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I’ve read lots of comments from supporters increasingly calling for some sort of resolution to Houllier’s situation. It’s down to results. If we’d won the last two
games, it wouldn’t be quite as urgent. But a loss and a draw, Gary’s comments about plans in place, Luke Young’s comments about not knowing what’s going on, and we’re off. People want something to happen, and they want it to happen now.
If we can’t have good football at the moment, we’d like to know what’s being done to get us good football. I understand. I’d like to know, too.
But we’ll know when the club tell us. Why it should be any different, I don’t know. What are the Villa supposed to say?
“Gerard desperately wants to stay, but we’re afraid he’ll die on the touchline, so we’ve been quietly talking to David Moyes, who many of our supporters seem
to fancy, and we’re trying to convince him to leave Everton, especially since everyone says he’ll have no money, and has taken them as far as he can. We’ve also approached Mourinho, Jol, van Gaal, and everyone else the supporters have named, had secret dinners in dark restaurants all over the continent. We have a couple of fish on the hook, and we’re keeping them guessing, because we still think we can convince the Special One to bring his unique brand of paranoia and drama to Villa Park. We can tell you, though, that none of them rate Dunne, Collins, Warnock, Beye, or Petrov, so it will all work out.” Really?
What else can they say other than the obvious: Gerard is recovering, we wish him the best, we have plans in place, and we’ll address this in the close season. Spin! PR!
They don’t value us!
No. Discretion is the better part of valor. Keep your power dry. Keep your cards close to your chest. Whatever. Don’t do your business in the press. Yes, they’re talking to Gerard, and they’re not telling the rest of the world about every conversation they have. For all we know, Gerard has given them a list and they’ve talked to the people on it, a deal has been done, and Gerard knows when he will step down/move upstairs. Or they could all be watching TV and figuring it will all just take care of itself as soon as someone calls to express interest in the job.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves
I never thought, unless Houllier himself wanted to come out and say it, or he took a terrible turn for the worse, that we’d hear much of anything until after the season ends.
Why? Because like the transfer market, you don’t really know the shape of things until someone makes the first move. Yes, we might know that United are apparently in a bidding war with Chelsea over some Spanish starlet, Brazilian maestro, or some such.
More things will be known behind the scenes. Some friends and agents and mutual acquaintances will be saying things, feeling things out. But this jockeying isn’t for public consumption, nor should it be.
Likewise, potential managerial targets, if we have them, should not be knowledge while the season continues and most of the people presumably on the list are still working the jobs they’ve been contracted and paid to do.
Houllier might actually be fine, and figures he only needs to get rid of the childish senior players who have no skill and desire to improve/adapt/train harder, and his problems will be over.
We can speculate to our hearts’ content. But there’s really no way we could do business with integrity if we started talking up other teams’ managers or players. There is a way to do things, and I think that’s the way Villa are trying to do things. We don’t use the press to unsettle players. Why would we do this with managers?
Doing it the right way
Some supporters scoffed when Villa limited the search to unemployed managers after MON left. Not me. I thought it showed class. We were not going to undermine other teams and create bad blood to help us extricate ourselves from the mess we found ourselves in. We were not shopping for the sort of man who would leave his team in the lurch like MON did.
At the moment, Luke Young doesn’t need to know what’s going on. It’s none of his business, frankly, and has nothing to do with his job on the pitch.
I like Luke Young. But he only needs to be thinking about Arsenal and Liverpool. That’s all he’s being paid to do.
Whoever the manager is, all Luke Young can control is his performance and attitude. That’s how he can keep his place or make himself attractive to someone else.
The players don’t inform the club about their every conversation with their agents, every discrete inquiry or negotiating strategy, every misgiving, late night of drinking, or gambling problem. They don’t.
And since none of them have been hired as management consultants, financial analysts, or football philosophers, their opinions on anything besides the final two games and what’s happening on the pitch are meaningless.
Having said that
Of course we know that harmony is good; chemistry is crucial. We want a manager the players will play for, someone who can sign, motivate, organize, train, and deploy players correctly.
We know that uncertainty is like rot. And we know we have to have a manager in place to make the most of the summer and deal with the Dunnes, Beyes, Warnocks.
We will. There’s no way Lerner thinks it doesn’t matter whether he gets around to resolving this sooner or later. It’s being resolved now. Whether we’ll be happy, I can’t say.
But we know all that we can reasonably expect to know right now. When there’s something concrete to tell us, the club will tell us.
In the meantime, we should relax and enjoy two things: That we’re almost-but-not-quite mathematically safe, and that this season is almost over.
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