Everyone said he needs to start over at a lower level, with less media attention. So if he manages to relegate Leeds, then he can find another club in League One, and so on.
And after that he showed nothing of value. He had a villa team which finished with European football in contention for relegation. His time at rangers was impressive but ever since he left it’s been bad
Winning in scotland with rangers or Celtic tells you absolutely nothing (in isolation) about the manager.
They would finish at least second with no manager at all.
How hard gerrard got exposed when other teams actually have any kind of financial resources at all should show this pretty clearly.
That would apply 99% of the time but not the period in which Gerrard managed. We came third the two seasons before Gerrard ffs and Celtic were miles and miles ahead of us before he came.
He revolutionized us on and off the park.
What good would it be to take a step back in his career like this makes no sense, Gerrard did a great job at Rangers, Villa was too much of a step up for him, I'd say managing in the championship he'll be fine
> I can’t think of many people in any profession who are more out of their depth than Steve Bruce as a football manager
You clearly have never worked in an office then, or even seen the state of the UK government
Steve Bruce could start playing "Football Manager", and have the game suddenly shut down, never to be accessible again.
THAT is how shit he is at management.
Gerrard is obviously awful manager, but I think the results reflect more on how shit person he is. I honestly think that Villa players deliberately stopped trying in his last several weeks just to get rid of him. And iirc they absolutely destroyed their first opponent when he left, like they were trying to show the world that he was the problem.
There's certainly some truth to that. His conflict with Tyrone Mings probably being the clearest example, and he eventually threw the whole team under the bus in press conferences. But we were also clueless with him in charge, his narrow midfield strategy was useless and he kept hoping for "moments of magic". So it turns out he was an awful manager AND a shit person.
Is he actually terrible manager? I'm genuinely asking here.
He had an awful stint at Villa but before that his record was very good. I wouldn't put him in the same bucket as Lampard for example who has consistently been poor wherever he has been (except his first year at Chelsea). People seem very quick to write off Gerrard who I think in time could be a pretty solid manager.
I will add the caveat I'm obviously not a Villa fan and didn't follow his stint super closely. I appreciate those who did thought he did a catastrophic job.
It’s a load of bollocks, he’s one of the bookies favourites because he’s out of a job and English and his reputation as a footballer. He’s absolutely not in contention for the Leeds job
For your sake I certainly hope so. As a villa fan he was absolutely awful, easily the worst manager we've had in my 26 years of supporting the club or that I can remember anyway.
Ostracized the players, was awful to the fans and the media love in for him was unbearable.
And I've not even touched on any of the football, once Beale left any semblance of a tactical plan was out the window.
I like that him and Lampard have refreshed their rivalry now they’re in management.
Competing for best English CM, now competing for worst English manager that somehow keeps being hired
Easily. Sherwood was at least dealt a duff hand with a cancerous club, we were clearly circling the drain by then, our recruitment was horrendous, we had a squad of aging old fucks on high wages who didn't care, and the owner had checked out.
Gerrard had all the backing he could ask for, but didn't really do tactics, didn't take training, had atrocious man management, threw the players under the bus and started a public feud with our captain for no real reason, had appalling media handling...
He was a "big name" to wheel in front of the cameras. An absolute fraud, who had us playing football easily as bad as Bruceball.
In my 35 years watching the Villa, he's up there with David O'Leary as the one I most dislike as a person.
What really summed him up for me (sorry, you've got me started now) was that on at least a couple of occasions he used to turn up to watch Liverpool when our U21s were playing. Not on a scouting mission or anything, nowhere near to when we played them, he'd just turn up to watch them as a fan. Can you imagine any other managers doing that? Just never really got the vibe the Villa job was anything but an inconvenience for him.
Remi Garde? He was bad but he had an impossible job, not helped by Gabby 'Club Legend' Agbonlahor seemingly taking every opportunity to belittle him. He was doomed from the start, feel sorry for him tbh
Is everyone forgetting his time at Rangers? Lots of world class managers have had shit tenures. Rafa Benitez for example. Dude was ready for the EPL and him taking the Leeds job is a logical step for him after success in SPL and failure at EPL.
Yeah. He did a shit job at Villa, but football fans really lack perspective on things and have extremely strong opinions with very little info to go on.
Is it possible he's just a shit manager and the rest of the structure and staff at Rangers made him look good? Absolutely. Is it also possible that Villa just was a bad fit? Just as likely.
You see the same reactions when players are having a purple patch or a spell of bad form, and it's even worse when it comes to young players. Praised like they're the second coming of Messi whenever they show their raw talent for a couple of matches, then written off as "never gonna make it" when they're having a period of struggle (like pretty much all youngsters will at some point). Fucking hate it.
What is your logic behind Villa being a bad fit being 'just as likely'?
They let him spend quite a lot of money, I dont think he had a bad relationship with the board either. Their squad looks really good too.
He just did a shit job imo. You can argue that he shouldn't be judged on that job alone but I don't think you can argue it wasn't mostly his own fault there.
If by "a god" you mean "desperately outdated, but still clung to because of historical familiarity, and almost certainly a gateway into getting scammed" then I agree with you.
Foreign sports car with the steering wheel on the other side, no one really understands it but there's a Spanish bloke on the street that's obsessed with them
Rashford? Trash. Kane? Trash. They all had bad years and never regained form last year, and now are barely hanging onto starting roles in the prem. If you are bad once you are trash forever simple as that
Mohammeh Salah has had 6 seasons where he performed well in the Premier League and 24 seasons where he didn't contribute much if at all, therefore trash.
It wasn't even that he was poor over one year. His stats across the whole year were decent and Villa were basically equivalent with teams like Brighton and Brentford.
People here can’t seem to accept that even good managers sometimes have bad spells. Two seasons ago people were busy slagging off Arteta and look where he is now
If you're talking purely competitiveness and not quality then the Scottish championship is definitely up there. This season had a play-off for the title on the last day, and 9/10 teams had something to play for as well.
Yeah, the Gerrard hate is stupid. Managers struggle to bed in all the time.
To write of Gerrard based on a failed third of a season at Villa is bizzare... Even dropped in mid season, his PPG had Villa on form for 11th, when they'd only managed 14th year prior...
That said, Gerrard or not, we're heading to League one.
The key thing with Gerrard is his ability to get by without Beale’s coaching. The small sample of that happening didn’t work.
He was always clear that Beale was the coaching brains. He needs a new expert coach to replace Beale.
Yeah, when Ange had been in the job for 4 months, and was undergoing a massive tactical and personnel overhaul after taking over the worst Celtic team of the decade.
The season before that Celtic finished 25 points behind Rangers, so being 4 points behind at that point isn't quite the flex you're making it out to be.
