Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

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I think the difference is you'd like to be proved right on your initial objections and waste no time in saying it everytime we lose, so you lack objectivity.

I wouldn't say he's failing no, he's only just got his players in and we've suffered a bad month in form after a couple of good ones.

I'm willing to give him the chance to fail, you've already made your mind up before a ball was kicked against Wolves in October.

[Toronto Villa]

Of course he needs the summer. We need to move away from being in a state of perpetual flux.

We need to get away from buying 1/2 a squad in the transfer window and changing managers. I'm glad we went and bought who we needed because it will help us immensely in the long run. But we now need a very settled period of developing chemistry and a playing style. If that means going up next season and not at the end of this, so be it. I'd rather us promoted as a cohesive unit than before we are ready and struggle again.

[Risso]

I'm getting a bit sick of him going on about games as "a horrible one" as if it's some random occurrence that he has no control over.  He needs to get his act together, because whatever the circumstances, last night was as far from acceptable as it's possible to get.  OK so it was 3 new players, diddums. Brentford were without their top scorer because we've bought him, but they still ripped us a new one, with a team that was assembled at a fraction of the costs of ours.

We are the lowest away scorers in the entire league, and Bruce is at least partly to blame for that.

[LukeJames]

we blamed RDM for a rubbish start and most people thought he should go because of the ineptitude of the team,
I don't know what his stats were but Bruce cant be a long way in front and with more games under his belt

I don't see any improvement at all since he came, not even 1% if i'm honest
even the games we have won we weren't very good, 'but hey we would have lost that before' comments made us think better times ahead, only to find out exactly the same times were ahead

i have not seen one not one decent performance under him as yet, which is a pretty ridiculous state of affairs

i read yesterday on here someone saying that if Bruce had been in charge from the start we would be comfortably in the top two,
i honestly do not see any evidence whatsoever for that sort of statement its almost Trump standard sycophantic stuff, when all the evidence points one way but you choose to believe the alternative facts

i don't know what the answer is, but its not Steve Bruce

Unfortunately I completely agree with you, fair play to the posters that are glass half full and say we need to give him more time etc, I wish I could share that enthusiasm but I see absolutely no signs that things will improve, I think we'll be no further forward in 18 months with Bruce leading us.

[Jimbo]

The fact is everybody has failed at Villa since Martin O'Neill, and it could be argued he failed too. It's going to take steady, patient and measured rebuilding to change the toxic culture at the club, and whether or not Bruce ends up being the manager to do that, we have to give him time. We were never going up this season, and anyone who thought we would wasn't paying attention for the best part of the last decade.

[damon loves JT]

I was going to post on the pre-match thread that I was certain we'd lose, and badly. It's one thing inserting a single  quality player into a side that's already flying. Bruce was trying something much harder.

I'm still optimistic in the long term because I believe he has a vision and a strategy and that they're shared and supported by the chairman and the chief executive.

But unless the team is prepared to fight to win, all the strategies in the world are no good. I hope getting shot of a few non-tryers will improve morale and make us a better team.

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Like toxic Newcastle Circus FC are struggling as well.

[montague]

We cant keep changing manager and systems. Give him a summer then lets see how it stands at xmas. That will probably be in the championship now but fixing this club is not going to be an easy or quick job.

[Jimbo]

Like toxic Newcastle Circus FC are struggling as well.

What has our unrivalled shitness over the last few years got to do with them?

[john e]

I think the difference is you'd like to be proved right on your initial objections and waste no time in saying it everytime we lose, so you lack objectivity.

I wouldn't say he's failing no, he's only just got his players in and we've suffered a bad month in form after a couple of good ones.

I'm willing to give him the chance to fail, you've already made your mind up before a ball was kicked against Wolves in October.

I accept that, maybe i do lack objectivity

 believe it or not i say to myself i'm not going to post stuff about Bruce because it will only come over the way you say, but then i cant help myself when i see the defence of the indefensible
your right i never wanted him but to be honest even i thought he was better than this

i actually don't give a shit in being proved right about Bruce i just want someone to come in and show me they know what they are doing,

[berneboy]

Of course he needs the summer. We need to move away from being in a state of perpetual flux.

we need to move away from throwing good money after bad with managers who don't have the technical capacity to have a game plan or change things on the pitch other than just buying the best players in that particular league and hoping it comes right in the end

we need to move away from the most abject and shit performances week after week and then making a ton of excuses as to why it happened and believing the manager is still great

we need to move away from 'hes done it before (promotion) that means he will do it again' mentality when half the other managers in that league have also done it most of them we wouldn't touch with a messy stick

Why would you discount his record? That makes no sense.

