So it’s official then. Steven Gerrard is our new manager after the club released a statement around an hour ago.
It’s believed that negotiations are ongoing with regards to the Rangers background staff, but it would seem it’s pretty much a formality and they’ll all be following Gerrard down to Villa park.
The good news is that it’s rumoured that we’ll only have to pay compensation of £4 million maximum and it could be less. In today’s world, that seems cheap to me and it seems the Gers dropped the ball there in not ensuring it was a higher figure.
I know this appointment has captured the imagination of a lot of Villa fans, particularly the younger amongst us, but I have to hold my hands up and say straight away that I’m worried.
Yes, I get it all. He’s a winner and a leader. He’s done very well at Rangers, in winning the title. I personally don’t think that’s much of an achievement, but the fact is you still have to actually win it and he did.
I get all of that.
And when you look at it, it’s a really good move all round and even more so for Gerrard.
We get a young, dynamic manager who’s on the up and even though I’m not wholly convinced, when I look around and consider who we might otherwise get, I really don’t see much.
Yes, I could name some managers who I would have much preferred, but there’s no way we’d have got them.
So Gerrard is pretty much about as good as we could have hoped for.
And in return, there’s no way Gerrard was going to get a top Premier league club yet. I saw it written elsewhere by a Rangers fan, that Villa and Everton are probably in the next tier, so we’re ideal.
Add in that there will no doubt be some very serius money to spend and we already have a very good squad anyway and there is no doubt that we’re about as good a job as Gerrard could expect at this stage in his career.
There is of course the fact we all know that Gerrard is hoping to use the Villa as a stepping stone on the way to running his beloved Liverpool. That does on the face of it annoy me and I know it really irks many of you.
But I’m okay with it really. It doesn’t matter what club a manager might support or end up managing, they will all have the ambition of maybe one day running one of the really big clubs. It’s only the fact that he has such an allegiance to Pool that makes it a big deal in some eyes.
But then, keeping my level head on, I have to see this as massively risky all round.
The plain and simple fact is that Gerrard has no experience of managing in the Premier league.
Indeed, it’s something that was thrown at Dean Smith by some fans that didn’t rate him when we first got promoted.
I thought that was harsh, as though he lacked Premiership experience, he had at least spent a good few years as a manager, which would stand him in good stead.
Well, we all know how that’s worked out and those early nay-sayers have possibly proven to be correct. Sadly Dean Smith was rapidly beginning to look out of his depth.
So Gerrard also lacks Prem experience, but also lacks much experience at all and it worries me.
Gerrard hasn’t had to struggle as a manager before and it’s all going to be new to him. Which would be fine, but our current position means that if Stevie doesn’t get us rolling instantly we’re going to be mired in a relegation battle as we approach probably our worst string of fixtures of the season.
And wow, does he have a major job on his hands.
He has to try and sort out our awful defence, gel our new signings (maybe after he’s found out why they’re still not fit) and try and get kids more involved before they decide they’ve had enough empty promises of games and opt to leave.
The good news here is that it’s very much in the manager’s interest to suceed, because if he doesn’t, he’ll only be setting himself back
I might seem as though I’m being overly cynical, but it’s only out of concern for the club.
But of course, I wish him the very best of luck and will try not to adopt an approach where he has to win me over.
UTV! Onwards and upwards.
Comments
110 responses to “It’s official; Gerrard is our new manager. This is really risky.”
In the EFL trophy Villa’s U21’s get a home draw in the round of 32 (where did these Americanisms come from?) – courtesy of topping the Group – against Charlton Athletic (L1) w/c 29th November.
Villa are the only EPL U21’s in the competition with a 100% record having played all three Group games away from home – impressive.
Stevie G eat your heart out – we have an array of young talent – get them playing in the first team.
It would appear Smith to Norwich is a done deal.
That’s a quick turnaround for him and I hope he’s happy.
Unfortunately, you can bet your boots they’ll do the double over us, even if they lose every other game 🙁
Guaranteed Badger
Our ladies win 0-1 on the other side of the city. Well done
Yep, saw that Gerry; excellent. We look to have improved from last season (first in the WSL) but a bit of a way to go to catch up the top teams.
I like the way our owners are investing in the Women’s team after years of non interest.
UTV
Another injury! Nakamba now has a groin strain playing for Zimbabwe and, it seems, Luiz is still suffering with a ham string. A weak midfield even weaker.
It never rains……….
I’ve been thinking about our midfield and I have to say, I think things are looking bleak in the short term.
I really don’t see how much is going to change and with Nakamba injured, it could even be worse than I’ve been thinking.
I think we’re going to have to cut Gerrard some serious slack until the transfer window and probably a while longer.
I predict some very scary times, with possibly some “we may as well have kept Smith” type comments, I’m afraid and we’re going to have to hold our nerve.
