Time For Gerrard To Stop Talking A Good Game & Actually Manage One

Where has it all gone wrong for Steven Gerrard’s – sorry, the Aston Villa side?

Having tasted success in the two horse race that is the Scottish Premiership, Chief Executive Officer Christian Purslow decided that the barely experienced former Liverpool skipper and England midfielder was the perfect person to replace one of our own, Dean Smith, as he hit a sticky spell that included the sale of the absolutely key Jack Grealish amidst a pre season heavily interrupted by a Covid outbreak.

Purslow’s decision has not proven to be absolutely genius, leaving even more fans wondering why we didn’t go for experience and somebody who had already shown that they could take a club to the next level.

Credit where’s due though, Gerrard quickly ended the run of defeats we suffered during Smith’s final games in charge, and we saw good signs of the style of play he wanted from the team moving forward. But as quickly as those signs appeared, they then disappeared and our performances definitely got worse and results quickly followed. Once that, roughly a first month, was over (dare we say new manager bounce), the organisation went the same way as our attacking intent. It evaporated. Game on game, we became even more inept, even more useless and even more uninspiring. Solid players under Smith seemed to crumble and lose further form under Gerrard – others picked up and showed us more, but it wasn’t enough to stem what was clearly a downward turn, a downward turn Gerrard could not fix. This was despite a clear change in our transfer plan, as Gerrard was allowed to bring in Lucas Digne and Philippe Coutinho, but our form in the second half of the season didn’t really change.

https://twitter.com/VillaAnalytics/status/1555955016632082433

Another noticeable change was his after match press interviews. Once cheeky, and light hearted, they predictably moved to ‘I carry the can’ and then without naming specific players, he he gave us a first hint of potential dressing room unrest, when he explained some in the group wouldn’t be here after the summer unless they pulled their proverbial socks up and helped him, as he’d simply replace them when the summer transfer window opened.

With some players simply undroppable regardless of form, others were unpickable and many were left wondering if we had the green shoots of a new bomb squad forming. The overriding concern was simply the lack of a defined playing style as the 2021/22 campaign came to a close. An issue you couldn’t throw at Mikel Arteta who had real off pitch issues when he took charge of Arsenal, an issue you couldn’t throw at Graham Potter after he’d rocked up at Brighton and certainly something you couldn’t throw at Patrick Vieira once he’d got comfortable at Crystal Palace. That’s not to say they are perfect, those teams have their own noticeable flaws but you at least know how they want to play.

Gerrard’s strongest supporters assured the more concerned fans that this would be addressed when he had a full pre-season and was able to get more of his own players in. We now find ourselves at that point, but performances in our pre-season friendlies didn’t really inspire confidence that Gerrard had now found his Villa way, and with more arrivals during the window, it’s not unfair to say we looked more disjointed than ever as Scott Parker seemed to effectively out think Gerrard on the tactics front in our season opener against newly promoted Bournemouth.

1-0 down after three minutes with a team selection that few fans would’ve picked, and despite dominating the ball, our main tactic seemed to be aimlessly punt it into the box despite usually only having one player in the penalty area. Even when we had more pace and creativity on the pitch, the tactic failed to change and in pushing up so high, we allowed Bournemouth to crowd us out and in the end, we failed to draw them out onto us so we could utilise the pace of Ollie Watkins and Cameron Archer to try and get in behind them. 2-0 against a newly promoted side was not how we wanted to cap ‘Stevie’s first full pre-season’.

“Gerrard was asked about Coutinho post match and whether he saw him as a 10 or a left and he replied with a snappy comment “I think I know Philippe as a player, don’t you””@PreeceObserver via @ClaretBluePod #avfc

— 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗩𝗙𝗖 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗳𝘂𝗹 (@theavfcfaithful) August 6, 2022

Six wins in the last 23 and only two wins in the last 12 speaks volumes, and with a win percentage now worse than Smith’s final year in the job, pressure is rightly rising and some would say Gerrard’s own media reactions show things are not happy behind the scenes – take the Tyrone Mings debacle for example. Such a late captaincy change this summer, and bizarre comments about his fitness and when he’ll next play – Mings might be the new Morgan Sanson – but I can’t be alone in having Tim Sherwood and Paul Lambert flash backs here can I?

The full interview is coming shortly on @bbcwm @sportbbcwm but when I asked about leaving Mings out of the starting XI v #afcb, #AVFC boss Steven Gerrard told me:

“When Tyrone is back at his best and looks me in the eye and shows me he’s ready to play, he’ll get opportunities” pic.twitter.com/izQwRK20he

— Steve Hermon (@SteveHermon) August 6, 2022

Now I won’t deny I wasn’t sold on the appointment to begin with, particularly if we wanted to ensure we pushed ourselves to the next level after Smith, but I was slowly being won over at the beginning with the performances and small (but regular) improvements we seemed to be making, but it’s inconceivable that we have now fallen even further from DS’s darkest days and even though there were massive questions for Gerrard to answer given how we ended last season, Bournemouth shows there are major questions to be asked when it comes to his approach, team selections, tactics and ultimately what the hell we actually do on the training pitch – other than produce nice shiny PR content for social media.

With massive price increases this year, Villa have already shown they failed to read a ‘real life room’ and with all the talk of Stadium expansion, surely Purslow knows that would be a foolish investment for our owners if performances and dug out management remains this inept.

Some will say it’s a one game overreaction – I’d say look at our run of form since last January (which many who wanted DS gone encouraged the likes of me to do). Two wins (against relegated sides) and three draws in the last 12 games – seven defeats tells its own story, it’s relegation form and Gerrard has now had his pre-season and now has more of his own players in and that hasn’t changed anything – so when do we stop questioning the players and look elsewhere?

We were happy to after five defeats on the spin (despite the valid excuses that should’ve given DS a bit more time – but not a lot more time to turn things around), but we didn’t after four defeats on the spin despite the overall form, and Gerrard doesn’t even have credit in the bank here. When he talks about needing ‘quality’ in the team after Bournemouth, maybe he should begin by focusing on a workable game plan that suits our strengths and suits our qualities, rather than showing himself to be a big named chequebook manager who still can’t get them performing together.

Gerrard has long talked a good game, instead of being spiky and short in media interviews and seemingly fostering disagreements with players behind the scenes in an attempt to stamp his authority on the team, maybe he should ensure we play like a team for a change.