One of the words on the street is that Houllier and Randy Lerner are meeting today to flesh out finances for player acquisitions. Then again, that was also one of the words a couple of weeks back, so who knows?
However, it seems self evident that there’s plenty to discuss and that they’ll be getting together at some point. It also seems self evident that there will be some significant activity in January one way or another.
Paul Faulkner seems
Maybe I’m just being over sensitive, but it really seems that Gérard Houllier is having his words twisted more than I’m used to seeing. It may well be because he’s reputedly more forthcoming with journalists than many managers, certainly than his predecessor, but it would be a shame if he ended up being punished via the media for his candour.
MON was the master of talking and talking, but saying very little. Houllier gets to the point and his
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
I hate to sound like a broken record, but a consistent theme I’ve stressed in the Statshack series is the need to look at match statistics as a whole and to be suspicious of anyone attempting to leverage a point with the use of a single metric. Passing for example.
Last season, I read many times that the number of complete passes was an indication that our brand of football was dour and failing to improve, except when the statistics
We were in 16th place when we travelled to Anfield last year amidst much doom and gloom and yet we came away with all three points after a hugely satisfying 3-1 victory. We return to Liverpool on Monday night once again in 16th place, and Liverpool in 11th to their 10th last time, but this time Villa have 15 league games behind them, not one.
We haven’t occupied this lowly a league position at this time of year since we
Asked by French newspaper L’Equipe whether he’d be interested in signing out of favour Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema (Benzema was a teeenager trying to break into the first team at Lyon when Houllier was the manager) Houllier responded playfully; “If Karim wants to come and play at Aston Villa, we would sign him tomorrow.”
As he would with any player of that calibre, but it’s not going to happen.
You think that’s impressive, just wait until the British media get a
I’ve been mulling over writing a post exploring how player registrations, contracts and amortization of transfer fees work for a little while and planned on using John Carew as an example since there seemed to be a growing opinion that he should simply be sold in January. As if it’s really that simple.
That was before the spat that emerged via the media this weekend between player and manager, something that’s impossible to ignore, so I’ll save what I had in
I know many people were more than a little concerned about Gérard Houllier’s age when he was appointed and that may well have caused feelings that his appointment wasn’t a long term solution. Initial reports of a two year contract seemed to compound that feeling, despite his predecessor operating on a 12 month rolling contract that proved to be entirely worthless in the final analysis anyway.
Maybe the fact that his contract, once it was eventually signed, was actually three
When I saw the teamsheet for today’s derby game I leapt to the assumption that Gérard Houllier was going to use a 5-4-1 system with Collins, Dune and Clark as a three man central defensive team. As it turned out, Ciaran Clark would play just in front of the back line in a holding midfield role that raised just as many eyebrows.
Perhaps not at Clark playing such a role, he’s surely an assured and skillful player with the ball