Gerard Houllier has stood on the touchline and overseen 11 Premier League games now and the table doesn’t lie, the stats are grim. His two wins represent an 18% win ratio and you can put that up against the records of his predecessors if you wish in the manager performance table I complied just before this season kicked off.

That particular table is sorted by percentage of available points won and Houllier would sit at the bottom of the pile with 30.30% But is an 11 match sample really a fair basis to judge? I wondered how the other managers in the table had done in their first 11 league games.

Say, Ron Atkinson for instance.

Flashback: September 28th 1991. Aston Villa lost 1-0 at Highfield Road to Terry Butcher’s Coventry side leaving Ron Atkinson’s team in 16th place in the old First Division with just 12 points from the new manager’s first 11 games.

There was no need to talk of sacking the manager, not least because it was the first season after the Venglos year, but Big Ron followed up with a five game winning streak which lifted Villa into the top four (It was a tight league table back then too).

But who knows, had the internet existed in anything close to its present form, the blogs and forums could well have been lit up with calls to send the manager on his way, the early season form being little better than the awful season that preceded it.

As you’re probably aware, 1991/92 was the swan song of the old First Division before the breakaway to form the Premier League and not only did Atkinson eventually guide Villa to 7th place that season, he got closer than any Villa manager to winning the new top tier in its inaugural year the following season.

I think it’s safe to assume that we’re all pretty glad that Ron wasn’t shown the door after just 11 games, but there was never really any question of doing so as far as I’m aware.

Relegation Form?

“One win in ten; that’s relegation form”.

I hear or read that phrase a lot lately and it certainly can be, but it really depends on how many of the remaining nine games are draws I suppose. Projected over a season, that’s no more than four wins and unless you get a point from nearly all of the remaining 34 fixtures, which is highly unlikely, you will indeed be heading for the basement.

But rather than just count the wins, it would be more accurate to look at the points earned over all 11 games and extrapolate for 38 games; Houllier’s 10 points from 11 games is the equivalent of 35 points from 38 games which won’t escape relegation many seasons!

However, I’ve compared the performance of all the managers in the table who started their management career at Villa with the club in the top flight and compared their performance over the first 11 league matches, the projection for 38 games and the actual record after 38 games (except for Bill McNeill who inherited a team at the foot of the First Division six games into 86/87 and 36 games later we were back where we started and headed to the Second Division).

George Martin and Graham Taylor, in his second stint, both picked up just seven points during their first 11 games in charge, which if they’d kept the same pace would have been just 24 points after 38 games. Martin managed to amass 56 points and Taylor 45 points, the same number as Dick Taylor who had managed a barely better eight points from his first 11 matches.

The table below shows how David O’Leary and Ron Atkinson both managed to pick up the pace from early form and win more points from 38 games than was projected from their opening 11. Dr Jo, unsurprisingly, did worse than projected, Graham Turner was there or there abouts, and the managers that did well to begin with weren’t able to keep up the early form.

Billy McNeill, of course, did oversee relegation picking up just 33 points from his 36 games, the equivalent of 35 points from 38 games. Graham Taylor, in his first stint, took over and brought us back to the top flight after one season in the second tier.

I didn’t include Joe Mercer who was also at the helm as we unfortunately dropped through the trap door in 1959, but he’d only been in charge for 22 games at the time, the club stuck with him and he brought us back as Champions of the Second Division.

As far as I recall, none of these managers, whether they started well or poorly, inherited a team where their predecessor had walked out five days before the season kicked off and had to contend with an injury crisis that put the number of first team regulars on the injury list into double figures.

Too big to go down

We should all be very familiar with Newcastle, the epitome of a club who thought they were too big to go down, since we had the dubious honour of waving them off at Villa Park. A basket case of a club that actually believed employing Alan Shearer as manager would have a happy ending. It didn’t and the recent sacking of Chris Hughton suggests that they’ve learned nothing.

I would like to think that we can learn the lessons of their example purely from observation and not by attempting to emulate their approach. Still, if fans are convinced that installing a 4th manager this calendar year is the way to go, then have at it, but I hope they have a good grasp of what a self-fulfilling prophecy is and a strong sense of humour.

One way to ensure that the notion of being too big to go down proves false is to act like a small club. Aston Villa is not a small club, Aston Villa should not act like a small club.

Facetious much?

Of course, this is a vast over-simplification and in many ways I’m being quite flippant. There are lots of reasons why Atkinson wouldn’t have been under the same pressure after 11 games and Houllier is and it’s not the difference between 12 and 10 points. Might Houllier’s life be a little easier right now with a couple of extra points? Well, yes, we’d be a few places higher in the table and that would ease a lot of concerns for sure.

It would probably be a little easier without PR gaffs such as touching a sign, not being seen to wave to a group of fans or making inappropriate attempts at humour, but those things could be more easily dismissed with the right results.

But concerns about what people are seeing, or think they’re seeing, on the pitch coupled with many pre-conceived reservations mean that the bar is set an awful lot higher for Houllier and that, of course, means he’s missing it by some margin with a large group of fans. We’re also not 11 games into the season, but 16; we were in a bit of a mess when he arrived, Atkinson had the benefit of a clean slate and a pre-season.

Hindsight is 20/20

Everything becomes clear with the benefit of hindsight. It might not be likely, but it’s far from impossible for this team to go on a five game winning streak, just as Atkinson’s side did. We may look back on this period in years to come and feel as relieved that we stuck the course as Man Utd fans do after periods of dissatisfaction during early periods of Alex Ferguson’s reign.

Of course, the opposite could be equally true. We could easily look back on this period and wish the tough choices had been made; the manager and his recently assembled team shown the door and another regime installed. Personally, I think not.

As unambitious and defeatist as this might sound, let’s be realistic for a moment. We have 17 points right now, the threshold for safety is generally considered to be around 40 points (no team has gone down with more than 39 points for seven years) and there are 66 points left to play for.

I’ve been clear that my major concern for this season is failing to qualify for Europe, I know that’s not top of the pops for everyone, but while I’m losing hope that that’s achievable, I still feel it’s more likely than failing to pick up at least 23 points from 66 between now and the end of the season and being in any real danger of relegation.

23 points from 66 is a 35% return and Houllier is certainly below that ratio right now, but only Billy McNeill has failed to pick up a larger share in the top flight over a period worth measuring. Is this manager worse than McNeill, Venglos, Taylors Dick and Graham (v2.0), and David O’Leary? Really?

Considering the circumstances, I just can’t see that he is a worse manager with a worse team at his disposal than those chaps and I think we’ll be fine this season. I will make my usual concession that the current Premier League environment is a lot tougher than the leagues of the past which makes comparisons all the the more challenging.

At the end of the season, of course we should evaluate and make an educated decision about whether to continue with the current regime or try something different, but now is not the time.

In the mean time, I just don’t see how calling for the manager’s head, organising protests, hanging banners or verbally abusing the team and club both in reality and behind the safety of a computer keyboard is constructive in any way. Quite the opposite actually.

Our position at the moment is scary and emotional and that can make people act in an irrational way, especially where vulnerable to absorb groupthink.

What we need to do is keep calm and carry on.