On Saturday they travel to high-flying League 2 side Wycombe Wanderers in the third round of the FA Cup.
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Having won just one of their first 20 games of the campaign, the Villans remain bottom of the table and 11 points adrift of safety as Garde attempts to mastermind their unlikely escape.
Garde said: “I had a conversation with Arsene a few days ago about some of the players, and Mathieu Debuchy was among these players”.
Villa’s failure to win simply confirms the deeper malaise at Villa Park, and the fact Garde has inherited a desperately poor squad that does not look like it has what it takes to mount the sort of miracle recovery they will need to stay in the Premier League. I won’t be taking part as I feel we can make our views heard a lot more effectively by being vocal within the stadium so I will be in my seat for kick-off. It will be a relief for fans, although they can hardly expect a repeat of the 8-3 victory when these two sides last met in the third round of the League Cup in 2005.
While it is hard to make out what is being said throughout the entire conversation, you can hear one member of the group of fans asking Richards, “Where’s the passion?”
The draw means that Villa’s Remi Garde’s winless streak stretched to ten games since he was appointed, and the sides will clash again in two weeks time in a FA Cup replay at Villa Park.
“At some point I can not explain and am not in the position to judge what happened before and whether it was right or wrong because I wasn’t here”.
“You can always argue it was a bad or good decision: I know what I’m doing but sometimes it’s not working”.
“Not only to say it, but to have the behaviour every minute, every time to show that they can help or want to help the team”.
And as a draw became inevitable, Villa’s fans turned on the players and Garde as the air turned mutinous.
Against Palace, Garde is without Carlos Sanchez and Alan Hutton (hamstring), while Jack Grealish (tonsilitis) and Gabriel Agbonlahor (back) are doubts. We have been there at the bottom of the league but fortunately managed to get ourselves out of it, so we know what that pressure is like. “They’ll be looking for something to cling on to, the first goal to get the crowd going and get their confidence up”.
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Garde recently said of Remy: “Loic is a guy I know well and of course it would be an interesting player for the team”, said Garde, who was assistant manager when Remy started his career at Lyon.
