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Author Topic: Bruce Sacked at last (now official)  (Read 2115229 times)

Offline chrisw1

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5400 on: August 31, 2017, 12:30:26 PM »
I think Aftab it is because they are the same in the boardroom as they are on the pitch.  They are basically negative.  They plan for what they don't want to happen not for what can be achieved.  It is like when Lewis Hamilton was told in the last race of the season finish no lower than third and the title is yours.  He scraped third place by a whisker due to a mistake by another driver.  He should have been told to go out and win the race.  If you do not cultivate a winning mentality you get a losing mentality.  There is no middle safe pair of hands route.
Agreed Brian the winning mentality is so important. However I thought Dr Xia was the right fearless entrepreneurial type we needed, prepared to take chances, but it appears that he has appointed wrong people in Wyness and Round who convinced him that Bruce was a good choice last October.
I think last October Bruce was a reasonably sensible choice in terms of hoping for a quick return to the Premier league.  It hasn't panned as hoped, but I think at that time gambling on a relative unkown would have been very risky both in terms of arresting the slide and seizing the opportunity for a quick return.  Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but it's probably unfair to be too critical of Wyness & Round for what at the time seemed to many to be a pretty sensible call.  Things don't look great right now and personally I would have thought seriously about pulling the trigger on Bruce, but we've made a few signings and had a couple of positive results, so it's still possible they'll be proved right.

Offline RussellC

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5401 on: August 31, 2017, 01:38:51 PM »
I don't blame Round or Wyness. I don;t remember too many people thinking that appointing Bruce was a bad idea at the time. I don't think any of us were expecting progressive, expansive football under Bruce. We were expecting resilience and a degree of consistency though, and that he's failed to deliver on any of the above is the concern.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5402 on: August 31, 2017, 01:48:28 PM »
Particularly at this club, where in recent years changing managers has often coincided with things getting worse.

Which one(s) do you feel we should have stuck with longer?

Houlier, Garde and maybe even RDM for me

I was at RDM's last game in charge, away at Preston.  It was just about the worst combination of performance, team selection and tactics I can remember seeing.  A truly shocking display.

That was the thing with RDM - the majority of games we hammered the opposition with some really good stuff and then chucked it away in the last five minutes.  If he'd stuck to his guns and managed to sort the defence out (and got luckier in front of goal) I'm convinced he'd have got us promoted and it would've been fun to watch.

Instead, he had a complete mental breakdown and lost the plot in his final two games.  You'd have thought someone who'd managed a team to a European Cup win would be able to handle pressure but the way his tenure ended suggested it all got too much for him.

He was just a lax manager. Some media warned when we appointed him he wasn't exactly the hands on type when he was Chelsea manager and just let the players sort it out amongst themselves given the squad they had back then.

What did for him was imo the lax summer transfer campaign. How he thought adding an untested keeper in Gollini, Elphick and Tishbola on top of the relegation squad was ever going to get us promoted was laughable.

Only when we started the season did we make good signings like Jedinak, Chester and Kodjia but by then we weren't winning games so the rot for the season had set in already.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5403 on: August 31, 2017, 01:53:56 PM »
In terms of plans I really think we'll only see it developing properly as/when we get back to the premier league.

I think after last season Dr Tony has looked it and thought there's no point spending shed loads and trying to go for a big profile in a league that gets very little worldwide profile.

Get promoted and we can start pitching to big sponsors, start promoting the club much more in China, these development plans around VP that seem to have gone quiet will start becoming stories again, start signing exciting young players from european teams again like Southampton do etc.

I don't see any of this with Steve Bruce as manager though. It's an odd position to be in. Hoping he does his job and gets us promoted but realising he won't have much of a long term future with us because of it.

Offline SoccerHQ

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5404 on: August 31, 2017, 01:56:29 PM »
I have never concealed my contempt for the way Remi Garde was treated.  My enthusiasm for him was not so much as a manager though his CV was as good as any other manager we appointed post Houllier.  It was because we seemed to have a thought our plan.  We recruited a young, multi lingual manager and we seemed committed to finding reasonably priced continental players as opposed to old British over priced, over rated has beens.  But he got three and a bit months in the snake pit and was shown the door.

