It’s no secret anymore that former Lyon boss Rémi Garde is heading Aston Villa’s way, bar an unexpected turnaround. Villa’s caretaker boss Kevin MacDonald in the pre-match press conference for the Spurs game, spoke openly about Garde being the man most likely, and also today, Arsene Wenger, who managed Garde the player at Arsenal, spent a chunk of his own pre-match press conference discussing the virtues of the incoming Villa manager.
Interestingly, on top of discussing Garde’s qualities, Wenger gave his backing to recent managers at Villa and pointed the finger at a lack of technical stability for being the reason of the poor performance of the club over the past few seasons.
Here’s what the Arsenal boss had to say about Garde, courtesy of the Arsenal website
“But they had no technical stability at Villa until now” – Arsène Wenger
Arsène Wenger on Remi Garde…
I’m convinced that he’s the frontrunner. There are some problems to sort out there with his assistants, who work for Lyon as well. I don’t know if he will manage to sort that out or not. It is a challenge that he should take. Are assistants of Lyon free or not? It doesn’t matter, it’s a challenge he should take.
on what advice he’d give Garde…
You know our job is to be faithful to your personality and have the courage to live with your ideas.
on what Garde will offer…
Honestly I have a lot of respect for all the managers who have worked at Villa. I think they are all quality managers. But they had no technical stability at Villa until now. It shows that the club, as long as it doesn’t manage to get technical stability, the results are up and down. Hopefully he will be given time. I believe Sherwood wasn’t given time, Lambert wasn’t given time to turn things round and many very good managers have failed there. I don’t know why exactly, you need to know the internal problems inside the club that I don’t know.
on Garde’s qualities
Remi is an intelligent man who has experience in Lyon now. He will try to get his ideas through, the ideas he got through in Lyon and hopefully it can work. They have five or six French players there who haven’t all had an impact, maybe he will give them a chance, I don’t know.
Follow MOMS on Twitter – oldmansaid