Rémi Garde: Ex-Aston Villa manager

I think he will rebuild us and give us some identify back, but it won't be without the pain of going down now (I don't think) I've refused to admit defeat and I'm still not, but after the set of results at the weekend it's going to be tough. That aside, he's got a big job on his hand and working with a team of buffoons. What did the crisis meeting in NY achieve? Ah yes a Chairman that's being in place for several weeks already, no signings, no real admittance of any individual blame, just a "here's a new chairman, things are bad, I'll leave you too it then, bye" that's pretty much what Lerner said. Him and his tinpot appointments (I'll exclude the new chairman as he's clearly not to blame) make my blood boil. I sincerely hope the new chap had the remit to fire their asses, they've being appalling. Just wait for the accounts to break this year too and then we'll see just how 'well' we're doing commercially. The Fantastic Mr Fox.....

It's odd to think that people were really excited when Fox came in, thinking he would be the prelude to a takeover or would at least bring a big increase in competence over Paul Faulkner. The one straw people now seem to cling to with him is that he's improved our commercial situation so it will be interesting to see the next accounts. If these things haven't improved then we are left with nothing more than a bullshitter...

Sandie wrote:It's odd to think that people were really excited when Fox came in, thinking he would be the prelude to a takeover or would at least bring a big increase in competence over Paul Faulkner. The one straw people now seem to cling to with him is that he's improved our commercial situation so it will be interesting to see the next accounts. If these things haven't improved then we are left with nothing more than a bullshitter...

There was a lot of negativity around Faulkner as he was 'given' the job by virtue of being a good guy and close to Lerner (let's not forget RL very quickly lost two proper CEO's who now with hindsight probably didn't fancy the impossible task) so yes when Fox came in it was seen as a breath of fresh air. His first mistake was to get involved with trying to BS the fans with "false narratives" that personally got my back up. Since then he's seemed more and more dislikable with every interview. I find him to be smarmy, disingenuous and condescending. We will see just how good he is at the commercial side when the accounts are released, for me though, he's already primarily failed at his job as CEO (let's remember he's not CCO here, we pay someone else a LOT of money to do those things) he's been running the lot. He delayed sacking Lambert, got it wrong with Sherwood, has overseen a much maligned transfer policy and appointed Remi (who I personally rate) that many feel wasn't the right pick for the situation we were in and it needed someone different to get a reaction and fast from these players (hard to disagree too much) so he's ballsed it up in many areas. What I'd be interested to know is who's his boss? Is it still Lerner or is it the new guy? Either way it's possible a power struggle may ensue as Fox clearly likes to run things that he's arguably not qualified to run.

Completely agree.

In my opinion the boss is still Lerner. The rest is smoke and mirrors.

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/10139096/garde-focusing-on-current-squad?

Remi now knows that he has to do his best with the players he's got. Any additions will be more down to lucky loans than judgement. I feel really sorry for Garde because the last thing he needed to hear from the board was that the club is moving away from "manager centric" practices at BMH, which leaves him with no decision making powers at all.

To coach successfully in this manner he needs to be able to trust the actions and decision making of people above him who've shown regularly that they know nothing and achieve nothing. Welcome to the reality that is AVFC Remi.

It's a funny old thing, isn't it? As much as move away from 'manager centric' policies the manager (and players) will always be the prime target for unrest as the scenes at Wycombe showed. Meanwhile the real culprets are hidden from view in Ivory Towers.

Sandie wrote:It's a funny old thing, isn't it? As much as move away from 'manager centric' policies the manager (and players) will always be the prime target for unrest as the scenes at Wycombe showed. Meanwhile the real culprets are hidden from view in Ivory Towers.

Too true! Just uttering the words "manager centric" to fans shows how detached and out of touch our board are.

I think we've looked at clubs like Southampton and Swansea and are trying to do what they've been doing. At both those clubs the manager is part of a wider structure with other people guiding things like strategy and recruitment. At Southampton they have Les Reed guiding their recruitment. At Swansea the Chairman plays a big role. At both of those clubs these people have done their jobs well and earned the right to do what they do. What about the people who do this at Villa?

Sandie wrote:I think we've looked at clubs like Southampton and Swansea and are trying to do what they've been doing. At both those clubs the manager is part of a wider structure with other people guiding things like strategy and recruitment. At Southampton they have Les Reed guiding their recruitment. At Swansea the Chairman plays a big role. At both of those clubs these people have done their jobs well and earned the right to do what they do. What about the people who do this at Villa?

Fair point.

villabromsgrove wrote:

Sandie wrote:I think we've looked at clubs like Southampton and Swansea and are trying to do what they've been doing. At both those clubs the manager is part of a wider structure with other people guiding things like strategy and recruitment. At Southampton they have Les Reed guiding their recruitment. At Swansea the Chairman plays a big role. At both of those clubs these people have done their jobs well and earned the right to do what they do. What about the people who do this at Villa?

Fair point.

That appears to be the problem though doesn't it?! No so much the strategy or approach. I've been saying for years, we need to move away from the managet dictating the direction of the whole club, as when he's sacked/leaves someone else comes in with a whole different philosophy (look at Houllier and then McLeish as a case in point) Players can become disposable and not needed, money then wasted on said players, so the approach for me is right, we do need to move away from that method and be prepared to stick to an 'identity' regardless of a manager, so I applaud them for that. He's the caveat, are they the right people to oversee it? The two guys you mentioned, Reid and Huw Jenkins have demonstrated time and time again they know what they're doing, yet up until this point we haven't.

As a positive all good things and ideas have to start somewhere and maybe what we're seeing now is a start of that and yes we can say "it's too late" it's never too late, yes we may be relegated, but we need to redefine ourselves whatever the league. I just hope the current two men in charge are the right ones.

We'll be having a further board member, maybe this guy may come with the knowledge we think is missing? Let's see. For me, at some point, you have to say, right enough is enough, no more dwelling on the past, what do we need to do for the present and future, that's what will define Aston Villa FC.

Hollis asked the question last night, "what good would it do having a football man on the board?" The implication was that the things that they're going to change aren't to their way of thinking football related. It's all to do with the infrastructure and organisation.

I don't think any old football man would do. It's just not that simple. We need someone with immense experience and knowledge to make it work. How do you go about finding someone like that and can we see our board finding them?

Sadly, I think the club might have looked upon people like Almstadt and Riley as being the answer to this question.

Someone like David Dein could be used as a director (consultant on a very part time basis). Plans and specific proposals could be dissected and improved on by a man of his experience, and mistakes may be less likely to happen.

Alan Nixon (journo) is saying that there's some 'tinkering' with our managerial staff on the way. Full report tomorrow.

What can it be? Maybe Remi is getting his old assistants in finally? He says he sees it as good news.