Season 18-19. Bruce starts season with practically no defenders. We have to hang in until January.
Season 19-20. We start the season with no strikers apart from Wesley.
Season 20-21. We start the season with no strikers apart from Watkins.
Season 21-22. We start the season with zero back-up in central midfield.
Perhaps, Mr Purslow and co’ still have work to do before we can say we have a squad capable of challenging for anything. The depth simply isn’t there. You either create it by blooding ‘free’ talent like Chukuemenka, Bidace, (the other) Ramsey, and Archer. Or you bite the bullet and start signing fat cheques. I’m guessing the Villa board want the first option. Let’s see if Gerrard can make it happen and make them happy, not to mention Edens and Sawiris that little bit richer. I would prefer a happy medium of both options, for what it’s worth.
Bring in the kids would be my suggestion.
Give them until the transfer window opens, and let them play.
Long over due in my eyes Neil, I’ve always advocated if you can die for your country then your old enough. Some will say it’s experience needed, I say if they have the skill and your in the game to play for your club and country then your the man. But in our day and times youth get pushed back in jealousy of being young. Give youth a chance…
Fully agree – there’s a lot of quality in the U23’s and while we need a serious attempt at getting-in a solid defensive midfielder in the transfer window, give the youngsters a chance now.
I’m playing devil’s advocate here;
Given that we all think that what’s required is tougher midfielders, who, of the kids do we think fits the bill?
Or is it something else the kids might do better?
Ramsey has to step up again and show the ability he clearly has on a consistent basis. Fair play to Smith, he stuck with him albeit he received a fair amount of (unfair?) criticism for doing so – and I’m not innocent on that point.
Gerard also has to find the best way to use Young over the next few weeks given our problems in midfield.
Mad thought – could Konsa play in front of the back four – even if it’s a stop gap decision.
He’s very comfortable on the ball and we do have choices at CB?
I’d rather keep Konsa where he works best; as our best central defender.
I’d say Mings would be a better bet for that, but only if Luiz and Naka are both unavailable.
He has the pace to cover, likes to get forward ocassionally, loves to play it long and can tackle/block too.
All he needs is a brain 🙂
Funny, I had just had the same thoughts.
Initially i thought of Taunzebe (vaguely remember him doing something like that when he was last on loan with us?), but then I thought that Mings could probably do it better – and if he’s going to carry-on as captain, could probably do that role better from there as well.
Good shout both – and perhaps his ‘mistake every game’ scenario wouldn’t be as costly?
Sorry …wrong link …can you please delete
Done as requested
https://youtu.be/yVGWlYvW5w4
What about Sanson? Why play a CD out of position if Sanson is fit? Why should Gerrard get slack if Luiz or Nakamba are unfit. Not many gave Smith slack despite not having a fully fit squad all season. Unfortunately as Smith found out, it’s a results business and fans don’t care about the reasons why we are losing games.
Ramsey, Sanson, McGinn, Buendia and Chukwuemeka can all fill in if necessary. I don’t include Young because he has never been a CM during his career and he hasn’t got the engine to cope.
Unfortunately SG needs positive results from the beginning because his first two games are his best hope of points during the next six weeks. I fear we won’t be the stepping stone he requires to achieve his ultimate job. I hope he proves my doubts as unfounded.
Apologies if I sound sceptical about Villa at the moment. I think my biggest bugbear is with Purslow and Lange and maybe our owners are reigning in on the spending after the nett zero summer transfer activity. I would love to know how much say Smith had on the players bought. Good luck to him at Norwich and the likely double they will inflict on us.
Yes, Holte, what about Sanson? I’ve discounted him totally as he’s either perpetually unfit, a troublemaker or as I’ve previously suggested, quite simply not up to the rigours of the Prem.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens with him and I see only 2 scenarios;
a) He’s starting games before Xmas
Or b) He’s straight out on loan come the window.
Gerrard will not be standing for a player who can’t play for us, imo and he won’t have been signed under Gerrard’s tenure, so there won’t be any obligation on his part.
He’s a typical example of a player Smith didn’t want, imo, along with Guilbert.
Gerrard has to get slack because he hasn’t been involved in signing any of the players, simple.
He’ll be expected to add something different, which will hopefully improve us somewhat, but surely you don’t expect him to be on the same footing as the manager who has been in charge for the last 3 years and oversaw the players coming in?
Hence he gets at least some slack. And he has too, because Brighton apart, we’re on a serious hiding to nothing, regardless of who’s in charge, imo.
“Ramsey, Sanson, McGinn, Buendia and Chukwuemeka can all fill in if necessary”.
Really Holte?
Sanson apart, McGinn is the best bet and I thought the consensus was he’s not that good at it because his passing is abysmal, for one thing.