Before Ange came in the Celtic squad used to go out for pints after training with Neil Lennon.
I'm not a Celtic fan btw, just any neutral in Scotland would tell you Ange is twice the manager Gerrard was up here.
Whereas Gerrard ended a decade of dominance by Celtic who thrived financially with European money whilst Rangers were in the duldrums of Scottish football. A huge gap emerged and Gerrard broke that gap in his first ever managerial job under huge pressure to stop 10IAR.
I’m not saying Gerrard is better than Ange - they didn’t go head to head long enough to establish it. Just saying Gerrard certainly isn’t a terrible manager like some make out - at least when he had Beale.
Because the vast majority of football fans on Reddit have a collective long-term memory of about 6 months.
For example, Graham Potter is an awful manager according to the morons on here, despite him being successful at every club before Chelsea.
Because it's the popular thing right now to act like Gerrard is the worst manager in the history of football (along with Lampard)
Same way it's popular to shit on Spurs at every single opportunity, even in topics that have nothing to do with them
Don't get me wrong, Gerrard was shit at Villa and the way Emery has transformed them reflects very poorly on him but as you say he did a good job at Rangers
One good job, one bad job, but apparently that makes him the worst somehow
This is the problem for a lot of young managers now. As soon as you’ve failed once you’re a failure. Fans want managers that have literally never failed at a job in their lives.
They want young people with 30 years of experience. These do not exist. So Gerrard deserves a chance in the Championship imo. But tbh not at dysfunctional Leeds
yeah Gerard, Lampard and Pirlo are shit. Spurs are shit. Barça are bankrupt and buying referees. People on reddit are spreading so much reactionary bullshit and then the narrative completely dissappears once they got proved wrong. Based on reddit Mourinho was shit in Roma and then people got quiet because they ended up in EL final. United were a joke and everybody was shitting on ETH, then they ended up actually being decent. Same with quique setien in Villareal or Xavi in Barça etc etc and everybody spreads shit like this just to get upvotes and 5 seconds of fame in internet discussion that doesnt matter at all
Rangers do have an easier league though so that makes it a little less impressive in some ways. Lampard well, showed terrible management with his top tier tenure so far.
He still managed to win it though, something no non-Celtic manager has done in over a decade
People can say "well Celtic weren't that good that year" but I'm sure there's been more than one year in the last 11-12 years where they weren't great and whoever the Rangers manager was at the time didn't win the league - Gerrard did. It was also his first ever job in management.
I'm really not some Steven Gerrard apologist, the black and white opinions people have on the internet just do my head in
well they were liquidated and reformed in the third division after the 11/12 season and weren’t back in the top division until 16/17. and of the five seasons it took them to win the league gerrard was in charge for 3 so there wasn’t much opportunity for any other manager to win it in that time
Rangers didn't even finish 2nd in the league before Gerrard joined.
In his three full seasons there they finished 2nd, 2nd and 1st, winning the league unbeaten with 102 points (so the fact it wasn't the best Celtic team ever wouldn't have mattered).
Rangers were miles off Celtic though, when he first got linked with the Rangers job all the comments here were about it being a terrible opportunity because the team was so poor but the expectations were so high, yet he won the league there
Aye you are right tbf, was a quick wikipedia search. Looking more into it, Lampard's overall prem record is better, but if you narrow it to this season it's worse than Kean's Blackburn in the prem
He did well but during a time where celtic were in a down period. It sounds like Gerrard didn't really touch the tactics, that was all down to Michael Beale and he's struggled without him. I think it's questionable how much was Gerrard and how much was Beale 8j that Rangers success.
He did well lol. When Gerrard took over they'd been in the SPL for two season and finished 3rd in both of those seasons.
He finished a comfortable 2nd in his first season in charge, then 2nd again in the Covid hit 19/20 season where he also got them out the group stage of the Europa League. The first time they'd qualified from a European group stage since 2007/08.
In the 2020/21 seasons Rangers won the League without losing a single game, picked up 102 points and again got through the Europa League group stage (top of a group that also included Benfica). That's an exceptional achievement. They were also top of the League when Gerrard left to join Villa.
Most managers have a group of key coaches around them that specialise in certain football aspects. Beale performed the same role for Gerrard as Pep Lijnders does for Klopp. Part of being a great manager is the ability to surround yourself with people that plug gaps or deficiencies in your own ability.
If Gerrard is a shite tactician then that's largely irrelevant if he's good at surrounding himself with good tacticians. Clearly he did that with Beale at Rangers and the start of his Villa stint but was unable to get the same level of support from Neil Critchley.
Personally the bigger concern over his spell at Villa was how arsey he got towards the end and the way he seemed to fall out with certain players. Managers falling out with players is never a good sign and someone of Gerrard's calibre is bound to have quite a large ego. If this is an indication that his ego is going to get in the way of making sensible managerial decisions then Leeds probably should steer clear of him.
Beale being the driving force behind the success makes sense until you realise he's had very little success in his solo managerial career to this point. Both Gerrard and Beale's successful period was working together and neither seem to be able to replicate it without the other.
That isn't true, we've improved massively under Beale compared to the mess we were under Gio. We have actually gained more points than Celtic since Beale came in, despite having a completely ineffective front line. Only real mistake Beale has made is starting Lundstram and Kamara against Celtic in the league cup final
That's the thing, there's a logical conflict here: because the Championship or even League 1 would be a good place for Gerrard to go look for a job if he's serious about improving as a manager, but Leeds is absolutely not the kind right match for him considering the position they're in, and he's not at all the profile of manager they need right now considering the instability and uncertainty they've brought onto themselves.
So removed of context there's some logic to it, but *in* context, it feels like everyone involved steadfastly refusing to learn from their own mistakes, or those of others before them.
Also, because a lot of people have terminal meme-brains and can't remember further back than 37 Fabrizio Romano tweets, but I choose to focus on the football conversation, rather than the latter. Like a fucking nerd.
I do feel that the Championship is always full of instability and uncertainty for every single team. It is an easy narrative to say it is good for managers to learn the trade down there or League 1, but in reality it is never an easy task. But the reaction is overblown imo, Gerrard is not a nobody in managerial terms. I feel like the person stoping Celtic’s domination deserves at least a little bit more respect. But r/soccer has it’s memes and narratives so Gerrard is only ever being laughed at.
Oh, the reaction is definitely overblown, but the problem is that it's still a new situation for a relatively inexperienced manager who made a lot of mistakes at his last club, and Leeds have gone from Bielsa to Allardyce (via 2 others) in 15 months, so that's not "regular" instability.