Okay, Garde did not work out but what replaced him was regression to Shoot! comic management.  Run through brick walls for the shirt approach to coaching and management.  The grunt and groan, thud and blunder of old sweats in a war of attrition against Championship opposition.  Such an approach is as out of date as Thunderboots Roy Race.  We are adrift in a sea of old school management driven by the assembly of a squad without an overall plan.  It started as a trolley dash and is now a final rummage in the remainders at the check out.  Whatever plan we come up with, there has to be a plan.  We cannot keep going round in circles.

We appointed him at the wrong time. He would've been a gamble if we'd got him after sacking Lambert given where we were in the league but would've had a decent amount to spend that summer and crucially I think a pre season to work his strategy out.

As soon as we didn't spend in that January he just gave up so in the circumstances he didn't need anymore time as we were long gone at that point.

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5405 on: August 31, 2017, 02:10:00 PM »
I have never concealed my contempt for the way Remi Garde was treated.  My enthusiasm for him was not so much as a manager though his CV was as good as any other manager we appointed post Houllier.  It was because we seemed to have a thought our plan.  We recruited a young, multi lingual manager and we seemed committed to finding reasonably priced continental players as opposed to old British over priced, over rated has beens.  But he got three and a bit months in the snake pit and was shown the door.

Okay, Garde did not work out but what replaced him was regression to Shoot! comic management.  Run through brick walls for the shirt approach to coaching and management.  The grunt and groan, thud and blunder of old sweats in a war of attrition against Championship opposition.  Such an approach is as out of date as Thunderboots Roy Race.  We are adrift in a sea of old school management driven by the assembly of a squad without an overall plan.  It started as a trolley dash and is now a final rummage in the remainders at the check out.  Whatever plan we come up with, there has to be a plan.  We cannot keep going round in circles.
There are 2 points that I find myself in agreement with you, it is this and our reticence to use and develop young talent, which I guess is part of the same malaise that you so aptly describe above.
Great post.

Offline olaftab

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5406 on: August 31, 2017, 03:37:38 PM »
Quote from: chrisw1 link=topic=57112.msg3314722#msg3314722
I think last October Bruce was a reasonably sensible choice in terms of hoping for a quick return to the Premier league.  It hasn't panned as hoped, but I think at that time gambling on a relative unkown would have been very risky both in terms of arresting the slide and seizing the opportunity for a quick return.  Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but it's probably unfair to be too critical of Wyness & Round for what at the time seemed to many to be a pretty sensible call.  Things don't look great right now and personally I would have thought seriously about pulling the trigger on Bruce, but we've made a few signings and had a couple of positive results, so it's still possible they'll be proved right.
It's hard to disagree with what you have said however Bruce was a gamble on "get promoted at whatever cost" and yes it failed. What Wyness and Round have not done is to look at how we do a root and branch change and prepare the club properly for next 5 and 10 years. And again in summer window now we have got sticky plaster in the shape of Terry, Whelan and Elmo another one season gamble😥 I would be delighted behind belief if this works however missing is any good fundamental plan to make Villa great again.

Offline chrisw1

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5407 on: August 31, 2017, 04:26:26 PM »
Quote from: chrisw1 link=topic=57112.msg3314722#msg3314722
I think last October Bruce was a reasonably sensible choice in terms of hoping for a quick return to the Premier league.  It hasn't panned as hoped, but I think at that time gambling on a relative unkown would have been very risky both in terms of arresting the slide and seizing the opportunity for a quick return.  Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but it's probably unfair to be too critical of Wyness & Round for what at the time seemed to many to be a pretty sensible call.  Things don't look great right now and personally I would have thought seriously about pulling the trigger on Bruce, but we've made a few signings and had a couple of positive results, so it's still possible they'll be proved right.
It's hard to disagree with what you have said however Bruce was a gamble on "get promoted at whatever cost" and yes it failed. What Wyness and Round have not done is to look at how we do a root and branch change and prepare the club properly for next 5 and 10 years. And again in summer window now we have got sticky plaster in the shape of Terry, Whelan and Elmo another one season gamble😥 I would be delighted behind belief if this works however missing is any good fundamental plan to make Villa great again.
I agree.  It feels like a final roll of the Bruce dice.  Hopefully it will come off, if it does then it will have been worth it.  I do have serious doubts though and if we fail again we will be in a terrible position.