I just don’t see that the other 3 are anything like DMs in any shape or form.
This discussion has its roots in some earlier comments about McGinn (In particular) where there was some consensus that he seems much more effective and consistent playing an attacking/creative role for Scotland than he has in the box-to-box role for Villa in the last year or two.
Likewise, I believe that Buendia, Ramsey and even Luiz are all far better at driving forward than defending. (I’d even suggest that paying big-money for Buendia and then asking him to play what doesn’t seem to be his ‘natural’ game has been a mistake…)
Hence there was a kind of recognition that what Villa are clearly missing is a defensive/holding midfielder who would allow the others to play their natural game going forwards.
Sanson wasn’t mentioned simply because he’s apparently been injured almost the whole time since he arrived at Villa. If he’s now match-fit it would be very interesting to see what he could contribute!
Wtf?
I must be going blind.
England given a pen for handball, yet it looked like the defender was nowhere near touching it, to me?
Ah Badger, you and me on the same page.
Yes, it touched his finger tips. Was it deliberate – no. Was he trying to get his hand out of the way – yes. Did it deny a goal scoring opportunity – no.
Was the penalty a stupid decision – yes (and he got a yellow card – even more idiotic).
As someone said – the ref had to take the ‘walk of shame and didn’t have the guts to tell VAR to FO.
Change of topic – we’ll change of direction!
Watching England (out of one eye) and have just seen the most idiotic penalty decision following a VAR review – as if England need crap penalty decisions to beat SM.
When did ‘deliberate hand ball’ disappear from the rules?
I still think VAR is a joke.
Turned it off – what a waste of time.
When will FIFA realise that they have to grade some international teams at a different level rather than throwing the weaker teams into Groups to be regularly ‘slaughtered’.
Cricket has learnt that lesson and now have separate qualifying for the weaker ‘associate’ nations which allows one or two of the these sides to qualify for and experience World Cup Finals which, in turn, helps their development. They even pull off the odd shock which adds to the whole experience.
Sorry, Hitch, I don’t understand what you’re saying???
Kane breaks records in what isn’t even a match.
6-0 after 40 minutes against a team whose country’s population is a bit bigger than Kingstanding.
It’s just embarrassing, yet the commentators are practically raving about it.
Re the pen, mean.
Ah, i see.
I didn’t think he touched it, even after watching the replay 10 times or more.
The ball did brush his finger tips but the award of the penalty seems completely non sensical to me.
Whatever happened to the application of common sense?
There is no common sense anymore in the modern game Hitch. I’m finding it hard to enjoy football these days. Whether it’s JG abandoning ‘HIS’ club to the lack of patience from clubs owners to the mundane international qualifying we have to endure what seems to be as often as club games these days. 😡
And Wenger wants to impose this International rubbish on us every two years.
I despair
Hitch, I was thinking about the Wenger issue. If you’d allow me to synthesise it with the issue of strong nations spanking minows in embarrassing qualifiers like tonight, perhaps that’s why dear Arsene made the suggestion. If there was a tournament every two years, there would be less of the stupidity we saw tonight, and more meaningful competitive football. I’m totally against it, don’t get me wrong. Be we all know the amount of qualifiers played that are a no-contest is a disgrace. Kane will need to get to at least 70 International goals before he can really believe that he deserves the record. Just a thought.
BFR – do they need to go to a biennial WC to deal with the issues raised last night?
With 4 years between each WC there’s plenty of time to devise and run a qualifying system similar to the cricket world cup where (say) teams below a certain World Ranking play a separate Qualifying Competition with a specified number either achieving a place at the finals or joining the higher ranked teams in a second qualifying arrangement. Perhaps Wenger and his mates at FIFA would be better employed considering this approach rather than trying to destroy domestic football
Holte, there’s no common sense ANYWHERE at the moment never mind football!
I bet Amazon are kicking themselves putting so many Villa fixtures on. There’s going to be a lot of focus on Gerrard over the next few weeks and we get to see it close up!!!!
Italy struggling against Northern Ireland.
That bugs me.
If horseface had gone for it, we’d have beaten them easily, imo.
Yep.
Another shout. I no it ewas San Marino, but Mings looked like a different player on the left of a back 3.
I really don’t think you can come to any conclusions when you’re playing the lowest rated team in the world, Neil.
As a bit of a traditionalist (OK – just an an ‘Old Fart’ -) I find these totally meaningless international games against amateurs/ part-timers / foreign pub teams really irritating.
For a start, there are far too many international games that mean we have players disappearing around the world for two weeks at a time four or five times through the domestic season. (Who’s paying their salaries?)
On top of which, with the number of internationals being played now (particularly against the likes of Andorra, Malta, San Marino, etc) the statistical records have become almost meaningless: so Kane overtakes Lineker in the England rankings, is close to catching Bobby Charlton and will even probably overtake Rooney before next summer ( & I’ve always thought Rooney had it a bit easy..).
