Aston Villa manager Remi Garde set to do things 'the Arsene Wenger way'

Despite playing a peripheral role in a successful Arsenal team, Villa’s new manager learned some valuable lessons

Aston Villa manager Remi Garde (Getty Images)

When Aston Villa’s website mis-spelt the name of the club’s new manager Rémi Garde with their erroneous “Welcome Remy” message last Monday, there were faint echoes of the arrival of another Frenchman in English football. It is nearly 20 years ago since the Evening Standard’s “Arsène who?” headline after Arsène Wenger’s appointment as Arsenal manager and at Villa Park they will be hoping that the parallels do not end there with the man charged with rescuing the Premier League’s bottom club.

The 49-year-old has never managed in this country yet he did win the Premier League as a player with Arsenal – with 10 appearances in their 1997-98 campaign – and one of his old team-mates at Highbury, Lee Dixon, believes he has the qualities to cope with a Herculean task that begins with today’s home fixture against Manchester City. “He was always a big thinker about the game and an intelligent boy,” says Dixon, who describes him as “one of Arsène’s disciples”.

“He was a utility player who didn’t start many games but could fill in in all positions,” he adds of Garde, who won six caps for France. “He filled in for me a few times and also at centre-half and in holding midfield which suggests you have an understanding of the game and that comes across when you talk to him.”

According to Dixon, Garde’s experience of an Arsenal dressing room which received a sudden influx of Frenchmen will be crucial at Villa, who last summer signed four players from Ligue 1 – Idrissa Gueye, Jordan Ayew, Jordan Veretout and Jordan Amavi – for a combined fee of around £35m. Not one of them started in Monday’s defeat at Tottenham, when caretaker Kevin MacDonald selected the team.

“He understood the English sense of humour, he understood each side of the dressing room and that will hold him in good stead,” says Dixon. “He will get the nuances of a dressing room like that because he has been in one as a player. I read today that he had reiterated the fact the boys will be speaking English in the dressing room and that was very much an Arsène Wenger thing.”

Garde, who speaks excellent English, touched on this when discussing Villa’s French-speaking contingent in his first press briefing on Thursday, though he also noted the benefits they might bring. “It’s important when you come to the country that you behave within the law [and] that means you have to speak the language. But, saying that, coming from abroad you can also bring something new, bring some outside ideas.”

Garde was also wise enough to note there was no immediate remedy for Villa’s problems. “I am not a magic man – the best way to prepare is a pre-season,” he said. “I know before that I can’t have the time now but as I said earlier I believe strongly that good training sessions are very important for the squad.“

These are the words of a man who built his reputation in France on developing players. He spent six years at the start of his playing career with Lyon and rejoined the club in 2003 to embark on his coaching career. According to Vincent Duluc, a leading football writer for L’Equipe, it was a surprise when Garde returned to Lyon. “When he was a player he said he didn’t have enough in common with the other players and didn’t feel like a footballer – he had too many other interests. But after his career ended he came back to football with a passion.”

Garde was once told by Wenger that he would enjoy management but at Lyon, where one of his roles was as Gérard Houllier’s assistant coach, he twice said no to the No 1 job before finally accepting it. “He thought it was not the right time,” Duluc recalls. “When he said ‘yes’ he knew he was ready. He was the perfect coach for a young team. He had been the head of the academy and also the chief scout. He knows every aspect of the job. He knows how to deal with young players.”

After becoming Lyon coach in 2011, he had to work with a smaller budget than his predecessors, owing to the club’s construction of a new stadium and so focused on bringing the best out of homegrown talents like striker Alexandre Lacazette and Maxime Gonalons, now France internationals. Playing 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond, his attack-minded Lyon team ended his first season as French Cup winners. Jean-François Gomez, a journalist with Le Progrès, the Lyon newspaper, says: “He didn’t qualify for the Champions League but the fans didn’t complain as there was a strong Lyon identity with young players in the team. People appreciated this.”

Lyon’s finishing positions during his reign were fourth, third and fifth yet during his third season, Garde – known in France for his quiet, thoughtful approach – cut an increasingly agitated figure on the touchline and in front of the press.

He also fought a lost battle with Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas over the practice of holding open training sessions, citing the privacy he had known at Arsenal’s London Colney base. Eventually, in May 2014 he resigned, citing the need to “take a break”, and worked instead as a commentator on Champions League matches for French television. Pierre Ménès, a Canal Plus presenter, says he is much respected for his tactical insights: “He is a very quiet guy, very calm, very cool.”

Assessing his former colleague’s task in Birmingham, Ménès hopes that Garde’s tactical acumen will unlock the potential of two players in particular: Veretout, a midfielder who helped France win the Fifa Under-20 World Cup in 2013, and Ayew, who came off the bench to score for the second game running at Tottenham. “If Aston Villa are to have a chance of staying up they have to have the best Jordan Ayew they can have,” adds Ménès.

To stay up, Villa will also have to get moving. One noteworthy statistic after last weekend’s fixtures was that they had covered less ground than any other Premier League team this season. Garde admitted he had not heard this when told by a reporter on Thursday, then offered a characteristically measured response: “I’d like to know what it’s based on and what our team’s [running] is when we have the ball and when we are running without the ball. But yes, it probably means we will have to improve.”