Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[tomd2103]

Shame Pat Murphy no longer works on football. Suggest he'd have been questioning Bruce in the way he did Pearson.

He was at the Wolves game for Five Live on Saturday. 

[JUAN PABLO]

I noticed Brucies bullshit again , after Thor gets him out of the shit with the headed goal and he mentioned him in the interview saying Im slowly bringing him back into the the team because he had a world cup and its a long season , which is complete bollocks as Jedinak had one too and has played mostly every game and hes a few years older. 

[Risso]

I noticed Brucies bullshit again , after Thor gets him out of the shit with the headed goal and he mentioned him in the interview saying Im slowly bringing him back into the the team because he had a world cup and its a long season , which is complete bollocks as Jedinak had one too and has played mostly every game and hes a few years older. 

Quite right.  Bjarnason played the three group games in the World Cup, after really not featuring very regularly towards the end of the season for us.  The idea that he needs until the end of September to be gradually reintroduced is just more laughable bullshit from the king of laughable bullshit.

[Monty]

I really want to know what he actually does in training. Do we train? Do we, like, practice football?

[paul_e]

Mat Kendrick suggested that he gets reports about what's online

I think there's plenty to criticise Bruce about at the moment without focusing on this angle, or why he subbed an injured Abraham, or whether he looks like a root vegetable

I disagree on the bold one, that is actually quite core to the problems with Bruce.  Subbing a player with an injury is clearly not something that deserves criticism but the circumstances around it are a different matter. We had Adomah, Bolasie, El Ghazi and Elmo all on the bench which meant there was no room for a striker (when having Hogan or RHM there would've been fine) which meant we had no replacement. Before that my understanding is that Tammy was carrying the knock for a while and we subbed Kodjia anyway.  Chnage either of these and no one would criticise him but he left hmiself with no option but to finish a game with no strikers on the pitch when we were chasing a winner.

I really want to know what he actually does in training. Do we train? Do we, like, practice football?

Absolutely this, I'd love to see evidence of something we'd worked on in training being put into action during a game but it just never happens, the same flaws have been there completely unaddressed for 2 years.

[andyh]

Have we ever seen a variation of a free kick? Admittedly we have some decent free kick takers around the box, but I can’t remember us doing something that surprised us.
It seems the only ‘tactical’ thing he has done is to tell McGinn he can’t take free kicks or corners if Hourihane is on the pitch.

[The Edge]

Have we ever seen a variation of a free kick? Admittedly we have some feed free kick takers around the box, but I can’t remember us doing something that surprised us.
It seems the only ‘tactical’ thing he has done is to tell McGinn he can’t take free kicks or corners if Hourihane is on the pitch.

Yep even though McGinn took some superb free kicks in his first few games. It's deliberate sabotage I tell you.

[mr underhill]

wake me up when some positive shit happens.

[villa `cross the mersey]

And why can't professional footballers pass to one of their own players from a throw in?

[CT Villan]

Absolutely this, I'd love to see evidence of something we'd worked on in training being put into action during a game but it just never happens.

You can actually see it every week, home or away...11 men behind the ball whose only task is to defend and hoof.

[ktvillan]

I disagree on the bold one, that is actually quite core to the problems with Bruce.  Subbing a player with an injury is clearly not something that deserves criticism but the circumstances around it are a different matter. We had Adomah, Bolasie, El Ghazi and Elmo all on the bench which meant there was no room for a striker (when having Hogan or RHM there would've been fine) which meant we had no replacement. Before that my understanding is that Tammy was carrying the knock for a while and we subbed Kodjia anyway.  Chnage either of these and no one would criticise him but he left hmiself with no option but to finish a game with no strikers on the pitch when we were chasing a winner.

Yes this is the bit he conveniently glosses over, that his failure to have a backup striker on the bench, or to take account of Abraham having a knock when subbing off Kodija points to
a manager who can't see or think beyond the end of his nose.

[exigo]

Whole group of us debated this question in the pub on Friday, and couldn't definitively come up with a single answer:

Name a Villa player who has improved as a direct result of Steve Bruce in the last three years?

[Toronto Villa]

I really want to know what he actually does in training. Do we train? Do we, like, practice football?

Well isn't the fact that El Ghazi let it slip that Bruce isn't really around much the answer to your question? Paid 3m per year to do literally do fuck all, fart around the lower half of the table waxing lyrical about his four promotions. He should get on the phone to Eric Black so they can discuss their immense experience and how it all used to be.

[Hookeysmith]

There is no question that when we came down our club was rotten from the top to the players. RDM may have been used to better quality of players but was not able to change that awful mentality that was still prevalent in our first season.
In fairness Bruce has stopped the rotten nature and attitude of the club as a whole (although I think Senior pro's such as Terry / Snodgrass etc helped also) by instilling a team ethic and a togetherness and we should thank him for that. Unfortunately now that has been addressed he just does not have the footballing ability to blend the players collected into a workable, winning team.

Thanks for the ground work Steve but now politely piss off before we all really start to dislike you

[Toronto Villa]

Bruce might have stopped some of the rot but is now there as the embodiment of our most recent and very evident decay.