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Author Topic: Bruce Sacked at last (now official)  (Read 2113007 times)

Offline Steve67

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2610 on: May 12, 2017, 08:09:41 PM »
Libor, £7mill. He had money. He spunked it, then blamed anyone but himself. Should have been sacked after season two but Randy didn't care enough. I hope Xia cares more.

Offline Richard E

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2611 on: May 12, 2017, 08:13:03 PM »
Kozak was doing all right until he got injured the first time.

Offline peter w

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2612 on: May 12, 2017, 08:14:08 PM »
He wasn't very good before the injury and we haven't missed him much.

Online LeeB

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2613 on: May 12, 2017, 08:14:13 PM »
Kozak was doing all right until he got injured the first time.

Agreed. He was a bit rough edged but he knew the way to goal.

Offline cdbearsfan

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2614 on: May 12, 2017, 09:24:55 PM »
Libor, £7mill. He had money. He spunked it, then blamed anyone but himself. Should have been sacked after season two but Randy didn't care enough. I hope Xia cares more.

You can't really blame him for Kozak getting injured.

Online Dave

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2615 on: May 12, 2017, 09:49:08 PM »
Libor, £7mill. He had money. He spunked it, then blamed anyone but himself. Should have been sacked after season two but Randy didn't care enough. I hope Xia cares more.

You can't really blame him for Kozak getting injured.

You can't, but aside from any injury there's still a solid argument that given between £7-10m to spend then that wasn't the best way to spend it.

Offline peter w

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2616 on: May 12, 2017, 09:49:43 PM »
No, but he bought him at a time when we needed players elsewhere. we were struggling to service Benteke at the time what was the point of a bean pole?

Offline The Edge

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2617 on: May 12, 2017, 10:37:44 PM »
What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!
A good coach would have not only got more out of the squad he had: he'd also have blended Okore and Helenius into the squad and made more of their potential. During the Lamberk years, we had the festering culture of toxic attitude which started under Houllier and still seem to exist, to an extent; not solved but left to develop like a superbug.
Okore and Helenius were dog shit. Their achievements post villa are proof of that.

Offline VinnieChase84

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2618 on: May 12, 2017, 10:41:58 PM »
No, but he bought him at a time when we needed players elsewhere. we were struggling to service Benteke at the time what was the point of a bean pole?
agree. When we were crying out for quaiity in midfield the decision to spend thus type Of cash on him was criminal

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2619 on: May 12, 2017, 10:53:54 PM »
We needed a striker. We had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby plus Bowery and Helenius. Considering when fit the first 3 started it didn't leave us much as cover. We obviously needed midfielders as well, but we did need a more experienced striker as back up and to come off the bench.

Online Dave

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2620 on: May 12, 2017, 11:06:12 PM »
We needed a striker. We had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby plus Bowery and Helenius. Considering when fit the first 3 started it didn't leave us much as cover. We obviously needed midfielders as well, but we did need a more experienced striker as back up and to come off the bench.

That's fine - but that striker to come off the bench didn't necessarily need to take up half the transfer budget of that summer given how little was being spent on the rest of the signings.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2621 on: May 12, 2017, 11:58:36 PM »
What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!

There was enough money,  it was the disjointed nature of how it was spent that caused the problems.  First summer from the lower leagues,  the next from Europe and the third from the Premier League's cast-offs.

I wouldn't say 20m a summer is a big spend in the premier league anymore. We'd all be whinging on here next summer if we went up and Xia gave Bruce or whoever the new manager was that amount as a war chest. Benitez wants 100m to spend.

Now what Sherwood got in 2015 was a big spend although of course we got a lot of that from selling Benteke. Still you have to factor in we were targeting players who weren't even getting 10k a week at their clubs so minimal spend on wages aswell which obviously affects targets.

Offline dave.woodhall

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2622 on: May 13, 2017, 12:00:12 AM »
What I could never understand about Lambert was that we got out of trouble in his first season by playing football. From memory the last third of the seaosn was solid mid-table form and included some really good performances such as the wins at Stoke and Norwich and the Sunderland 6-1, starring the much-criticised young and hungries. We had a platform to build on then he went backwards.

I think the big problem there is not getting the funds to back up what was a decent end to the season.

That's probably where I have most sympathy around that time in his tenure. He'd spent minimal the year before on mostly league 1-2 players, found Benteke and we ended that season playing well and finally having some momentum again.

Lerner should've loosened  the purse strings a little bit given there was no talk of him selling at that point and built on it. Instead we this time were bargain basement shopping over europe and came up with Luna, Bacuna, Okore, Helenius etc.

That said all summer we were crying out for a midfield playmaker (linked with Belhanda and Kioyatke) and he didn't help himself by spending 7m on Kozak when Benteke was already staying. And as soon as Kozak got injured he went and got Grant Holt on loan!

There was enough money,  it was the disjointed nature of how it was spent that caused the problems.  First summer from the lower leagues,  the next from Europe and the third from the Premier League's cast-offs.

I wouldn't say 20m a summer is a big spend in the premier league anymore. We'd all be whinging on here next summer if we went up and Xia gave Bruce or whoever the new manager was that amount as a war chest. Benitez wants 100m to spend.

Now what Sherwood got in 2015 was a big spend although of course we got a lot of that from selling Benteke. Still you have to factor in we were targeting players who weren't even getting 10k a week at their clubs so minimal spend on wages aswell which obviously affects targets.

It isn't now, though. It was five years ago.

Offline PeterWithesShin

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2623 on: May 13, 2017, 12:00:32 AM »
Strikers always cost more, Lambert said at the time he'd been after him for months. Take this season, we brought in what, 15 or 16 players? I'd bet the 3 strikers cost us a big percentage of what we spent on signings. It's probably not far off the percentage Kozak took of the summer's spend. Kozak most likely cost about £6m (pretty sure Lazio had it at 6.5m Euros) so was about a 3rd of what we spent that summer? I'm talking gross figures in this instance.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #2624 on: May 13, 2017, 12:04:22 AM »
We needed a striker. We had Benteke, Weimann, Gabby plus Bowery and Helenius. Considering when fit the first 3 started it didn't leave us much as cover. We obviously needed midfielders as well, but we did need a more experienced striker as back up and to come off the bench.

At the time Gabby was still seen as decent as he'd ended the previous season in good form (great double at Norwich which pretty much kept us up) so I'm sure he could've filled in as the lead striker on occasions Benteke wouldn't have been fit as he indeed did at the start of the following season.

To evolve more as a team from simply one that was decent at counter attacking we needed someone in midfield area who could pick a pass and chip in with goals.

I'm trying to remember if Sigurdsson had gone back to Swansea at that point or he was still stuck at Spurs on the bench but that to me would've been a perfect signing at that point. I don't think Swansea got him back for much more than we signed Kozak.

Could've signed him and then loaned in a striker on deadline day.

 


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