everything that is good about this club is now as important as your ability as a coach in deciding your future here. Be in no doubt, you stand at a crossroads and your actions in the coming weeks will have a huge say in how you are one day remembered by Villa fans.

We know we are in this together and we know our support is vital – we just hope you know and understand that too, and we hope that you know and understand how your actions, no matter what their intent have punctured that resolve.

Our actions in a crisis are often a good judge of our character and I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your endeavours to bring us out of this malaise. To do that you will need the support of your team, Mr Lerner, the board and importantly, us, the fans.

You tell us our support will be vital on Saturday for our game against West Bromwich Albion.

I ask you to make sure that you have it.

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Decent Article Scott, but a tad too fawning for me, and lacks some punch.

This is a letter The Hou wrote recently to his new girlfriend some years after his wife left him for another man:

Darling.

We've only been together a few short months, and I told you when i met you that I loved you dearly, and I hoped you believed that I mean it. I know our first few months have been a bit rocky, the initial clumsy first dates when I got my words tangled and confused, but this was followed by a short period of good times when things seemed fresh and a little exciting perhaps, for both of us. But these last few weeks have seemed quite difficult for us. Our dates have not gone as planned, and we keep falling out. I don't know why that is. I'm trying my best, but it's been quite a while since I was really active in the dating game, and maybe it's showing?

To make matters worse, I just can't get my Ex Wife out of my head. She's quite a high profile person, so it's really quite difficult to ignore or get away from. Friends and relatives keep bringing it back up. The relationship I had with her was thrilling for me, and it is one I will never forget, or want to. For a time we both seemed incredibly happy, but my health suffered badly as a result, and although I recovered, as I was never quite the same afterwards, and couldn't put as much into the relatrionship as I had previously. The result was that the marriage went downhill, and after a while she tired of this, and left me for another man, a successful Spanish man. I was devastated. She went on to have many happy times with her new man, whilst I had a few relationships in France for a while to get over it.

However, now I have met you, and whilst I'm trying to make this work, I just can't get her out of my head. She's left that Spanish guy, and is now seeing a nerdy, weedy looking older English guy. I think I must still be in with a chance. I'm sure she still loves me. I talk about her a lot to my friends, and just the other day I visited her (Although I did you the courtesy of bringing you along, and Im sorry that I ignored you all evening!) at her place. It was just like old times, and brought back some great memories. I just couldn't take my eyes off her. Her friends and relatives wre all there, and they seemed to love me!

Anyway, that was another bad date. We seem to be having a lot of those. I hope you don't mind though? I love you really, honestly I do, and I'm sure we can make this work ....

Yours Lovingly,

Ged

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Good posts both.

We need to put it behind us now, we have no choice. How do we we as a club move forward ?

I have calmed down a lot since the other day, still hurt by a lot of things but mainly the performance and tactics now. GH will now realise or hopefully have been told in pretty harsh words that the mess the other night can't happen again.

There needs to be a way to get the fans and club working together and moving in the same direction. We are not going to get another manager, short term or long term in my opinion unless we lose the next 3.

I will admit that I and in my view a few other went a bit OTT after the Liverpool game but so quickly after the small heath disaster the Liverpool game could have bee a turning point, it was but for all the wrong reasons.

I personally need a bit of hope, a word from the chairman or something. We have a squad that has been denied what it needs for too long, yes the wages are high but that's not exactly the fans fault. Are we going to spend any money ? I am not talking about a has been (Keane for eg), I mean proper money on long term solutions to the problems we have. There are serious problems tactically, we are all over the place. Have these been ever noticed ? Is a plan in place for January to buy or deflect us again. We got nothing from the summer, zero apart from losing our best player again. We got a player worth 500k and the bank got 10M +, great.

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Good post,

I share the same sentiments and although not an apology in the sense that many are looking for I`m glad that Ged addressed the issue and I think we as Fans are lucky that we have ears to the manager and board of which we can be grateful for.

Many a Club do not have this communication at all.

Although I`m far from impressed with Monday I`m glad our concerns have in the least been heard.

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GH now has an even bigger struggle on his hands after the last few games.

Poorly judged comments apart, the squad do not give any impression of wanting to play for him, compared to last season. Also, is the long injury list partly due to the new training routine and a lack of some players ability to train significantly harder than previous required to, I'd hope not, with all the facilities the club has at Bodymoor.

It now seems that GH has to step up to the plate and prove to the fans he can motivate the team into at least beating the Baggies and Wigan. Failure to get six points, must surely mean he'll be out the door in January and the judgement of those who selected him to be in serious doubt and questioned about whether they can be trusted for any future manager decision.

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good original post IMO.

Its hard not to feel sorry for any manager that has to endure a crippling injury list such as GH is experiencing.

I still beleive the players characters are probably better suited to O'Neills management style, so that is another bit of transition to deal with.

..... but Gerard Houllier has taken over now , warts and all.

It is quite understandable to be proud of his achievements at Anfield and equally understandable to have a bit of rapport with them, but where a huge piece of misjudgement at best and downright discourtesy at worst was to ignore the villa fans and their crucial part in the game.

If Gerard Houllier is serious about making his mark at Villa, he will need every man jack villa fan on board.....He has clearly acheived that at Liverpool, he needs to remember that chapter has gone and embrace the new one.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

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Honestly, that is the worst front page article I ever read on this site. 30-40 lines of a mixture of plain sitting on a fence comments on current issues, some truly obvious statements, a cliched anecdote, and even a bit of sucking Houllier's cock about his character and past history(exaggerated also...as if you are hoping houllier reads this and invites you for tea and biscuits) - all to say 'earn our support'.

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Am I the only one that's a little sensible in this riotous world?!

e.g. "No one likes to lose 3-0 to any team and comments that suggest that the bitter pill is sweetened by a fondness for the opposition don’t sit well with us. That those comments are intended to be humorous only brings into question your judgement of the situation."

I am sure that GH didn't mean "humerous" in the way it's been taken to mean. As a man of similar age to GH I can totally empathise with his feelings - they are perfectly natural and I think that if we were honest with ourselves, if we were in a similar posiiton then we may have done/said something very similar.

Fellers - let's get a life ... there are more important things than making AVFC fill our every minute - even though it's very tempting! :D

To GH ... good luck! I feel that you'll show 'em soon enough how good you are.

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