Aston Villa needed rid of Gerrard but things could get worse before they get better

Losing so abjectly to Fulham made Steven Gerrard’s removal inevitable, but Aston Villa now find themselves at something of a crossroads.

There are 3-0 defeats and then there are 3-0 defeats. It wasn’t just the fact that Aston Villa lost to Fulham, it was the manner in which they did so.

And for all the headlines about the fate of the manager in the immediate aftermath of this loss, the players have to accept their fair share of responsibility for what went so dreadfully wrong at Craven Cottage.

For Fulham’s first goal, Harrison Reed shot through a forest of legs that consisted of every single Villa player on the pitch, but with most of them almost completely static. The second goal was a penalty kick, and the third an own goal.

Douglas Ruiz chipped in with a red card for a headbutt on Alexandar Mitrovic – since rescinded – to complete a trifecta of the damned from a team that was playing as though they wanted the manager out as soon as possible.

Were that the case, they didn’t have long to wait. A terse 41-word statement from the club issued 90 minutes after the full-time whistle confirmed Steven Gerrard’s fate, with social media fixating on the detail that Gerrard would be returning to the Midlands with the team, and how uncomfortable all of that might have felt.

It was, perhaps, a fitting end to an evening during which few employed by the club had covered themselves in a great deal of glory.

The loss of assistant manager Michael Beale to Queens Park Rangers during the summer seems to have hit Gerrard’s plans hard. It is true to say that performances throughout the second half of last season weren’t a great deal better with Beale there, but players have previously spoken about holding him in high regard and taking QPR to the top of the Championship is a notable achievement, considering the hurdles imposed by parachute payments – or a lack thereof – in that division.

Of course, Beale rejected the Wolves job just a couple of days before the Aston Villa job became available, and the conspiracy-minded may even be wondering whether he did so as a precursor to this one becoming available.

But in rejecting the Wolves job, Beale spoke impressively about the importance of loyalty and his commitment to what’s going on at Loftus Road. It would be quite a volte face to turn around after having said all of that and accept the Aston Villa job.

Villa fans seemed to aim their targets set rather higher. ‘Tuchel or Poch’ was a repeated refrain on social media following Gerrard’s departure, neither of whom seem realistic targets for a club only separated from the Premier League relegation places on goal difference.

Aston Villa, as the biggest club in England’s second city, are former European champions and always have the potential to be A Massive Club again, but they’ve also been something of a managerial graveyard since Martin O’Neill left more than 12 years ago.

By lunchtime on the day after Steven Gerrard’s sacking, it was being widely reported that Pochettino was due to reject Villa’s ofer, holding on for something else to come along. A similar answer seems to have been received from Tuchel. It seems similarly unlikely that the other Premier League name that has been mentioned a lot in connection with this job, Thomas Frank, would be tempted to go from the convivial atmosphere of Brentford to a club which so often seems to be such an unhappy place.

Frank’s name being thrown into the ring less than 72 hours before the two teams meet in the Premier League at Villa Park may even have been little more than mischief-making, an attempt to destabilise Brentford’s plans in the build-up to the match. At the arguably more realistic end of the spectrum, the Sporting Clube manager Ruben Amorim or Villarreal’s Unai Emery seem like more likely and realistic targets.

Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, is left to rue what was probably never going to be. No matter how unlikely it all may have seemed, talk of Aston Villa being a ‘stepping stone’ to the Liverpool job was unfair on both the manager and the club.

Gerrard never talked about the job in that way – he’d have been a complete fool to do so – and this sort of talk put Villa supporters in an invidious position. If successful, the Liverpool talk would start. If not… well, it turned out that there was little need to give much consideration to the alternative.

The logic behind hiring him in the first place was sound enough. Much may be made of the difference between the Premier League and the SPFL, but going an entire league season at any level of the professional game is a rare and significant achievement and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Gerrard deserved his chance at this level on the basis of what he’d achieved at Ibrox.

But a chance is just a chance. It guarantees nothing, and the insipid, characterless football displayed over his 39 league games in charge of Aston Villa were ample proof that this particular combination was not working out.

Furthermore, Villa spent £90m on nine new players over the course of Gerrard’s tenure, the majority of it on what has looked very much like malfunctioning parts. There’s been bad luck along the way, as Diego Carlos’s ruptured achilles tendons will attest, but whoever the replacement turns out to be will need to be ruthless with a group of players who have lost their way.

And this sort of change, while it may have seemed necessary as the team shrivelled to a husk on the pitch at Craven Cottage, is always something of a gamble.

No matter how far short of expectations things might have been for all associated with the club under Steven Gerrard, there is always scope for things to get worse. All three of last year’s relegated teams changed manager during the season – one of them did so twice – and it didn’t do any of them any good.

But the decision over the next manager will set the mood for the important middle third of the season, and even this underwhelming start will likely all be forgotten should the next incumbent land on their feet, sort the working parts from those beyond repair, and get them winning again.

After all, for all the storm clouds that have been swelling over Villa Park of late, they’re only six points behind 7th-placed Liverpool.

The return to European football after an absence of 12 seasons which was the club’s ambition before a ball was kicked at the start of the season remains alive, and this offers a window into the crossroads at which Aston Villa find themselves at the moment.

European qualification is still possible, but the club finds itself in a relegation battle which will become more difficult to dig their way out of, the longer it goes on.

All that can be said for certain is that they couldn’t continue in the way they were at Craven Cottage, because more of that sort of thing would make the Championship look like a far more likely eventual destination than any hopes of bringing European football back to Villa Park.