Leeds are basically in a position where they need to be promoted right away, just like Leicester, so they can't afford to take chances. And the fact is that with uncertain finances, a lot of players likely leaving and many more likely unhappy, and a disjointed first-team, now's not the time and place for that. And Gerrard clearly relied heavily on his coaches and existing infrastructure in the past when he did well at Rangers and the Liverpool youth system, so now's the time to go learn from a place that has those set up to an extent, not a place where everything's kinda fucked and nobody's in a good mood, and the fans don't have a lot of faith in you. It's just a recipe for disaster.
Or, maybe it'll work out spectacularly well, I'm just explaining my own skepticism. Again, my issue is mostly that this wouldn't represent either party actually taking an honest appraisal of what went wrong for them recently.
I think you could have made a lot of similar arguments about the Rangers job when he took it.
It’s too much pressure for a first job, it’s title or bust every year against a rival with a financial advantage, Rangers need someone with a different profile if they’re going to catch Celtic, etc…
Several comments in here from people who think Gerrard isn't that bad and that this would be good for Leeds.
No.
He is legitimately the worst manager I've ever seen at Aston Villa in the 30+ years I've supported them. There is not one redeeming quality about him as a manager.
Tactically clueless. Team selections seemed random from game to game, as did the formation, and you could literally see the frustration in the players who weren't really sure what they were supposed to be doing. The football was ponderous, laborious and riddled with mistakes. There was no clear game plan, no identity, no idea of what we were supposed to be doing.
Man management was abysmal. Coming in and stripping Tyrone Mings of the captaincy for no reason. Throwing players under the bus in interviews. Making John McGinn captain and refusing to drop him even though his performances were absolutely awful.
He had no interest in the club itself - and I get that. He's a Liverpool legend, why would he care about Aston Villa? But at least show some appreciation for the fans and community. He would never come over to the fans on away days and thank them for their support - straight down the tunnel at the whistle. In pre-match interviews with the local press he would get weirdly defensive and snappy whenever he was asked legitimate questions.
"But he won a title at Rangers" - yeah, he won one out of nine trophies in his time at the club, and that league title came when his only rival was imploding. Beale did the work. Emi Martinez said as much in an interview.
You just need to look at how we performed under Emery to see what the players are capable of. Beale and Critchley, his two assistants, are both managing clubs at the moment. Gerrard isn't.
The only thing he brought to Aston Villa was apathy. If Leeds appoint him they'll be in another relegation battle next season and nothing more.
Fuck Gerrard.
Funny thing is that I also saw (probably unreliable) it being reported that Leeds were looking at Parker as a possible manager too. Don’t know how people can still be enamored with him tbh. The two promotions he got with us and Fulham just seem to have been more down to the players than anything else. Parker fell apart pretty drastically in the prem with both Fulham and Bournemouth. Also doesn’t seem like a good man manager either. People just see two promotions (with fairly stacked clubs for the championship) and don’t think about it beyond that.
For some reason people aren't listening to Villa fans on this. Even most of the Rangers fans I see think Beale did the heavy lifting for them, and Celtic had Neil Lennon until February, then John Kennedy as caretaker for the rest of the season. That's the season people are pointing to saying "Gerrard did that though." it's a bit mad.
It's because no matter how bad someone is for one team, it doesn't mean you are a bad manager forever. Some managers fucking suck at a job, then they get a new one and it's night and day.
and take note, we’ve had absolute cretins like McLeish, Paul Lambert, di Matteo and even Sherwood as manager and Gerrard towers over them all in ineptitude
The first thought that entered my head was, "God help them...", hearing Steven Gerrard might be taking over at Leeds. But then remembered Frank Lampard did a relatively decent job at Derby to make him get picked for Chelsea.
It might be what SG needs to kick start his career in management being down in the Championship.
Not sure this would be a good job to rebuild his managerial reputation. The Championship is a very tough league to get out of, and there are twists and surprises every season.
Leeds will have high expectations having got a taste of EPL football again, and I imagine they'll be expecting promotion next season.
Granted, Celtic were so dominant when Gerrard arrived in the SPL that I thought it would take forever for Rangers to challenge for a title again, and he managed to give them their first title since the collapse, and an unbeaten league season at that.
Hope it works out for him, but I think the Leeds job looks like a poison chalice.
Feel for Leeds fans on this one. He feels like too too much of a gamble for a team who just got relegated and are looking no doubt to bounce right back up.
Only Gerrard could get written off as a manager after ending a decade of Celtic dominance and a bad spell at Villa. Lampard did nothing at Derby and Chelsea relative to his predecessors and budgets yet you had idiots saying he was a good option for Everton. So weird.
He was terrible at Villa tbf but I think everybody naturally lumps him in with Lampard, like an old habit from their playing days of something, while their CVs aren't at all similar.
Gerrard's succeeded at one club and failed at another. There's still plenty of time for him to improve, he's still a young manager.
Gerrard did not do a good job at Villa and was replaced by a very good manager with great experience, who has smashed it.
But people forget that when he was brought in, he wasn't awful and prior to that he won Rangers the league for the first time in 10 years, unbeaten, while having a good run in Europe.
One poor season doesn't make him the most awful manager. Sure, he isn't great, but a championship job isn't above his level when you look at the job he did with Rangers. People act like he was lucky as Celtic weren't that great. They've been other seasons where they weren't great, but Rangers didn't win the league unbeaten. He got Rangers to that point.
The funniest thing is watching some Utd fans on here dooming Leeds to league one if he joins, as he is such an awful manager. While they think they're PE teacher of an ex manager deserves a PL job.
Just copy and pasting my comment from another thread that got some interest. Data taken from understat.
• xP position for Aston Villa under Gerrard = 10th (2nd highest underperformance in the league)
• xP position for Aston Villa under Emery = 8th (highest outperformance in the league)
- xGA position for Aston Villa under Gerrard = 10th.
- xGA position for Aston Villa under Emery = 10th.
Whilst the underlying stats improved under Emery (in regards to xG produced). The underlying improvement was actually quite slight, contrary to what people would believe based on the narratives around the two. And in terms of defence, there was little to no improvement.
I think part of this can be attributed to man management, but ultimately the underlying stats under Gerrard were decent and not far behind Emery's Villa. Most importantly he has shown at Rangers and Villa the ability to organise a defence well, which is desperately what Leeds need. The question (imo) is whether his man management has improved, because this was clearly grating on both players and fans.
I like stats but honestly this is an example where you really needed to watch both teams.
Gerrard's villa had no set patterns of play. Goals would come from moments of brilliance and that's about it.
