Rémi Garde starts work at Aston Villa and declares: ‘I’m not a magic man’

Aston Villa’s third permanent manager of the year made no pretence that he will be the saviour of the Premier League’s bottom club. “I’m not a dreamer or a magic man,” said Rémi Garde as he was unveiled as Tim Sherwood’s replacement at Villa Park on Thursday. “But I have strong ideas.” They will need to take root swiftly for Randy Lerner’s latest managerial gamble to secure Villa’s top flight status .

It was the Villa owner’s love and long-term vision for the club that sold the job to the former Lyon coach, according to Garde, despite Lerner’s desire to sell up. The American billionaire has turned to a coach without Premier League managerial experience, and who has been out of the game for over a year due to personal reasons, to save a team that last won a league point on 29 August and has merely four in total with almost a third of the season gone. “I feel the club is in a hole,” said Sherwood shortly before he was sacked last month. A dreamer is the last thing Villa need in the circumstances.

“In football, things can change,” said Garde, who has signed a three-and-a-half-year contract and begins his reign at home to the leaders Manchester City on Sunday. “If I didn’t think I could change things I would have said ‘No, this job is not for me’, but I’ve got the hope that we can do it. I don’t know what happened before, I was not inside and I can’t judge. I can only focus on what will happen from now on.

“I haven’t the certainty we will stay in the Premier League because the situation we are in is difficult but I have strong belief we will do it.

Cristiano Ronaldo: I want to retire with 'dignity', not in USA, Qatar or Dubai

Cristiano Ronaldo said Friday that he wants to end his career “with dignity” and not playing in “the United States, Qatar or Dubai”. The Real Madrid and Portugal star, the subject of a new documentary that premiered on Monday in London, said Thursday in an interview on ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show that he expected to play six or seven more seasons and hoped to finish his career at the highest level. The remarks ostensibly referenced the recent wave of top players who have finished their careers outside of Europe’s top leagues, among them MLS imports Didier Drogba, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Andrea Pirlo and David Villa, along with Xavi, the lifelong Barcelona midfielder who signed with Qatari club Al Sadd in May. “That does not mean it’s bad play in the leagues of the United States, Qatar or Dubai, but I do not see myself there,” Ronaldo said. Ronaldo, who turns 31 in February, became Real Madrid’s all-time leading goalscorer last month and has th...

Falkirk chairman calls for restructure of ‘outdated’ Scottish league

The format of the Scottish league is outdated and should be restructured with a 16-team Premiership to help boost football in the country, says the chairman of second-tier promotion-challengers Falkirk . Speaking at the club’s AGM, Doug Henderson said the slide of Scottish football, from falling attendances to the poor performance of the national side and their top clubs in Europe, would continue unless steps were taken to change the current system. Scotland were the only team from the British Isles not to qualify for next year’s European Championship and Celtic , Scottish champions for the past four seasons, regularly fail to make any impact in European competition. Scottish football’s top four tiers are currently organised into a 12-team Premiership with three lower divisions each containing 10 teams. “Reflecting economic reality and the need for premier division full-time football, I believe that we must put vested interest aside and reform our lea...

Young people to lose access to unemployment benefits as part of welfare reforms

YOUNG people will not be able to get unemployment benefits until they turn 25 under reforms introduced by the Turnbull Government today. The coalition has unveiled wide-ranging welfare reforms in parliament today, including changes to the Newstart program. It hopes to stop people aged 22 to 24 getting Newstart or the Sickness allowance, and they will instead be shifted to the Youth Allowance payment. This will reduce the amount of money that they will be able to get, costing a single person living away from home about $90 a fortnight. They will also be required to study in order to qualify for the payments. “The key aim of this measure is to provide incentives for young unemployed people to obtain the relevant education and training to increase employability,” according to an explanatory memorandum for the bill. However, it says Youth Allowance does allow students to earn a higher amount of money from part-time or casual work than Newstart, before this begins imp...

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