Great. Having watched most of the internationals that they’d played over the years, I know in which order I’d rate those players, and Harry Kane wouldn’t be in the same league…
Yes I too thought Lineker and Rooney shouldnt be near Bobby Charlton as they took Pens….someone said they are goals as well but I aint havin that…..lol.
The Sun are saying we interviewed Lampard before Gerrard.
I don’t understand that.
It’s no surprise that he isn’t working yet.
Smith went Sunday and we interviewed Gerrard, in London, on Wednesday and, as I understand it there was an offer and acceptance at that interview (over dinner with Purslow). That suggests to me there was only one candidate and Purslow went to that meeting with the full backing of the owners.
So when, exactly did this ‘interview’ with Lampard take place? Over the telephone.
Purslow ‘Hi, is that Mr. Lampard’
Lampard Yes
Purslow ‘We’re going to offer the Villa job to Gerrard but, if he turns it down, are you interested?’
Lampard ‘No, thanks for asking but I’m busy messing Norwich around at the moment’
Purslow ‘Thought so’
🙂
The Sun. Says it all really.
You have to wonder about Lampard. The Villa and Newcastle jobs have come and gone, and he’s still out of action. What’s he waiting for, exactly?
He’s waiting for Chelsea to come back, adnit that they were “wrong” and give him a 2nd go…
-or maybe ManU to offer him the job when they ditch Ole.
I’m really not confident in Steve Gerrard.
I think this is a crazy appointment. I’m actually a little embarrassed by his arrival.
I don’t believe he has a clear idea of what it is he wants to create at the club, I don’t believe he has inspirational leadership qualities.
From the video of him at training and the press conference he looks uncomfortable. The training looks like a lot of posturing.
I see this whole thing costing us terribly, our premier league status for a start.
Awful idea.
It’s all about opinions Tom.
I’m pretty neutral – maybe could have been better, definitely could have been worse.
Very managerial appointment carries risk with it.
Only time will tell.
Tom, i think you’re wrong. Gerrard reminds me of Rogers about ten years ago. I love the fact that he makes sure the defence is solid as something to build on – a gritty 1 – 0 win on Saturday wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. I believe he will be inspirational and will set very high standards – higher than before.
My only concern is Danks and MacPhee will be in his and his team’s way. I wouldn’t want old staff hanging about waiting to be given something to do if I walked into a job like this with all my team in place. Doesn’t really make sense to me, but he’s professional enough to get on with it…
As a side note, I’ve just seen a stat that proves we are the most fouled team in the league since we came up in 19-20. That includes this season, so Grealish’s departure hasn’t seen that trend stop; it’s continued. Maybe that’s why MacPhee has a role to play. If you’re winning all these fouls, surely you need to be capitalising on them?
Which leads me to another side-note. I saw a highlights real of Paul Scholes the other day, the context of which was he was one of the greatest midfielders. Almost every clip showed Scholes in his own half spraying the ball 50+ yards wide to the likes if Ronaldo, Nani, Rooney and Valencia out wide to mount an attack. So this playing the ball out from the back in the name of ‘total football’ is bollocks, and results in Mings looking like a donkey once a month. There’s a difference between aimless hoof-ball, and playing accurate long passes to put the opposition under pressure. McGinn is more than capable of playing passes like this. Perhaps from free-kicks as well as open play?
A few points to mull over there…
Like you, I get totally frustrated watching defenders playing sideways between themselves when they’ve got posession and thinking that they’re being clever.
As for McGinn, he should be able to do what you’ve mentioned – BUT his passing can be erratic. It often seems that he almost gets caught on the wrong foot when he’s trying to make a quick pass to attack, and ends-up giving the ball to the opposition. The ball just seems to ‘bounce’ off him straight to an attacking player coming at us. Lost count how many times his mis-pass has ended up costing us an instant goal!
From Gerrard’s press conference.
Lange – ‘We had 20 applications, shortlisted 4 and spoke to them all’
So, it seems The Sun could be right in that Villa did speak to Lampard but the spin they put on it was very misleading.
Wonder whether that 20 includes ‘The Legend That Was Dwight Yorke’ ??
According to Brum Live, Luiz (hamstring) and Sanson (unknown) are not fit for the Brighton game.
Sanson – unknown! Well that about sums him up in one word. He’s fast becoming a prime candidate to play The Invisible Man.
They claim Nakamba will be available – no doubt half fit.
I can’t see any ‘wow’ decisions on line up – as you were then.
Unsurprisingly Lawro’s gone all starry eyed about Gerrard predicting a 2-0 win for the Villa, whereas his opposition this week has, more reasonably, opted for a 1-2 to Brighton.
I’m backing the latter.