Offline ChicagoLion

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5408 on: August 31, 2017, 06:11:55 PM »
His appointment was short termism, a shot at the play offs (fair enough), it didn't work.
So why have they persisted with it? Because just like Bruce there was and is no plan B.
So load up the squad and hope for the best.
Fail again.

Offline McGraths Dry Cleaning

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5409 on: August 31, 2017, 06:45:54 PM »
His appointment was short termism, a shot at the play offs (fair enough), it didn't work.
So why have they persisted with it? Because just like Bruce there was and is no plan B.
So load up the squad and hope for the best.
Fail again.
Quite. The wider management team at Villa are balls deep in Bruce (so to speak - I hope no one is eating their tea). Sacking Bruce will make them look like they're not very good at their jobs.


Offline itbrvilla

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5410 on: August 31, 2017, 06:50:14 PM »
His appointment was short termism, a shot at the play offs (fair enough), it didn't work.
So why have they persisted with it? Because just like Bruce there was and is no plan B.
So load up the squad and hope for the best.
Fail again.
Quite. The wider management team at Villa are balls deep in Bruce (so to speak - I hope no one is eating their tea). Sacking Bruce will make them look like they're not very good at their jobs.


Both spot on. We do like to land chancers who end up significantly richer.

Offline Diablo

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5411 on: August 31, 2017, 08:43:33 PM »
His appointment was short termism, a shot at the play offs (fair enough), it didn't work.
So why have they persisted with it? Because just like Bruce there was and is no plan B.
So load up the squad and hope for the best.
Fail again.
Quite. The wider management team at Villa are balls deep in Bruce (so to speak - I hope no one is eating their tea). Sacking Bruce will make them look like they're not very good at their jobs.


Both spot on. We do like to land chancers who end up significantly richer.


Online Clampy

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5412 on: August 31, 2017, 08:50:43 PM »
His appointment was short termism, a shot at the play offs (fair enough), it didn't work.
So why have they persisted with it? Because just like Bruce there was and is no plan B.
So load up the squad and hope for the best.
Fail again.
Quite. The wider management team at Villa are balls deep in Bruce (so to speak - I hope no one is eating their tea). Sacking Bruce will make them look like they're not very good at their jobs.


Both spot on. We do like to land chancers who end up significantly richer.



Some of the comments on this video on youtube reckon Edwyn Collins sounds like Stewie Griffin.

Offline alftitimus

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5413 on: September 01, 2017, 06:58:18 AM »
350 pages, and the guy has only been here 10 months

 ;D

Or SIX months as he says.

 ;D

TWO transfer windows and he claims to promote youth but hangs around the Darby & Joan

I know a fair bit about his time at Birmingham City...sorry. .. a family thing  :-[

Karren Brady, the CEO etc at BCFC, and now WHU, was brought up as a boxing fan and most importantly a GOONER.Odd woman - imo  ;D
Her father was involved or near, the 'Heirachy' at Arsenal, and she said she blatantly used him to secure a triple loan from them.
Larsson. Muamba and Bendtner. All teenagers who'd made about 5 appearances in Wenger's first team between them

Point is, they came with the proviso that they played X number of matches each. They did.
It was written in their loan-agreements.

And Bruce is using them, years later as his example of how he has always supported 'kids'...Academies ...and so on.

Absolute self-aggrandising two weeks after his despair / depression about his team.

The Birmingham players he mentioned HAD TO PLAY, because of their contracted loan-agreements.
They were good enough for Division 2. BUT...he didn't pluck them out of the U23s or Academy, as he infers.

Same at Hull..... dire injury list..... youngster comes in.... ::)

And with us, 2 sterling appearances, and he's off on his Trump-like fantasising about being an advocat for kids.

Look at the "experienced players" -  he's spent Xia's money on ?

Look at the Stats for teenage debutants !



Offline Ads

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Re: Bruce out?
« Reply #5414 on: September 01, 2017, 07:04:00 AM »
O'Hare
Davis
Clarke
Suleiman
Green
Doyle-Hayes

I'd imagine that compares favourably with any side in the league.

 


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