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Author Topic: Bruce Sacked at last (now official)  (Read 2114065 times)

Offline peter w

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1440 on: March 20, 2017, 09:43:31 AM »
Hear about his FA Cup record?

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1441 on: March 20, 2017, 11:50:05 AM »
I can see one of two possible outcomes for Bruce.

1.  He doesn't get us promoted next season, in which case he gets sacked.
2.  He does get us promoted next season, and then we have a relegation struggle and he gets sacked the following season.

The future's so bright!

It will be a difficult one for Dr Tony if we do go up.

There is precedent....Jokanovic got Watford up but the club decided to not offer him a new deal.

I guess it would demand on how next season went...if we walked the league then it would be very difficult to dismiss him...just scraping through the play offs and things would be a little easier.

As I've said consistanty I like Steve Bruce and certainly didn't want him sacked as to me he's the best manager for the job in this division.

However the issues we saw for 6 weeks after xmas would be even more exposed in the premier league as we saw when he spend decent money at Sunderland and Hull in his 3rd seasons in charge and they both got worse.

Dr Tony Xia is an ambitious man...I really don't think he'd be content to finish 17th in our first season back in the PL whenever that is, he'd want to be pushing for the top half as I'd imagine he'd push an ambitious transfer strategy given what we did this summer as a championship club.

If letting SB go is needed to push us forward more it will happen, however harsh it is.

Offline rob_bridge

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1442 on: March 20, 2017, 12:00:55 PM »
When he came I thought we could still make play offs and hopefully get promoted next season.

If he gets promoted then he should have part of the season to prove his worth.

He has been rubbish at spending big(ger) money in the past. The Noses team which got relegated was on paper superior to those of the previous 3 seasons

Offline paul_e

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1443 on: March 20, 2017, 12:05:42 PM »
I can see one of two possible outcomes for Bruce.

1.  He doesn't get us promoted next season, in which case he gets sacked.
2.  He does get us promoted next season, and then we have a relegation struggle and he gets sacked the following season.

The future's so bright!

It will be a difficult one for Dr Tony if we do go up.

There is precedent....Jokanovic got Watford up but the club decided to not offer him a new deal.

I guess it would demand on how next season went...if we walked the league then it would be very difficult to dismiss him...just scraping through the play offs and things would be a little easier.

As I've said consistanty I like Steve Bruce and certainly didn't want him sacked as to me he's the best manager for the job in this division.

However the issues we saw for 6 weeks after xmas would be even more exposed in the premier league as we saw when he spend decent money at Sunderland and Hull in his 3rd seasons in charge and they both got worse.

Dr Tony Xia is an ambitious man...I really don't think he'd be content to finish 17th in our first season back in the PL whenever that is, he'd want to be pushing for the top half as I'd imagine he'd push an ambitious transfer strategy given what we did this summer as a championship club.

If letting SB go is needed to push us forward more it will happen, however harsh it is.

This is exactly my problem with appointing Bruce first place and now in giving him a second season.  A lot of people think that scenario 2 is highly likely (me included).  If that does happens we're looking at Bruce having another 3 transfer windows and, given his buying record, I'd suggest that would mean the squad that starts the first game of 2018-19 in the Premier league would be almost entirely his built to play his way.  If we're all certain that his way will lead to relegation fight are we not just setting ourselves up to have to buy a complete new squad whilst staying up for 1-2 seasons before we can start to make some progress?  I understand the argument that we're not even promoted yet so why worry about it but my concern, always has been how much extra work are we creating for ourselves in having to go through another complete reset of the squad?  This is where the stability argument in favour of keeping him falls down a little because all we're actually doing is moving the 'transition' period forward a couple of years to when we're back in the premier league and the quality of opposition is so much higher.  The teams who've done well after promotion and stabilised as regulars in the league are the ones who've gone up playing a certain way and have stuck by that and we seem to be determined to do the exact opposite.

I'm not saying sack him and never really have been, I just don't see how 2+ years of Bruce is helping us reach the very ambitious targets set by Xia and that disconnect worries me.

Offline Pete

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1444 on: March 20, 2017, 12:32:05 PM »
The highest win % of any full-time Villa manager!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Aston_Villa_F.C._managers

Crikey according to that George Ramsey was manager for 42 years!

The table looks wrong to me. I make it 12 wins and 5 draws in 27. Points per game, over the last five seasons we'd have been 6th, 8th, 8th, 7th and 9th. If he can cut out dreadful runs like we had in January/February, we should be challenging next year.

