It's too early in the season to say this was a must win game for Aston Villa, but I do believe now that it was must win for our manager and CEO. The manager has been in the job long enough for us to see something on the pitch other than the effect you get from new manager syndrome and we're not seeing it.
And that he was employed in the first place sits with the CEO. If the manager is to be sacked, so must the CEO.
And this post isn't about Dean Smith. He lost five on the bounce and for some that was enough. We don't need to go over that again. But he was one of us.
For me, like I wrote when Gerrard was appointed, I thought Smith should have had more time just like I wrote that there was a slim chance Gerrard would do well with us.
And I wrote that because he had only won one trophy out of a possible nine, managing Rangers. I kid you not, I believe I could have won that many and if I didn't, it would only have been one trophy less. Out of a possible nine!
And the worst part about it all is and I wrote this as a comment earlier tonight, he's probably earning £5mn plus because of that. He's getting paid millions to manage Aston Villa because he could kick a ball around on the pitch, not because he has done anything in management to justify it.
And that is reason why the CEO has to go. His decision to appoint Steven Gerrard was too much of a gamble and this isn't just me saying this now, I wrote it when he was appointed and so did others. Our CEO gambled our Club and made a decision that has to have consequences.
And sure, we lost tonight and I'm sure the manager will use the excuse that we were down to ten men, but we were losing when that happened Going down to ten men didn't lose us the match tonight, running around not having an idea how to play or what to do lost us this game.
Finally and to those of you that read this blog on a regular basis, you'll know that I've supported the manager up until now with hope and optimism. I didn't want him sacked until today. I felt like he needed time, but what I realised tonight was that it shouldn't take this long to change things. I mean, I know it doesn't. I was just hoping.
We played like a pub team at times tonight, making passes to nobody, falling over too easily looking for free kicks and essentially running around like headless chickens.
I'm sorry, but this isn't good enough and they must both go, if we are to progress.