A manager who has promoted 4 clubs and one as recently as May 2016 has the exact credentials we need. If not him, then who exactly?

And failing? Really? After 20 games with somebody else's players?

Stop this calm and moderate approach. Stop it, I say!

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Like toxic Newcastle Circus FC are struggling as well.

What has our unrivalled shitness over the last few years got to do with them?

You use an intangible buzzword as causation when the issues have been far more simple than that. As an example, Ashley Westwood, 4th division player, has played 150 odd times for us at the heart of midfield.

It's a lack of quality on the pitch and on the touch line and in the boardroom that has seen us reach where we are. You recruit badly players or managers then the outcomes are inevitable, only the timing is uncertain.

Newcastle are not all on the same page, yet they've recruited quality players and a manager who has had a full pre-season and they'll go up automatically. Their underlying issues at owner and board room level persist.

If we'd have picked the right manager, instead of a detached and aloof figure, with seldom clue how to set things up tactically, then maybe we'd be in a much stronger position and would not have wasted the money that we have. 

There's no gypsy curse. Good players don't become bad simply because they play for us. Not everybody will work out of course, but there's no miasma around Bodymoor Heath, there will always be issues of discipline at every club, sometimes they can be resolved like Gabby  (it's his lack of quality now, not his comittment) and sometimes not like McCormack.

[olaftab]

No, there are two parties in this love affair.  Aston Villa and me.  I have been a full on, home and away fan, never a an armchair pundit, for seven decades.  The load being imposed by such horrors as our centre forward not turning up for training because his gates are stuck is becoming too much to bear.  Steve Bruce? Go? Stay? Tony Xia? Go? Stay? Whatever.  I want an end to the misery their goings on inflict on fans in general and me in particular.  They have run out of time as far as I am concerned. 

Same here Brian. There appears to be no end in this misery being inflicted on us fans. Even when we buy better players from other teams we make other teams better.

[N'ZMAV]

We cant keep changing manager and systems. Give him a summer then lets see how it stands at xmas. That will probably be in the championship now but fixing this club is not going to be an easy or quick job.

Agreed.

5 years of being dog-shit from top to bottom won't get resolved by throwing money and managers at it. We need some sort of stability over the next 18 months. The huge turnaround in players was required, but that sort of thing isn't a quick fix.

If we're still in the same sort of position in 12 months I'll be very worried for our future for the following decade.

 I back Tony & Brucie.

[paul_e]

My biggest concern is that we look as clueless now as we did under Sherwood who also had a very good start (with the added benefit of good performances as well) before his team dissolved into a disorganised rabble who looked like they'd never met.  Yes we played with a 3 who've barely trained together but no one forced him to do that and besides we've looked exactly the same with any other midfield h's put out in the last 3 months so blaming it on the players not being settled is both ignoring the fact that he made the decision to play them and that even players who aren't new to the squad look like they've never played together.

I completely agree that we need continuity I'm just not sure that we should be building our continuity around the mind-numbing shit that Bruce has served up so far.  One of the constants in this run of shit performances has been that the opposition can all keep the ball on the deck and pass and move to find gaps which is strange because some people seem to think that you can't win games in this league playing that way.

Playing shit, out-of-date football would've been acceptable if it was getting the results to drive us into the play offs but we're back down into the bottom half and we're getting worse to watch and the results have gone.  We have, in Hourihane and Lansbury, 2 midfielders who can be at the heart of a switch to playing style that creates chances and allows us to have more control on the game, Bruce NEEDS to show that he can use them that way and I honestly think it needs to happen by the end of March.  If by then we're still the disorganised disgrace that we have been for the last 2 months then questions will need to be asked and no amount of calls for giving him more time will stop that.  If we're showing some signs that he has the coaching know-how to get us back on track then fair enough we can give him the time but 6 months is more than enough time to shows signs of recovery, even if he has wasted the first 4 of them.