Offline paul_e

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1445 on: March 20, 2017, 12:40:29 PM »
Their own reference gives it as 12/5/11 from 28 which includes the tottenham game so I'm not sure where those numbers have been pulled from.

Offline Tokyo Sexwhale

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1446 on: March 20, 2017, 12:43:40 PM »
Yeah, it's wrong.  Including the FA Cup game it should be:

PL: 28
W: 12
D: 5
L: 11

Still a 42.86% win rate, but he's only the 10th best manager.



Offline Drummond

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1447 on: March 20, 2017, 02:24:17 PM »
Don't forget though, that here we have Wyness and Round in place; Bruce didn't get that sort of support at any of his other promoted clubs. This is the biggest job he's had, at a club with a batter infrastructure than those at Sunderland, Hull or them lot down the road.

We appear to have a strategy now, and with those senior people in post, working with and supporting Bruce, I would like to think it will work and it won't all be reliant on the manager.


Offline Clampy

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1448 on: March 20, 2017, 08:04:25 PM »
Don't forget though, that here we have Wyness and Round in place; Bruce didn't get that sort of support at any of his other promoted clubs. This is the biggest job he's had, at a club with a batter infrastructure than those at Sunderland, Hull or them lot down the road.

We appear to have a strategy now, and with those senior people in post, working with and supporting Bruce, I would like to think it will work and it won't all be reliant on the manager.



I'd agree with this. Having experience in there and a bit of stability is vital and it's why for me it would have been unwise to kick Bruce's arse out the door after the blip we had.

Offline paul_e

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1449 on: March 20, 2017, 08:20:10 PM »
Don't forget though, that here we have Wyness and Round in place; Bruce didn't get that sort of support at any of his other promoted clubs. This is the biggest job he's had, at a club with a batter infrastructure than those at Sunderland, Hull or them lot down the road.

We appear to have a strategy now, and with those senior people in post, working with and supporting Bruce, I would like to think it will work and it won't all be reliant on the manager.



I'd agree with this. Having experience in there and a bit of stability is vital and it's why for me it would have been unwise to kick Bruce's arse out the door after the blip we had.

but where do we stand on a stability front if we have to replace Bruce when we're in a relegation battle in the premier league in 2 years time and we have an entire squad build to play his way?  Has anyone ever taken over a Steve Bruce side and turned them into a free-flowing high-tempo side?  Has anyone looked at the leftovers from his time at a club and thought " there's a squad that could be great with a couple of additions"?  I appreciate this is all a couple of years away and that some of his previous clubs have been fairly middling in terms of quality but my concern, always, is that 2 years of Bruce means 20-25 new signings which is pretty much the entire squad, if we do go up next season by the end of that summer we'll be his team to the core and I'm not sure that's a good place to be if we're trying to stabilise back into the premier league.  He has a history of getting teams up but it comes with a history of bringing them back as well.

i think the roles of Wyness and Round will become very important at that point and, from a footballing stance, I don't think we can judge either of them until then.

Offline Clampy

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1450 on: March 20, 2017, 08:27:52 PM »
I agree - never mind the quality, feel the width. I don't care how we win - as long as we win.

Some of the performances haven't been great but like I said before, the club as a whole needed to get the winning feeling back again.

Offline brian green

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1451 on: March 20, 2017, 08:42:36 PM »
It certainly feels good.

Offline Clampy

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1452 on: March 20, 2017, 08:51:35 PM »

Offline walsall villain

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1453 on: March 20, 2017, 08:53:30 PM »
We aren't playing attractively but it is good to see resilience. I've watched Leeds on TV quite a few times and they grind out results week in week out. That will do for me next year.

Offline Sexual Ealing

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Re: Bruce out
« Reply #1454 on: March 20, 2017, 09:11:38 PM »
Don't forget though, that here we have Wyness and Round in place; Bruce didn't get that sort of support at any of his other promoted clubs. This is the biggest job he's had, at a club with a batter infrastructure than those at Sunderland, Hull or them lot down the road.

We appear to have a strategy now, and with those senior people in post, working with and supporting Bruce, I would like to think it will work and it won't all be reliant on the manager.



I'd agree with this. Having experience in there and a bit of stability is vital and it's why for me it would have been unwise to kick Bruce's arse out the door after the blip we had.

Has anyone ever taken over a Steve Bruce side and turned them into a free-flowing high-tempo side?  Has anyone looked at the leftovers from his time at a club and thought " there's a squad that could be great with a couple of additions"? 

The only example I can point to that comes close is McLeish at Blues. Which sort of proves your point.

 


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