Gerard Houllier - The right manager at the wrong time

There's been a lot of internet campaigns over the past few weeks trying to get Gerard Houllier out of Aston Villa. For what it's worth Villa fans have been very patient after three months of disappointing performances, reserving vocal thoughts on the manager until the last defeat against Manchester City.

If Houllier came in when everything was fine, i.e. we had just finished 6th and Milner had stayed but O'Neill simply felt like he needed a new challenge, then fine, he would be a great manager for us and we would have every success we can potentially achieve under him, I have no doubt of that.

However, due to the already existing trouble between a cliqué of players and the board, I feel Houllier is not the right man for the job - at the moment. That's not me saying I want him out, or me saying I think the club have made a mistake, I just believe Houllier has came into our club at the wrong time - and Gerard knows this himself after his comments yesterday saying he had only just realised what big a task he has on his hands.

If we had kept Kevin MacDonald as caretaker manager for the rest of the season and he eradicated our main problems and THEN Houllier came in when we were in a sturdy position, it would be a decent appointment. But Houllier isn't known to raise team spirits. When things are bad under Houllier, things are bad. In my opinion, he is only successful at a team that has good team spirit and a decent dressing room backing him, not at a team that has fallen apart from two Wembley defeats, our best player leaving for two successive seasons  as well as our best defender retiring - and on top of all that, our most successful manager for years walking out on us.

However going back to me not saying the club have made a mistake, they should have known Houllier would not be the right person to drag us up from the metaphorical dead... I just don't know how we can recover from this as to put it blunt I cannot see where our next win is going to come from. Whether we sack him or not we will still be in this mess until the main core of troublemakers who are no longer interested are out of this club.

I am very worried we will get relegated and if we do I would not be surprised.