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Author Topic: Bruce Sacked at last (now official)  (Read 2114691 times)

Online Richard E

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1845 on: April 21, 2017, 09:45:30 AM »
Is there any difference with the way Mcleish set the team up?

Yes. Bruce wants to win every game 1-0, TSM wanted to draw them all 0-0.

Offline Hookeysmith

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1846 on: April 21, 2017, 10:01:46 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

My thoughts exactly. A bit of continuity for a change might do us good.

And I am sure some have changed their minds as we cobbled together some results but there are a good few also that knew what would happen when we appointed him

So for the sake of continuity do we continue with a brand of football that is at best dull to watch and at worst the most bizarre and negative tactics ever. Add into the fact the past history of Bruce and his methods (or lack of them) and I fear nothing will change.

The only continuity we have is us being shit  - it has to stop
« Last Edit: April 21, 2017, 10:03:48 AM by Hookeysmith »

Offline boozey182

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1847 on: April 21, 2017, 10:30:55 AM »
The problem Bruce has, and I assume it's happened throughout his managerial career, is that when his team wins, it's fine. Not pretty, but justified by the 3 points. When his team loses, there is literally nothing to take away from the match as a fan. No drive, no ambition and precious little skill.

As a 'results based industry' this happens a lot in football, but few managers have had such a temperamental relationship with fans as Bruce has had. Going from a saviour and the new Graham Taylor to, well, the next McLeish. With some other managers you'll let go the odd bad result because there is hope that you're working towards the ultimate goal, what we all want as fans: to see our team win playing attractive football, with exciting, young players. Bruce doesn't have that luxury because he will never attempt most of that. When his brand of football is unsuccessful, what are we paying to watch? There's just nothing there for us.

He's probably found it a bit easier at smaller clubs as the expectation isn't as great. But he's at Villa now and mid table in the Championship simply isn't good enough, so we're not going to let him off a weekend that we've all just endured, playing the type of football that he's serving up. If he's going to play like that, he needs to win a lot more matches and have us clear at the top of the league, or the fans will turn on him.

I'm still undecided about him. Before Rotherham I think I said he needed to get 20 more points to justify staying on next season, which I think he's done. So why the doubt?

Offline itbrvilla

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1848 on: April 21, 2017, 10:35:56 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

My thoughts exactly. A bit of continuity for a change might do us good.

And I am sure some have changed their minds as we cobbled together some results but there are a good few also that knew what would happen when we appointed him

So for the sake of continuity do we continue with a brand of football that is at best dull to watch and at worst the most bizarre and negative tactics ever. Add into the fact the past history of Bruce and his methods (or lack of them) and I fear nothing will change.

The only continuity we have is us being shit  - it has to stop
Spot on. We've had continuity for ages and I'm sick of it.

Offline paul_e

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1849 on: April 21, 2017, 11:04:37 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

Your logic says that not everyone agrees, when logic last got mentioned I added a list of points, explain to me how the logical conclusion from these is that everything will just be better if we give him more money and more time.  Just to note I don't care what he did with Blues, that's over a decade ago and has no real relevance to the league now.  You can use his time at Hull though.

He's been here 32 games, on form since he arrived we're 11th. The results don't suggest automatic promotion.

We've earned 4 points in that time where we conceded the first goal.

We're defensively ok (and had a purple patch of clean sheets) but have conceded more that a goal a game, in attack we've been absymal other than Kodjia.

We look disorganised and lost, he hasn't settled on a formation and the only player he got in January who has settled is Taylor.
.

I'll add a couple more, we've scored 12 goals away in 16 games and have 15 points.  A win at Reading a point at Brighton are the only away points we've taken against teams not in the relegation battle (under Bruce).

Any manager, at any level in any sport, will have have targets they're expected to reach.  I can't accept that we panicked and sacked a manager after 11 games with the intention of giving his successor a target of 12th.  As I've said all along top 10 has to be the minimum expectation given the money spent.  If he can't deliver that I don't see how anyone can think he's the right person to push a challenge for automatic promotion next season.  As I've said I fully expect that, if we give him next season, we'll finish somewhere between 4th and 8th and we might get up through the playoffs but we'll be getting to the premier league with a manager who is a failure at that level and playing football totally unsuited to that league.

I thought Bruce was a lazy choice at the time but that if he could get us around the playoffs this season and try to sneak up then it was worth a go but giving him time to embed his particular brand of anti-football instead of using the time to build a style and develop the younger players into that is a massive mistake that we'll end up having to buy our way out of again so for all your arguments of stability you're actually not advocating that at all, you're just suggesting that putting it off until tomorrow is the right thing to do to create an illusion of stability.

Offline TheTimVilla

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1850 on: April 21, 2017, 11:09:49 AM »
After the huge mess of last season (and long before), RDM was brought in to bring immediate promotion. He spectacularly failed and was rightly fired. The way I see Bruce is that he turned us around from likely relegation candidates to a midtable side. I am grateful that he kept us up & stabilised us and I wish him all the best. We now need a manager who can play a brand of football as we see in the top two this season. Sadly, that is not Bruce.

Online Chris Smith

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1851 on: April 21, 2017, 11:11:38 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

My thoughts exactly. A bit of continuity for a change might do us good.

