Remi Garde in my humble opinion entered the O.K. Corral armed with a water pistol. He was completely unprepared for the scrap ahead.
He came in to oversee a collection of players more used to losing games than they ever were to winning. He knew that. That’s why the managers seat was vacant.
We were led to believe that Garde was a good coach. Good. We all knew that he’d need that commodity in his make up, arguably more than he’d ever done before.
He needed to make the shell-shocked squad start feeling good about both themselves, and get them facing up to the battle ahead with desire and confidence.
To get us out of the mess we were in he should have told the squad that we were going to be fearless, and we were going to take some gambles.
If the team had continued to lose fairly regularly, but looked good doing it, hustling, giving their all, improving, growing in confidence, then maybe we might have felt good about the Frenchman, decided that he’d definitely improved a dire situation, we’d seen his charges improve their all-round game, step up a notch or two, and then maybe we’d have cut him more slack. Maybe he’d have even won us over?
He’s failed to do that.
It’s a win or else profession. Garde knows that. But all we the supporters craved was an improvement on what had gone before. We didn’t expect to start winning game after game, but we did expect fight, determination, a plan, a method of play, and a team willing to fight for the club’s survival and take pride in the claret and blue shirt.
We haven’t developed or improved at all. We are worse than we were under Tim Sherwood.
Garde will probably never get a better chance in his career to influence and improve a football team, than the opportunity that fell into his lap last autumn.
Working hard and playing aggressively are not functions of talent. He’d know that. He should by now have at least got that bit right. The team doesn’t work hard. And it certainly doesn’t play aggressively.
He should have established a way of doing things. He hasn’t been able to do that either. The team has no identity.
The current Villa squad isn’t who we’ve been. We cant fall back on the one player we’ve been able to fall back on in recent seasons.
I think that Garde failed to understand and adapt to the environment he walked into. He failed to take responsibility.
Yes, he could probably see the downfalls of coming here when the job was offered, but he must have been well aware of the massive opportunity he was inheriting.
He has failed. Not up to the task. Goodbye.
Read more in the forum thread (with a bit more adult language etc): Click Here
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