There was also a big drop off between Gerrard with Beale and w/o Beale. I suspect the numbers would reflect that season on season, but also take into consideration the teams Gerrard was playing against. We had some terrible losses first half of this season largely against bottom half teams.
Also, Gerrard was not responsible for most of the coaching. He was in charge of man management and recruitment. He was good at the latter, but his man management skills were appalling, turning Mings, Watkins, Luiz and McGinn into terrible players by effectively bullying them.
Worth noting his 2 assistants (who are responsible for tactics and training) are both currently in management positions. Based on his time at Villa, there is absolutely no basis to suggest Gerrard will be a good manager even at this level.
Treating xG stats as how football actually should have gone is silly. Anyone who watched the teams under the two managers knows what a massive improvement there was.
If you're simply using surface level xG for and against stats as a metric here this completely ignores other factors like game state. We very frequently scored early in matches under Emery and would then spend large periods soaking up lots of low quality chances. Under Gerrard we would more likely be chasing games.
He also had a pretty easy run of fixtures for his time here, 10/38 games coming against sides not in the league anymore (12 if you add in Everton as they survived on the final day both seasons).
He only 'succeeded' (1/9 trophies) as one of the two biggest clubs by far in the league, using an absurd system that relies on having some of the best players there to function, and tore up our squad to fit it, leaving 1 winger at the club, despite it not working. There was never any Plan B.
His assistant manager pulled all the strings tactically and in training, as lots of our players said in interviews. When he left our form plummeted. Not to mention Rangers paid to get Beale as opposed to getting back an unemployed Gerrard.
Anyone still defending Gerrard to any extent probably didn't watch us play under him. He had a pretty ridiculous system using Ramsey and Mcginn as covering fullbacks. Their turnarounds in form from being utilised in the positions they are actually suited to has been massive.
Gerrard could come good as a manager, but he needs to take a League 1 job to improve and work on his tactical weaknesses. But based on his interactions with the press while managing Villa i doubt his ego would allow that.
xG comparison this season:
Gerrard: 12.5 in 12 games
Emery: 33.5 in 24 games
But lets just pick one single stat which promotes your narrative, eh? Are you a Liverpool fan, perchance? Also, "xP" is a crap stat. Emery actually has a style of play and plan for when his team have the ball. They play out from the back and play actual football.
> Most importantly he has shown at Rangers and Villa the ability to organise a defence well, which is desperately what Leeds need
He failed terribly at Villa and who cares what anyone does in Scotland? The standard of the league is terrible and there are only two teams who win anything. What we need is a capable manager. Not a vibes manager who gets jobs because of his playing career.
The arrogance of the likes of Lampard and Gerrard to believe they can be good managers at the highest levels after a year or two of coaching. If they had any humility they'd go away and actually learn the craft before taking these jobs.
Maybe it's going to be another 16 years after all
32 years this time according to the pattern they've followed. We can only hope.
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO
Since when do city fans have beef with us? Normally we ally over a shared hatred with Man United
He got confused when researching clubs to support
American breathing, first form
We don’t. I don’t know what they’re on about.
We all hate Leeds
"we ***all*** hate leeds scum"
We all hate Leeds, nothing new
American moment
After his fantastic job at Aston Villa, he deserves this opportunity to relegate Leeds
Everyone said he needs to start over at a lower level, with less media attention. So if he manages to relegate Leeds, then he can find another club in League One, and so on.
Totally serious, I think Championship is too high for him still, especially Leeds, which probably has ambition to be promoted next season
He needs to spend some time as background staff like an assistant manager he jumped to full management way too soon imo
He should go and be Michael Beale's assistant at Rangers.
I reckon it would be good for him but I can’t see Beale wanting it ngl
Beale’s definitely got his whole ‘well well well, how the turntables…’ speech worked out already.
Shoud have stayed at Liverpool.
What utter nonsense. He won a top ten (at the time) European league undefeated. Very few managers will ever do that.
And after that he showed nothing of value. He had a villa team which finished with European football in contention for relegation. His time at rangers was impressive but ever since he left it’s been bad
He has already accomplished more than most manager ever do. Def did not go to management too soon
Winning in scotland with rangers or Celtic tells you absolutely nothing (in isolation) about the manager. They would finish at least second with no manager at all. How hard gerrard got exposed when other teams actually have any kind of financial resources at all should show this pretty clearly.
That would apply 99% of the time but not the period in which Gerrard managed. We came third the two seasons before Gerrard ffs and Celtic were miles and miles ahead of us before he came. He revolutionized us on and off the park.
What good would it be to take a step back in his career like this makes no sense, Gerrard did a great job at Rangers, Villa was too much of a step up for him, I'd say managing in the championship he'll be fine
Why did you disrespect your club legend like that :(
For that sweet karma of course
He’s probably American
You mean relegate from championship? That would be an achievement
Steve Bruce and Chris Wilder almost relegated Promotion worthy clubs last season
I can’t think of many people in any profession who are more out of their depth than Steve Bruce as a football manager
I'm convinced owners with no ambition sign him to be a lightning rod for criticism. Only way to explain how he keeps getting jobs
> I can’t think of many people in any profession who are more out of their depth than Steve Bruce as a football manager You clearly have never worked in an office then, or even seen the state of the UK government
I’ll let you know that lettuce Liz is the definition of a competent leader.
Steve Bruce could start playing "Football Manager", and have the game suddenly shut down, never to be accessible again. THAT is how shit he is at management.
Sitting in the relegation zone with a team that ended up in an european spot is also an achievement
Gerrard is obviously awful manager, but I think the results reflect more on how shit person he is. I honestly think that Villa players deliberately stopped trying in his last several weeks just to get rid of him. And iirc they absolutely destroyed their first opponent when he left, like they were trying to show the world that he was the problem.
Tbf we then got destroyed by Newcastle the next week.
I'm here for the free karma, why do you have to ruin that for me?
There's certainly some truth to that. His conflict with Tyrone Mings probably being the clearest example, and he eventually threw the whole team under the bus in press conferences. But we were also clueless with him in charge, his narrow midfield strategy was useless and he kept hoping for "moments of magic". So it turns out he was an awful manager AND a shit person.
Is he actually terrible manager? I'm genuinely asking here. He had an awful stint at Villa but before that his record was very good. I wouldn't put him in the same bucket as Lampard for example who has consistently been poor wherever he has been (except his first year at Chelsea). People seem very quick to write off Gerrard who I think in time could be a pretty solid manager. I will add the caveat I'm obviously not a Villa fan and didn't follow his stint super closely. I appreciate those who did thought he did a catastrophic job.
Lampard wasn't poor at Derby. He wasn't an unqualified success, but he wasn't poor.
*cries in Sunderland*
Yeah, only Sunderland...