And I am sure some have changed their minds as we cobbled together some results but there are a good few also that knew what would happen when we appointed him

So for the sake of continuity do we continue with a brand of football that is at best dull to watch and at worst the most bizarre and negative tactics ever. Add into the fact the past history of Bruce and his methods (or lack of them) and I fear nothing will change.

The only continuity we have is us being shit  - it has to stop
Spot on. We've had continuity for ages and I'm sick of it.

Explain to me how we have had continuity for ages when we Bruce is our 7th manager since September 2010 and our 4th since February 2015?

Offline West Derby Villan

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1852 on: April 21, 2017, 11:17:09 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

Agree totally

Offline OzVilla

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1853 on: April 21, 2017, 11:48:45 AM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

Agree totally

Yes and it's an absolute no brainer IMO.

Offline old man villa fan

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1854 on: April 21, 2017, 12:23:30 PM »
A lot is riding on the next 3 games for me.  At the time when we went into the next 3 games to keep his job (starting against Derby, I think), I said I would review my thinking at the end of the season and I will wait until then.

In the past I had put Bruce down as a dull manager but thought a lot was due to the lesser teams he managed, although he got results.  With a closer view managing Villa, the performances have been far worse than I expected, even though he has a comparatively very good squad to call on.  To be honest, I expected far more.

Villa are light years away from being a top team if we are going to continue to live in the past.  Football is progressing all of the time but this Club fails to respond to this. We always seem to be swimming against the tide. I want us to draw a line and say that  we are going to progressing strong, not 2 steps forward and 1 back.

3 games to go and Bruce has got to show that he is not going to let us drift towards the end of the season. I do not want to see him going into his 'I'm feeling sorry for myself' as is his norm when things do not go well and points to everything else but himself.

Offline Rudy Can't Fail

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1855 on: April 21, 2017, 12:39:31 PM »
Explain to me how we have had continuity for ages when we Bruce is our 7th manager since September 2010 and our 4th since February 2015?

Is it that many? We really have hired some poor managers in that time. One think we are when it comes to appointing managers is consistent. I can't think of another club our size that would have accept such mediocrity. Sunderland?

Online Clampy

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1856 on: April 21, 2017, 12:48:38 PM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

My thoughts exactly. A bit of continuity for a change might do us good.

And I am sure some have changed their minds as we cobbled together some results but there are a good few also that knew what would happen when we appointed him

So for the sake of continuity do we continue with a brand of football that is at best dull to watch and at worst the most bizarre and negative tactics ever. Add into the fact the past history of Bruce and his methods (or lack of them) and I fear nothing will change.

The only continuity we have is us being shit  - it has to stop

I personally don't think the football has been that bad. There's been games where i've walked away moaning how crap we've played and i've done that a few times but also there's been games where we should have scored a lot more than we have. I think he's done ok, not brilliant but not bad enough to kick his arse out the door.

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1857 on: April 21, 2017, 12:53:51 PM »
The twists and turns and the name changes in this thread just go to demonstrate just show how short term the average modern football fan thinking is. This club has lacked stability for so long it is has become the accepted approach for some.

Having to go through another recruitment process and then the unavoidable consequence of having to adapt of another change of training methods and playing style would see us once again going into the season on the back foot. If we want to get promoted next season logic says it will be best achieved by sticking with a man with a proven track record of doing just that and who the players already know. There are no guarantees in sport but change just adds further uncertainty.

My thoughts exactly. A bit of continuity for a change might do us good.

And I am sure some have changed their minds as we cobbled together some results but there are a good few also that knew what would happen when we appointed him

So for the sake of continuity do we continue with a brand of football that is at best dull to watch and at worst the most bizarre and negative tactics ever. Add into the fact the past history of Bruce and his methods (or lack of them) and I fear nothing will change.

The only continuity we have is us being shit  - it has to stop
Spot on. We've had continuity for ages and I'm sick of it.

Explain to me how we have had continuity for ages when we Bruce is our 7th manager since September 2010 and our 4th since February 2015?
That is a shocking statistic, it does not however justify retaining a manager that is not up to the job.

Offline Rudy Can't Fail

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1858 on: April 21, 2017, 01:15:53 PM »
I think he's done ok, not brilliant but not bad enough to kick his arse out the door.

I agree, he's done okay, not good, great, nevermind brilliant. With the players at he has I think we all expected far more. The question for me is, is there sufficient evidence from his time at Villa Park to suggest he'll get it right next season? It's vital for so many reasons that we get promoted and considering the the extra season we'll have spent in the Championship, we should also expect to be fully prepared for our return to the Premiership.

Kicking his arse out the door? It will be a tough call but one I want to see made this summer not in the middle of next season. Let's wait and see where we are at the end of the season.

Offline Skerra

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #1859 on: April 21, 2017, 01:18:51 PM »
I really wanted the SB appointment to work out but frankly, his brand of football is boring me to tears. He has too much of an old fashioned approach to football and, things have moved on, as others have said. I understand the owner not wishing to have another managerial merry go round but, I just see exactly the same being served up by SB next season and, more to the point, finishing up in mid table again. So, I honestly think we would have a much better chance of getting a forward thinking manager during the close season rather than next October/November.

Bite the bullet Tony!!

 


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