*Angel helps take the heat off Gregory*

John Gregory’s face rarely loses its look of seriousness but Aston Villa’s manager could allow himself a small smile last night as his side moved back into contention for a European place.

Villa’s second successive Premiership win will act as a timely valve to release some of the growing pressure that Gregory has been under since his team slipped off the top of the Premiership in October. They then embarked on a run of only two victories in 14 games before their recent improvement.

Much of the supporters’ anger at the situation has been directed at the perceived parsimony of the chairman Doug Ellis but the manager knows that, if he does not deliver European qualification at the very least this season, it will be his job on the line.

With Villa out of both cups, the league offers the only hope. Otherwise it is the dreaded InterToto again.

Gregory is confident it will not come to that. “We’ve seen a couple of sides in the top five slip up, so nothing’s beyond us,” he said. “There’s been a lot of doom and gloom surrounding our club but after going out of the FA Cup we sat down and looked at the situation and said there are 17 games left and we are looking for 10 wins. We’ve got two in two now, so things are looking pretty healthy.”

Villa’s movement and pace last night were too much for Charlton who, after going in two goals down by half-time, got their act together only towards the end of the game.

Although Villa deserved their victory they did benefit from a couple of strokes of luck. Their first goal came via a fluky deflection and another referee might have sent off their defender J Lloyd Samuel for a two-footed tackle that forced Luke Young to hobble off.

But Alan Curbishley was not looking for excuses. “We were second best all over the park in the first half,” he said. “We were outfought.”

Villa took the lead on eight minutes. Charlton’s Mark Fish mishit a pass to the overlapping left-back Samuel, who quickly found Darius Vassell. His shot deflected off the Charlton defender Jorge Costa and looped over the stranded Dean Kiely.

Sven-Goran Eriksson had presented the Charlton keeper with a silver salver before kick-off to mark 500 senior appearances. The goal removed some of the shine.

The England coach was here to check on the progress of the Charlton left-back Chris Powell and the Villa youngsters Vassell and Lee Hendrie. Certainly the first half flowed in the right direction to test the strengths of all three.

Charlton were regularly under the cosh and it was easy to see how they managed to lose 4-1 at Blackburn in their last outing. Before that they had lost only once in eight league games.

Vassell twice went close before Villa extended their lead when Juan Pablo Angel, released down the right by George Boateng, cut into the area and fired a precise low shot past Kiely. It was his 14th goal of the season.

Charlton’s only real chance of the first half fell to Graham Stuart but he sliced wide. Curbishley’s half-time blast woke up his side. But, though John Robinson and Jason Euell went close, Villa continued to threaten on the break. But Charlton made the running towards the end. Stuart went close and the substitute Kevin Lisbie hit the side-netting before finally winning a penalty on 88 minutes when he was brought down by a typical forward’s challenge by Angel.

Stuart needed two attempts to score but the goal came too late for Charlton. For Villa, there was also the bonus of notching their first win in London in 10 visits.

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*The Guardian*
Gregory hits the wall at Villa
Friday, 25 January 2002

A furious row between manager and chairman ended John Gregory’s reign at Aston Villa.

The Villa manager had the last word in his often tempestuous relationship with Doug Ellis last night by tendering his resignation.

A Villa statement said Gregory’s departure after four years in charge had been amicable and that the 46-year-old needed a break from the pressures of football management.

Rows between the pair were nothing new, of course. Indeed, Gregory’s frequent public criticisms of Ellis plus at least one dismal sequence of results from his team per season always made him a likely candidate for the sack from a chairman infamous for parting company with his managers.

But Gregory’s decision to leave, especially with Villa beginning to mount a realistic challenge to qualify for European competition, came as a huge shock to the club.

The players reacted to his departure with equal measures of shock and disappointment. The club captain, Paul Merson, said: “A friend rang me and said ‘put on the text’ and that’s how I found out about John going. It’s a big surprise and John has not given the impression of being unhappy.

“Is it frustration at things at the club? You’ll have to ask him [Gregory] and the chairman those sort of things. All I know is that I am sad to see him go because he has been a brilliant manager for me.” The midfielder Ian Taylor was also surprised: “A reporter phoned me to ask for a reaction to John leaving and I thought it was a wind-up. The players have had a couple of days off and this has come out of the blue to everybody.

“John has seemed fine, his normal sort of self, and I am very sad to see him go because I had a good relationship with him. I don’t know what has happened.” In a statement released by the club, Ellis said that he wished his erstwhile manager all the best and added that he would “always be welcome at Villa Park”.

In resigning, it seems that Gregory has effectively written off the rest of his £1.5m contract. That had 18 months to run and the fact that Villa had yet to open negotiations with Gregory over renewing it was another source of speculation that his days were numbered.

Further fuel was added to the uncertainty over his job prospects almost a fortnight ago when a story appeared that Ellis had approached the former Holland manager and Barcelona coach Louis Van Gaal to take over from Gregory.

Ellis immediately rang his manager to refute the story and later did so publicly but Gregory remained unconvinced.