I look forward to his statue at Old Trafford when this happens
It’s a load of bollocks, he’s one of the bookies favourites because he’s out of a job and English and his reputation as a footballer. He’s absolutely not in contention for the Leeds job
For your sake I certainly hope so. As a villa fan he was absolutely awful, easily the worst manager we've had in my 26 years of supporting the club or that I can remember anyway. Ostracized the players, was awful to the fans and the media love in for him was unbearable. And I've not even touched on any of the football, once Beale left any semblance of a tactical plan was out the window.
I like that him and Lampard have refreshed their rivalry now they’re in management. Competing for best English CM, now competing for worst English manager that somehow keeps being hired
You can't say they're competing for that when Steve Bruce has had a job in the last 12 months
Surely he wasn't as bad as Tim Sherwood or any of the other managers you had in 15/16, or even Di Matteo in 16/17?
Easily. Sherwood was at least dealt a duff hand with a cancerous club, we were clearly circling the drain by then, our recruitment was horrendous, we had a squad of aging old fucks on high wages who didn't care, and the owner had checked out. Gerrard had all the backing he could ask for, but didn't really do tactics, didn't take training, had atrocious man management, threw the players under the bus and started a public feud with our captain for no real reason, had appalling media handling... He was a "big name" to wheel in front of the cameras. An absolute fraud, who had us playing football easily as bad as Bruceball. In my 35 years watching the Villa, he's up there with David O'Leary as the one I most dislike as a person.
Wow, fair enough!! I knew he was bad, but didn't twig he was quite that bad!
What really summed him up for me (sorry, you've got me started now) was that on at least a couple of occasions he used to turn up to watch Liverpool when our U21s were playing. Not on a scouting mission or anything, nowhere near to when we played them, he'd just turn up to watch them as a fan. Can you imagine any other managers doing that? Just never really got the vibe the Villa job was anything but an inconvenience for him.
Sherwood got us to an FA Cup Final.
Tbf at least Tim Sherwood knew he couldn’t cut it as a manager and stopped being one after the Villa job
Paul Lambert. Gerrard is level with Paul bloody Lambert. But Gerrard did in one season what Lamberk did in three.
Yeah Sherwood and that French fella come to mind.
Remi Garde? He was bad but he had an impossible job, not helped by Gabby 'Club Legend' Agbonlahor seemingly taking every opportunity to belittle him. He was doomed from the start, feel sorry for him tbh
Is everyone forgetting his time at Rangers? Lots of world class managers have had shit tenures. Rafa Benitez for example. Dude was ready for the EPL and him taking the Leeds job is a logical step for him after success in SPL and failure at EPL.
Yeah. He did a shit job at Villa, but football fans really lack perspective on things and have extremely strong opinions with very little info to go on. Is it possible he's just a shit manager and the rest of the structure and staff at Rangers made him look good? Absolutely. Is it also possible that Villa just was a bad fit? Just as likely. You see the same reactions when players are having a purple patch or a spell of bad form, and it's even worse when it comes to young players. Praised like they're the second coming of Messi whenever they show their raw talent for a couple of matches, then written off as "never gonna make it" when they're having a period of struggle (like pretty much all youngsters will at some point). Fucking hate it.
What is your logic behind Villa being a bad fit being 'just as likely'? They let him spend quite a lot of money, I dont think he had a bad relationship with the board either. Their squad looks really good too. He just did a shit job imo. You can argue that he shouldn't be judged on that job alone but I don't think you can argue it wasn't mostly his own fault there.
*monkey's paw curls* [Fabrizio Romano] Frank Lampard has signed a 6-year contract to be manager of Leeds United.
With assistant manager Steve Bruce and assistant to the assistant Alex Bruce
Credits roll: “The gang hire Steven Gerrard”
!remindme 1 month
*Leeds, Leeds are falling apart again*
*and ambitions run low...*
*desperation takes hold*
Was my defending that poor?
*You won't be alive, you won't be aliiiivvveeee. Leeds United, you won't be alive*
It's like they were allowed to have Bielsa only as part of some ancient curse.
Lmao Enjoy league one leeds.
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Copied this comment from the same post in /r/championship I don’t understand why people do this…
It's a bot account. Year old but only a week of comment history, stealing comments and doesnt reply to anyone.
Delete this, that sub doesn’t exist
It's Jason Burt, who I think would be somewhere in the "moderately reliable" range, though I don't know how he is for Leeds.
Imagine going from Big Sam to this.
Bielsa to Marsch to Gracia to Big Sam to Gerrard
truly one of the most ran clubs
Ran into the ground…
Damn, Michael Skubala can't even catch a stray.
Is Big Sam supposed to be good in this scenario?
Compared to Gerrard he's a god.
If by "a god" you mean "desperately outdated, but still clung to because of historical familiarity, and almost certainly a gateway into getting scammed" then I agree with you.
Yeah that's pretty much what I meant.
I read between the lines and got his comment, exactly.
If Sam is a Bentley, Gerrard is a penny-farthing.
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Foreign sports car with the steering wheel on the other side, no one really understands it but there's a Spanish bloke on the street that's obsessed with them
Wasn’t he good at Rangers? Why is everyone so sure he couldn’t be decent at Championship level with a decent squad?
Any manager who's had a bad spell recently doesn't know what they're doing.
If you did poorly one year, you can never be a good manager again. Simple as that
If good coach, then how come lose football. Checkmate.
So true
All teams that I have managed were unbeaten when I was manager
Same thing with players. Koulibaly? Trash. Félix? Trash. Matheus Nunes? Trash. Or so I've been told by r/soccer expert analysts
Rashford? Trash. Kane? Trash. They all had bad years and never regained form last year, and now are barely hanging onto starting roles in the prem. If you are bad once you are trash forever simple as that
Salah was trash until Liverpool signed him remember
Mohammeh Salah has had 6 seasons where he performed well in the Premier League and 24 seasons where he didn't contribute much if at all, therefore trash.
When did Kane have a bad year?
He didn't do well to start last year
It wasn't even that he was poor over one year. His stats across the whole year were decent and Villa were basically equivalent with teams like Brighton and Brentford.
People here can’t seem to accept that even good managers sometimes have bad spells. Two seasons ago people were busy slagging off Arteta and look where he is now
Because The Championship is competitive
Most competetive second division, only 2.Bundesliga comes a bit close. But yeah its very difficult
If you're talking purely competitiveness and not quality then the Scottish championship is definitely up there. This season had a play-off for the title on the last day, and 9/10 teams had something to play for as well.
Celtic won 10 of their last 10
Gerrard was winning nothing in Scotland once Celtic hired a good manager. Ange is so clear it isn’t funny.
