He was sacked from Villa this season with the team in 17th and Gerrard completly lost as to what to do about it. The team changed every match - for example Buendia would start, then Coutinho, then Buendia, then Coutinho - and the formation was some weird pyramid with the full backs expected to provide the width (opposition managers worked out fairly quickly how to use wingers) and he kept trying to play Watkins (who plays up front on his own) with Ings (who IIRC played at Saints in a front two with wingers). Emery took over, brought in one player (Moreno at LB, excellent player) and lost Ings in the January window, brought stability and more than one plan to the team, made the likes of Mings, Luiz and Watkins look the players they really are and Villa finished seventh. Now it could just be that Emery is an excellent manager but Gerrard really was exposed as a pretty terrible one.