da stake casino： Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
da poker： Aston Villa fans, and possibly the Aston Villa board (before the new faces came in) probably think the same thing. The appointment of Remi Garde was a complete and utter disaster and did little to bolster the club’s points tally, or the spirit within the squad.
Back in November last year, just after Villa lost to Tottenham and Garde had been appointed, the Frenchman uttered these promising words to the media: “I’ve had extremely positive meetings with both the owner, Randy Lerner, and chief executive, Tom Fox. They have ambitious plans for the club and I’m excited they’ve turned to me to help realise them. Obviously we have a difficult task in front of us but I’m looking forward to the challenge with the support of everyone who loves Aston Villa.”
Fewer than six months later and Garde has been sacked, and the club are now staring wide eyed at the Championship. This should never have been the case.
A Premier League club through and through, things have been faltering for the past couple of seasons in the Midlands. However, when Tim Sherwood was appointed along with his assistant, Ray Wilkins, last February, he did a brilliant job, almost instantly lifting the mood and confidence following the sacking of Paul Lambert. He took 16 points from his first 11 games to avoid relegation and masterminded the club’s first appearance in an FA Cup Final for 15 years.
However, towards the end of his reign, Sherwood lost his job because chief executive Tom Fox decided the man who had brought harmony to the club when he was appointed had become a divisive force. The 46-year-old was summoned by Fox to the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, along with Wilkins and first team coach, Mark Robson, on a Sunday morning to be told they were being relieved of their duties. The meeting lasted barely 10 minutes.
After spending £52m, only sitting bottom of the league is all that they have to show for the outlay. The players have all but given up, with the odd burst of enthusiasm rare in an otherwise abject campaign that has seen the support amongst the Villa faithful stretched to its limits.
But if Sherwood had stayed, would he and Wilkins have kept Villa up? On Fletch & Sav last weekend, Wilkins said that the club would have been safe. So did the board act too soon?
The phrase that is remembered by most from Sherwood was after the Swansea defeat when he said: “We can’t do any more as coaches and managers, we are working as hard as we possibly can, and the players can’t do more regarding effort. They can only give us what they can give us, we can’t turn them into superstars.”
Maybe not, but the effort was there then, and had that had time have developed into results and then Villa would be safe. So the question is, should Villa have stuck with Sherwood?
Quite possibly yes, because the man knew the Premier League, he had an idea of bringing youth into a squad, he wanted to build Villa and not only did he keep them up last season, but he took them to the FA Cup Final. It looked as though he was firmly interested in the club and its future and his heart was in the job from day one. Villa really couldn’t be any worse off had they kept faith with Sherwood.
Time and time again clubs that keep on sacking managers for that quick fix, come unstuck. Step forward Newcastle United as another prime example.
Between Wilkins and Sherwood, Villa would probably be looking at the new pot of money next year and deciding who to keep, who to buy and who should go as the project slowly took shape. Sherwood would have stabilised the club and started to re-build a sleeping giant and although it might have taken a few seasons, he would have got there.
Now, Villa are drawing up shortlists for another new face in the hot-seat, but will they learn from this expensive escapade? The new appointments in the board room are too late and why make the change now? Lerner clearly doesn’t have a handle on the situation and neither did those that he put his faith in to run the club here in the UK.
Villa fans didn’t expect to win the league, but they didn’t expect the tripe that they’ve been served up every weekend.
Lerner and his cohorts should be ashamed that such a fine club is heading out of the top league.
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