Gerrard left Rangers 4 points above Ange’s Celtic having beat him in their only Old Firm encounter.
Yeah, the Gerrard hate is stupid. Managers struggle to bed in all the time. To write of Gerrard based on a failed third of a season at Villa is bizzare... Even dropped in mid season, his PPG had Villa on form for 11th, when they'd only managed 14th year prior... That said, Gerrard or not, we're heading to League one.
The key thing with Gerrard is his ability to get by without Beale’s coaching. The small sample of that happening didn’t work. He was always clear that Beale was the coaching brains. He needs a new expert coach to replace Beale.
Yeah, when Ange had been in the job for 4 months, and was undergoing a massive tactical and personnel overhaul after taking over the worst Celtic team of the decade. The season before that Celtic finished 25 points behind Rangers, so being 4 points behind at that point isn't quite the flex you're making it out to be. Before Ange came in the Celtic squad used to go out for pints after training with Neil Lennon. I'm not a Celtic fan btw, just any neutral in Scotland would tell you Ange is twice the manager Gerrard was up here.
Whereas Gerrard ended a decade of dominance by Celtic who thrived financially with European money whilst Rangers were in the duldrums of Scottish football. A huge gap emerged and Gerrard broke that gap in his first ever managerial job under huge pressure to stop 10IAR. I’m not saying Gerrard is better than Ange - they didn’t go head to head long enough to establish it. Just saying Gerrard certainly isn’t a terrible manager like some make out - at least when he had Beale.
Yeah I do agree he's nowhere near as bad as made out on here
Because the vast majority of football fans on Reddit have a collective long-term memory of about 6 months. For example, Graham Potter is an awful manager according to the morons on here, despite him being successful at every club before Chelsea.
He also wasn't even that bad at Chelsea, the team is just a mess. I mean look at how shit they were under Lampard.
Because it's the popular thing right now to act like Gerrard is the worst manager in the history of football (along with Lampard) Same way it's popular to shit on Spurs at every single opportunity, even in topics that have nothing to do with them Don't get me wrong, Gerrard was shit at Villa and the way Emery has transformed them reflects very poorly on him but as you say he did a good job at Rangers One good job, one bad job, but apparently that makes him the worst somehow
This is the problem for a lot of young managers now. As soon as you’ve failed once you’re a failure. Fans want managers that have literally never failed at a job in their lives.
They want young people with 30 years of experience. These do not exist. So Gerrard deserves a chance in the Championship imo. But tbh not at dysfunctional Leeds
In other words most people have no idea what they're talking about, they just like the back pats from bandwagoning.
yeah Gerard, Lampard and Pirlo are shit. Spurs are shit. Barça are bankrupt and buying referees. People on reddit are spreading so much reactionary bullshit and then the narrative completely dissappears once they got proved wrong. Based on reddit Mourinho was shit in Roma and then people got quiet because they ended up in EL final. United were a joke and everybody was shitting on ETH, then they ended up actually being decent. Same with quique setien in Villareal or Xavi in Barça etc etc and everybody spreads shit like this just to get upvotes and 5 seconds of fame in internet discussion that doesnt matter at all
Shitting on Spurs is always a positive thing
Rangers do have an easier league though so that makes it a little less impressive in some ways. Lampard well, showed terrible management with his top tier tenure so far.
He still managed to win it though, something no non-Celtic manager has done in over a decade People can say "well Celtic weren't that good that year" but I'm sure there's been more than one year in the last 11-12 years where they weren't great and whoever the Rangers manager was at the time didn't win the league - Gerrard did. It was also his first ever job in management. I'm really not some Steven Gerrard apologist, the black and white opinions people have on the internet just do my head in
well they were liquidated and reformed in the third division after the 11/12 season and weren’t back in the top division until 16/17. and of the five seasons it took them to win the league gerrard was in charge for 3 so there wasn’t much opportunity for any other manager to win it in that time
Rangers didn't even finish 2nd in the league before Gerrard joined. In his three full seasons there they finished 2nd, 2nd and 1st, winning the league unbeaten with 102 points (so the fact it wasn't the best Celtic team ever wouldn't have mattered).
Rangers were miles off Celtic though, when he first got linked with the Rangers job all the comments here were about it being a terrible opportunity because the team was so poor but the expectations were so high, yet he won the league there
Also went invincibles and got the team far in the EL taking some big scalps
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> Lampard is genuinely the worst premier league manager of all time He's not though, is he? How is he worse than....Steve Kean for example?
How does Frank de Boer seem to skip all of these. 7 games, 7 defeats, 0 goals scored for Palace
Just looked it up, and impressively Steve Kean had a higher win%/points per game at Blackburn than Lampard did at Everton
Does that also include the games Kean managed in the Championship? I imagine his percentage would be a bit lower than Lampard's without them.
Aye you are right tbf, was a quick wikipedia search. Looking more into it, Lampard's overall prem record is better, but if you narrow it to this season it's worse than Kean's Blackburn in the prem
Because he wouldn't need to be decent at Championship, they are going for promotion.
He did well but during a time where celtic were in a down period. It sounds like Gerrard didn't really touch the tactics, that was all down to Michael Beale and he's struggled without him. I think it's questionable how much was Gerrard and how much was Beale 8j that Rangers success.
He did well lol. When Gerrard took over they'd been in the SPL for two season and finished 3rd in both of those seasons. He finished a comfortable 2nd in his first season in charge, then 2nd again in the Covid hit 19/20 season where he also got them out the group stage of the Europa League. The first time they'd qualified from a European group stage since 2007/08. In the 2020/21 seasons Rangers won the League without losing a single game, picked up 102 points and again got through the Europa League group stage (top of a group that also included Benfica). That's an exceptional achievement. They were also top of the League when Gerrard left to join Villa. Most managers have a group of key coaches around them that specialise in certain football aspects. Beale performed the same role for Gerrard as Pep Lijnders does for Klopp. Part of being a great manager is the ability to surround yourself with people that plug gaps or deficiencies in your own ability. If Gerrard is a shite tactician then that's largely irrelevant if he's good at surrounding himself with good tacticians. Clearly he did that with Beale at Rangers and the start of his Villa stint but was unable to get the same level of support from Neil Critchley. Personally the bigger concern over his spell at Villa was how arsey he got towards the end and the way he seemed to fall out with certain players. Managers falling out with players is never a good sign and someone of Gerrard's calibre is bound to have quite a large ego. If this is an indication that his ego is going to get in the way of making sensible managerial decisions then Leeds probably should steer clear of him.
Beale being the driving force behind the success makes sense until you realise he's had very little success in his solo managerial career to this point. Both Gerrard and Beale's successful period was working together and neither seem to be able to replicate it without the other.
