Rémi Garde. Right Man, Wrong Time?

VILLA54 says:

Rémi Garde is a rare gem of a person in the football management world. A deep and complex personality with total raw honesty as his watchword, his positive attitude has won him many thousands of admirers amongst the Villa faithful. However, many fear that broken promises by Villa’s errant owner and apathetic senior management team may lead to Rémi’s resignation at the end of his first turbulent season (in part) at the helm. Is it a case of right man, wrong time for Rémi Garde at Aston Villa?

A number of fans and indeed some of the football media have stated that they don’t believe Garde’s style of football would work in the Championship, if Villa are relegated. Who knows what Garde’s style is? In his first game in charge and after only working with the squad for just 5 days (following the defeat at Spurs), his first selected eleven left the Villa faithful open-mouthed in shock. For the first 3 minutes of the game against Manchester City at Villa Park, the title chasers couldn’t get a touch! Garde’s eleven passed the ball around with a style and confidence reminiscent of Barcelona at their best. In the final third Villa suddenly stepped up a gear and looked the most likely to score in the game with finally ended 0-0.

The new found optimism and excitement lasted just one week and after the horror of the 4-0 defeat at Everton, Garde’s ‘new look’ Villa transcended back into the hapless relegation strugglers that has been the persona of the team for the last four seasons. Why you may ask? Well what do we know?
We know that Villa’s low in confidence, low on effort, sorry bunch of players would struggle to win games in League one (never mind the Championship) at the moment. Many have said that Garde will need to go and that Villa will need a hard-nosed battler like Nigel Pearson at the helm, because the Championship is a hard tackling, grind it out, blood and thunder league and not for the faint-hearted. This much is true.

However, just for a moment can I push your memory back to when Jean Tigana (another Frenchman with a ‘fancy’ footballing pedigree) brought his breathtaking Fulham team bursting out of the Championship with a fantastic brand of passing football and they soared right up the Premier League as well…until bang! Mohammad Al Fayad, Fulham’s multi-millionaire owner fell out with Tigana and alas, it all disintegrated. What Tigana did do, was prove that a stylish football playing team can win the Championship and then follow it by upsetting the big boys in the Premier League.

In conclusion, Garde, should he decide to stay, will need to be given the resources to have a massive clear out in the summer and must be given the opportunity to build ‘his own squad’. Let’s face it, as my mother used to say ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a pigs ear’

However, don’t write the quiet Frenchman off just yet.

Remi Garde forum thread: Click Here