Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Witton Warrior]

I don't pretend to know anything about tactics or formations all I have seen this season is a team that played poorly and didn't win many games, a team that played poorly and won a few games and is now a team that plays poorly and loses a lot of games. The personnel have changed radically but one thing has remained the same...

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Still can't believe this is a thread, because the obvious answer is to sack someone who's proven to take teams up from the Championship and get someone else in who is less qualified (unless you're the kind of person who actually thought Juergen Klopp would come to the Villa, then you probably think someone like Diego Simeone will come and save us).

[LukeJames]

We're currently not trying to be promoted, we're trying not be relegated, hows his record in relegation battles?

[paul_e]

Still can't believe this is a thread, because the obvious answer is to sack someone who's proven to take teams up from the Championship and get someone else in who is less qualified (unless you're the kind of person who actually thought Juergen Klopp would come to the Villa, then you probably think someone like Diego Simeone will come and save us).

As things stand Bruce is more likely to lead us to the league 1 playoffs than the championship playoffs and you don't think we should be talking about him being sacked (unless you're the kind of person that refuses to see what's right in front of him and thinks that if we keep Bruce we'll magically turn into a promotion chasing team next year).

[Nunkin1965]

I've got to say that I'm desperate for him to succeed like any other manager we've appointed.

The bottom line is that he must know he needs a result. And fast. Right now getting a single point looks unlikely. The next 6 games could be the biggest challenge we've faced as a club in the modern era.

League 1 is staring us in the face.

[PeterWithesShin]

I still hope he can turn it round, but we can't score, we can't keep clean sheets, we still look disjointed, we have no idea what his preferred formation is, we have no discernible style of play, we are hovering above the division 2 drop zone and are on one of the worst runs in our history (we've had worse but at least it was in the top flight), if we aren't questioning the manager responsible then McGrath help us.

[garyshawsknee]

I was fairly pleased with his appointment, but if it gets to 7 or 8 losses in a row, then he's gotta be facing the sack, I'm sure he's aware of this. The really worry thing for me is that apart from the first half against Preston, the team has played pretty woefully, no cohesion, no pressing, no movement, no game plan. Added to the constant change of formation and virtually no idea how to accommodate the new signings.

[Mossie Hennebry]

I would keep him. We can't keep changing managers and resetting the clock. There has to be some forward progression at some point. I would usher this in by paying up the contracts on Gabby and Richards and then getting all the new signings into a room and asking them where they perceive the problem(s) to be. If it's coaching, it's easily fixed. Ditto fitness. If it's something more intangible,like bullying, poor team spirit, etc. then a more creative solution may be required.

[VillaAlways]

I would keep him. We can't keep changing managers and resetting the clock. There has to be some forward progression at some point. I would usher this in by paying up the contracts on Gabby and Richards and then getting all the new signings into a room and asking them where they perceive the problem(s) to be. If it's coaching, it's easily fixed. Ditto fitness. If it's something more intangible,like bullying, poor team spirit, etc. then a more creative solution may be required.

Why would he pay up Richards and Gabbys contract when he appears to rate them ?

[Ad@m]

League 1 is staring us in the face.

Can we start calling it Division 3 please.  It was more fun when it was Division 3.

[pauliewalnuts]

I am finding it really hard to garner any enthusiasm for changing the manager yet again, even though I can see lots of reasons why it might be an idea.

What worries me most is that the team exhibits a total lack of heart.

Once we went 1 down last night, how many of us thought we really had any chance of coming back?

Play well, concede soft goal, fall to pieces. Loop.

[VillaAlways]

Through the whole of the first half although we were playing relatively well. I was waiting for the inevitable mistake which we duly delivered.

[LukeJames]

David Wagner on getting the Huddersfield team to gel and create a team spirit, the kind of thing we need to be doing next pre-season but can you see Bruce, or the players wanting to do it?

But it was not any old preseason trip.

There were no footballs, just tents, canoes, food rations and fishing trips to ensure his players had enough to eat during their stay on a remote Swedish island.

"When you are in the wild for four days without electricity, without mobile phones, without internet, even without food really, you have to speak to each other and come into contact with people," Wagner said. "It makes no sense to sit alone in the corner, even if you are new.

"Nobody likes to do that. Maybe you can do it for two or three hours, but then you like to speak with somebody.

"And because we put them in two-man tents and two-man canoes -- they were in canoes for eight hours each day -- and rotated who was with who, it helped to gel the group together.

"We had 11 new signings in a group of 23 last summer, so it meant that every second player was new, but I had done this trip before and I knew that nothing is better to bind the group together in terms of creating some first relationships.

"The trip was their first contact with each other because we hadn't touched the ball before we went to Sweden. It was our first day of preseason.

[Mister E]

I would keep him. We can't keep changing managers and resetting the clock. There has to be some forward progression at some point. I would usher this in by paying up the contracts on Gabby and Richards and then getting all the new signings into a room and asking them where they perceive the problem(s) to be. If it's coaching, it's easily fixed. Ditto fitness. If it's something more intangible,like bullying, poor team spirit, etc. then a more creative solution may be required.

I like your thinking but it requires Bruce and the club to eat an enormous piece of humble pie and accept that they've got it wrong and that others might have a better idea of how to progress; not something seen in football very often.

[KevinGage]

I would keep him. We can't keep changing managers and resetting the clock. There has to be some forward progression at some point. I would usher this in by paying up the contracts on Gabby and Richards and then getting all the new signings into a room and asking them where they perceive the problem(s) to be. If it's coaching, it's easily fixed. Ditto fitness. If it's something more intangible,like bullying, poor team spirit, etc. then a more creative solution may be required.

Why would he pay up Richards and Gabbys contract when he appears to rate them ?

He needs to bring Micah cah cah on from the bench (or better yet, start him) to really get the Villa fans behind him.

Could well be that he knows he's in the death-roll that comes to most Villa managers since 2010 and is just looking to speed up the process. I'm sure those pair of fatheads can oblige.