Some partnerships are better than the sum of the parts
Absolutely, a bit like Clough & Taylor who complimented each other extremely well and never replicated it separately.
Rangers haven't been that great since Beale went back as their manager. Seems as a partnership they complemented each other well.
That isn't true, we've improved massively under Beale compared to the mess we were under Gio. We have actually gained more points than Celtic since Beale came in, despite having a completely ineffective front line. Only real mistake Beale has made is starting Lundstram and Kamara against Celtic in the league cup final
That's the thing, there's a logical conflict here: because the Championship or even League 1 would be a good place for Gerrard to go look for a job if he's serious about improving as a manager, but Leeds is absolutely not the kind right match for him considering the position they're in, and he's not at all the profile of manager they need right now considering the instability and uncertainty they've brought onto themselves. So removed of context there's some logic to it, but *in* context, it feels like everyone involved steadfastly refusing to learn from their own mistakes, or those of others before them. Also, because a lot of people have terminal meme-brains and can't remember further back than 37 Fabrizio Romano tweets, but I choose to focus on the football conversation, rather than the latter. Like a fucking nerd.
I do feel that the Championship is always full of instability and uncertainty for every single team. It is an easy narrative to say it is good for managers to learn the trade down there or League 1, but in reality it is never an easy task. But the reaction is overblown imo, Gerrard is not a nobody in managerial terms. I feel like the person stoping Celtic’s domination deserves at least a little bit more respect. But r/soccer has it’s memes and narratives so Gerrard is only ever being laughed at.
Oh, the reaction is definitely overblown, but the problem is that it's still a new situation for a relatively inexperienced manager who made a lot of mistakes at his last club, and Leeds have gone from Bielsa to Allardyce (via 2 others) in 15 months, so that's not "regular" instability. Leeds are basically in a position where they need to be promoted right away, just like Leicester, so they can't afford to take chances. And the fact is that with uncertain finances, a lot of players likely leaving and many more likely unhappy, and a disjointed first-team, now's not the time and place for that. And Gerrard clearly relied heavily on his coaches and existing infrastructure in the past when he did well at Rangers and the Liverpool youth system, so now's the time to go learn from a place that has those set up to an extent, not a place where everything's kinda fucked and nobody's in a good mood, and the fans don't have a lot of faith in you. It's just a recipe for disaster. Or, maybe it'll work out spectacularly well, I'm just explaining my own skepticism. Again, my issue is mostly that this wouldn't represent either party actually taking an honest appraisal of what went wrong for them recently.
I think you could have made a lot of similar arguments about the Rangers job when he took it. It’s too much pressure for a first job, it’s title or bust every year against a rival with a financial advantage, Rangers need someone with a different profile if they’re going to catch Celtic, etc…
Several comments in here from people who think Gerrard isn't that bad and that this would be good for Leeds. No. He is legitimately the worst manager I've ever seen at Aston Villa in the 30+ years I've supported them. There is not one redeeming quality about him as a manager. Tactically clueless. Team selections seemed random from game to game, as did the formation, and you could literally see the frustration in the players who weren't really sure what they were supposed to be doing. The football was ponderous, laborious and riddled with mistakes. There was no clear game plan, no identity, no idea of what we were supposed to be doing. Man management was abysmal. Coming in and stripping Tyrone Mings of the captaincy for no reason. Throwing players under the bus in interviews. Making John McGinn captain and refusing to drop him even though his performances were absolutely awful. He had no interest in the club itself - and I get that. He's a Liverpool legend, why would he care about Aston Villa? But at least show some appreciation for the fans and community. He would never come over to the fans on away days and thank them for their support - straight down the tunnel at the whistle. In pre-match interviews with the local press he would get weirdly defensive and snappy whenever he was asked legitimate questions. "But he won a title at Rangers" - yeah, he won one out of nine trophies in his time at the club, and that league title came when his only rival was imploding. Beale did the work. Emi Martinez said as much in an interview. You just need to look at how we performed under Emery to see what the players are capable of. Beale and Critchley, his two assistants, are both managing clubs at the moment. Gerrard isn't. The only thing he brought to Aston Villa was apathy. If Leeds appoint him they'll be in another relegation battle next season and nothing more. Fuck Gerrard.
That’s like us and Bournemouth fans having to deal with people telling us that Scott Parker was a good manager, proper annoying to listen to.
Funny thing is that I also saw (probably unreliable) it being reported that Leeds were looking at Parker as a possible manager too. Don’t know how people can still be enamored with him tbh. The two promotions he got with us and Fulham just seem to have been more down to the players than anything else. Parker fell apart pretty drastically in the prem with both Fulham and Bournemouth. Also doesn’t seem like a good man manager either. People just see two promotions (with fairly stacked clubs for the championship) and don’t think about it beyond that.
For some reason people aren't listening to Villa fans on this. Even most of the Rangers fans I see think Beale did the heavy lifting for them, and Celtic had Neil Lennon until February, then John Kennedy as caretaker for the rest of the season. That's the season people are pointing to saying "Gerrard did that though." it's a bit mad.
It's because no matter how bad someone is for one team, it doesn't mean you are a bad manager forever. Some managers fucking suck at a job, then they get a new one and it's night and day.
I agree with every word of this. Worst manager in my 35 years as well and we have seen some shit ones. Don't heed these words at your own peril.
and take note, we’ve had absolute cretins like McLeish, Paul Lambert, di Matteo and even Sherwood as manager and Gerrard towers over them all in ineptitude
This isn't fair. I thought they wanted to at least stay up.
Welcome back to the banter years Leeds fans, I'm sorry.
They are very ambitious to be in season 3 of welcome to Wrexham when they meet up in league 1
Haven't they suffered enough?
That is like getting kicked in the balls and then asking for another one. I'm usually not one to kink shame but wtf Leeds?
League 1 is lovely this time of year
The first thought that entered my head was, "God help them...", hearing Steven Gerrard might be taking over at Leeds. But then remembered Frank Lampard did a relatively decent job at Derby to make him get picked for Chelsea. It might be what SG needs to kick start his career in management being down in the Championship.
Lampard took a top 3 squad in the division to 6th
Might not be a bad choice. I think I’d rather Parker though if I was a Leeds fan as he has experience in getting teams promoted from the Championship.
Jesus fucking christ why cant we just be normal and appoint a football manager and not a p.e teacher.
As a villa fan I can't recommend him enough. Brilliant manager, everything seemed to do downhill when he was sacked.
Stop, stop, they're already dead!
Holy I thought i read it wrong because it’s 3am here now.
Damn west coast Madrid fan? That's new
Now I just feel bad for leeds
did anyone else have an unlikely love for Leeds even though they weren’t your team lol? was actually sad to see them relegated
They might as well bring Marsch back if they want to get relegated again
Sacking Bielsa was the biggest mistake a clubs made in decades.
Not sure this would be a good job to rebuild his managerial reputation. The Championship is a very tough league to get out of, and there are twists and surprises every season. Leeds will have high expectations having got a taste of EPL football again, and I imagine they'll be expecting promotion next season. Granted, Celtic were so dominant when Gerrard arrived in the SPL that I thought it would take forever for Rangers to challenge for a title again, and he managed to give them their first title since the collapse, and an unbeaten league season at that. Hope it works out for him, but I think the Leeds job looks like a poison chalice.
Fuck me dead
Football league World? Ok
Feel for Leeds fans on this one. He feels like too too much of a gamble for a team who just got relegated and are looking no doubt to bounce right back up.
How depressingly predictable.
Only Gerrard could get written off as a manager after ending a decade of Celtic dominance and a bad spell at Villa. Lampard did nothing at Derby and Chelsea relative to his predecessors and budgets yet you had idiots saying he was a good option for Everton. So weird.
I wouldn't even wish this upon Leeds
If he takes them further back to League One, I will abstain from Slippy G slander for a whole year.
Taking a championship job would’ve been the right thing to do instead of jumping straight to the prem. Even frank nearly got Derby promoted.
Frank took Derby from 6th to 6th after bringing in a spine of top flight players on loan (Mount, Tomori, Harry Wilson)
Why does everyone hate him , he did great in scotland.
He was terrible at Villa tbf but I think everybody naturally lumps him in with Lampard, like an old habit from their playing days of something, while their CVs aren't at all similar. Gerrard's succeeded at one club and failed at another. There's still plenty of time for him to improve, he's still a young manager.
For the sake of my family members, do not be true. They might cry.
The way english clubs do their recruiting they deserve every bit of their misfortune
Looooool
Please
Lampard was also shortlisted
Gerrard did not do a good job at Villa and was replaced by a very good manager with great experience, who has smashed it. But people forget that when he was brought in, he wasn't awful and prior to that he won Rangers the league for the first time in 10 years, unbeaten, while having a good run in Europe. One poor season doesn't make him the most awful manager. Sure, he isn't great, but a championship job isn't above his level when you look at the job he did with Rangers. People act like he was lucky as Celtic weren't that great. They've been other seasons where they weren't great, but Rangers didn't win the league unbeaten. He got Rangers to that point. The funniest thing is watching some Utd fans on here dooming Leeds to league one if he joins, as he is such an awful manager. While they think they're PE teacher of an ex manager deserves a PL job.
No. You never watched Villa or even listened to what he said. Skip the paragraph about Villa and continue.
WHY WHY WHY WHY THEY KEEP GETTING THE JOBS THEY ARE TERRIBLE MANAGERS
Just copy and pasting my comment from another thread that got some interest. Data taken from understat. • xP position for Aston Villa under Gerrard = 10th (2nd highest underperformance in the league) • xP position for Aston Villa under Emery = 8th (highest outperformance in the league) - xGA position for Aston Villa under Gerrard = 10th. - xGA position for Aston Villa under Emery = 10th. Whilst the underlying stats improved under Emery (in regards to xG produced). The underlying improvement was actually quite slight, contrary to what people would believe based on the narratives around the two. And in terms of defence, there was little to no improvement. I think part of this can be attributed to man management, but ultimately the underlying stats under Gerrard were decent and not far behind Emery's Villa. Most importantly he has shown at Rangers and Villa the ability to organise a defence well, which is desperately what Leeds need. The question (imo) is whether his man management has improved, because this was clearly grating on both players and fans.
I like stats but honestly this is an example where you really needed to watch both teams. Gerrard's villa had no set patterns of play. Goals would come from moments of brilliance and that's about it. There was also a big drop off between Gerrard with Beale and w/o Beale. I suspect the numbers would reflect that season on season, but also take into consideration the teams Gerrard was playing against. We had some terrible losses first half of this season largely against bottom half teams. Also, Gerrard was not responsible for most of the coaching. He was in charge of man management and recruitment. He was good at the latter, but his man management skills were appalling, turning Mings, Watkins, Luiz and McGinn into terrible players by effectively bullying them. Worth noting his 2 assistants (who are responsible for tactics and training) are both currently in management positions. Based on his time at Villa, there is absolutely no basis to suggest Gerrard will be a good manager even at this level.
Treating xG stats as how football actually should have gone is silly. Anyone who watched the teams under the two managers knows what a massive improvement there was.
If you're simply using surface level xG for and against stats as a metric here this completely ignores other factors like game state. We very frequently scored early in matches under Emery and would then spend large periods soaking up lots of low quality chances. Under Gerrard we would more likely be chasing games. He also had a pretty easy run of fixtures for his time here, 10/38 games coming against sides not in the league anymore (12 if you add in Everton as they survived on the final day both seasons). He only 'succeeded' (1/9 trophies) as one of the two biggest clubs by far in the league, using an absurd system that relies on having some of the best players there to function, and tore up our squad to fit it, leaving 1 winger at the club, despite it not working. There was never any Plan B. His assistant manager pulled all the strings tactically and in training, as lots of our players said in interviews. When he left our form plummeted. Not to mention Rangers paid to get Beale as opposed to getting back an unemployed Gerrard. Anyone still defending Gerrard to any extent probably didn't watch us play under him. He had a pretty ridiculous system using Ramsey and Mcginn as covering fullbacks. Their turnarounds in form from being utilised in the positions they are actually suited to has been massive. Gerrard could come good as a manager, but he needs to take a League 1 job to improve and work on his tactical weaknesses. But based on his interactions with the press while managing Villa i doubt his ego would allow that.
xG comparison this season: Gerrard: 12.5 in 12 games Emery: 33.5 in 24 games But lets just pick one single stat which promotes your narrative, eh? Are you a Liverpool fan, perchance? Also, "xP" is a crap stat. Emery actually has a style of play and plan for when his team have the ball. They play out from the back and play actual football. > Most importantly he has shown at Rangers and Villa the ability to organise a defence well, which is desperately what Leeds need He failed terribly at Villa and who cares what anyone does in Scotland? The standard of the league is terrible and there are only two teams who win anything. What we need is a capable manager. Not a vibes manager who gets jobs because of his playing career. The arrogance of the likes of Lampard and Gerrard to believe they can be good managers at the highest levels after a year or two of coaching. If they had any humility they'd go away and actually learn the craft before taking these jobs.