Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[tomd2103]

I could see him settling on the below line up and formation for the next few games:

                       Johnstone

Hutton       Chester         Baker      Taylor

                          Jedinak

                Lansbury         Hourihane

Adomah               Kodjia               Green


To be honest, I think there is a spine there for the rest of the season and into next.  Breed or De Laet for Hutton and a bit of fine tuning in the summer (keeper, centre half) and we could move forward. 

[pauliewalnuts]

I was typing on my phone but the context you gave was about the summer, when RDM was the manager not Bruce and yet after 10 games you were posting that RDM needed to be sacked.  So I ask again why didn't he get to use the excuse that you are now using to Bruce?

On this you're contradicting yourself almost as much as you do on the match threads where post Barnesley, Ipswich and Forest we'd created loads of chances and deserved something but when we win it doesn't matter how shit we are.

What I don't understand is why you think Bruce deserves this commitment from you.  Clampy has been very supportive of him as well but he will at least offer criticism where it's warranted without qualification, you can't say anything bad about him without having a excuse ready to go and it's just odd.

I see it as we started the season on the same point as everyone else, actually won a game early and then RDM blew it with all the dropped points from late goals which there and then killed off our top 6 hopes imo.

So SB came in with a massive handicap (we were in the bottom 3) so I've just looked as this season as a free hit.

I do understand the concerns and we must finish the season strongly now. I'd be looking for us to hit 60 points or thereabouts, barely getting 50 won't be good enough.

You wrote off the entire season after 12 games?

[simboy]

so the choice is do we continue with the policy that's seen us have seven permenant (and several caretakers)managers in seven years and end up in the second tier of English football or do we try something we haven't tried for a while? A touch of stability.

I'm not sure how many transfer windows each manager has had since MON left however getting a team doesn't take one window, instead two or three no matter who you are.

Who is bought may not settle in on day one. That doesn't make them a bad buy however a good way of unsettling them and almost guarantee us not seeing them realise their potential is to change the manager who bought them.

Changing managers also allows the likes of gabby and Grealish to get away with what they want ... wait six months and a new manager will give them their chance again. I wonder if the attitude change of gabby is that he's been informed by the new regime above Bruce this is it, he's stayed me for at least a couple of years.

I'm no real fan of Bruce, his football is turgid and functional from what I've seen. However we are where we are, hopefully the good Dr has got his back room staff right. To change Bruce before he's had the real opportunity to prove he can change the team seems wrong to me at this stage. Quick fixes haven't worked in the recent past and are unlikely to work in the future as far as I see

...we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them ... I'm with Einstein on that one

What is clear that we have been a basket case since Learner got bored with us and I am hopeful the new regime can get us going forward and back to where we should be.

Benitez didn't need multiple transfer windows at Newcastle, nor Hughton at Brighton, Monk at Leeds etc to oversee a dramatic improvement. Bruce and RDM before him have had an unprecedented budget at this level that demands immediate promotion to be honest.

I'm all for stability but it has to be earned. If anything we gave the likes of Lambert and Sherwood to mention two far too long. I hope a serious assessment of Bruce's future is done in the summer as I'm thinking there won't be a fraction of the same budget available in the summer.

But it's not necessarily about how much money you spend it's about how you spend it. Of all the managers you mentioned doing well now they've at least one closed season to get their plans in place. None of them performed miracles in the first couple of months.

We are where we are. It's no good continually switching managers - it hasn't worked previously. I'm not saying give him a life contract and the freedom of villa park, I'm saying let's have a bit of stability and patience.

As to Bruce, if he gets to he end of the season he starts the next one for me. I have no idea what he will have as a budget. As long as he buys a proper goalkeeper and a centre back you would hope that we will push hard next year.

The club has been in freefall all over (not just on the pitch) since Lerner got bored or divorced or whatever. I am with you about Lamberk. Bradford was an embarrassment, Sheffield United was an abject "distraction". Sherwood should never have been given the job in the first place.

[pauliewalnuts]

How can you really say "it is no good continually switching managers", though?

Surely it depends who you are switching from, and to whom (and I say that as one who wouldn't sack Bruce)?

[paul_e]

I was typing on my phone but the context you gave was about the summer, when RDM was the manager not Bruce and yet after 10 games you were posting that RDM needed to be sacked.  So I ask again why didn't he get to use the excuse that you are now using to Bruce?

On this you're contradicting yourself almost as much as you do on the match threads where post Barnesley, Ipswich and Forest we'd created loads of chances and deserved something but when we win it doesn't matter how shit we are.

What I don't understand is why you think Bruce deserves this commitment from you.  Clampy has been very supportive of him as well but he will at least offer criticism where it's warranted without qualification, you can't say anything bad about him without having a excuse ready to go and it's just odd.

I see it as we started the season on the same point as everyone else, actually won a game early and then RDM blew it with all the dropped points from late goals which there and then killed off our top 6 hopes imo.

So SB came in with a massive handicap (we were in the bottom 3) so I've just looked as this season as a free hit.

I do understand the concerns and we must finish the season strongly now. I'd be looking for us to hit 60 points or thereabouts, barely getting 50 won't be good enough.

You wrote off the entire season after 12 games?

The club didn't or they wouldn't have gone for a quick fix promotion specialist with no experience of rebuilding a club.

[ChicagoLion]

I was typing on my phone but the context you gave was about the summer, when RDM was the manager not Bruce and yet after 10 games you were posting that RDM needed to be sacked.  So I ask again why didn't he get to use the excuse that you are now using to Bruce?

On this you're contradicting yourself almost as much as you do on the match threads where post Barnesley, Ipswich and Forest we'd created loads of chances and deserved something but when we win it doesn't matter how shit we are.

What I don't understand is why you think Bruce deserves this commitment from you.  Clampy has been very supportive of him as well but he will at least offer criticism where it's warranted without qualification, you can't say anything bad about him without having a excuse ready to go and it's just odd.

I see it as we started the season on the same point as everyone else, actually won a game early and then RDM blew it with all the dropped points from late goals which there and then killed off our top 6 hopes imo.

So SB came in with a massive handicap (we were in the bottom 3) so I've just looked as this season as a free hit.

I do understand the concerns and we must finish the season strongly now. I'd be looking for us to hit 60 points or thereabouts, barely getting 50 won't be good enough.

You wrote off the entire season after 12 games?

The club didn't or they wouldn't have gone for a quick fix promotion specialist with no experience of rebuilding a club.

Yes, that was the objective and he has failed miserably.

[Risso]

It's all just so clueless with Bruce.  Banging on about failings of 4 years ago, as if that has any bearing at all on what happens now.  It would have if Lerner were still in charge and he'd had no money to spend, but he took over an expensive squad, and has spent a fortune, and yet the football and the results are still appalling.

[Clampy]

It's all just so clueless with Bruce.  Banging on about failings of 4 years ago, as if that has any bearing at all on what happens now.  It would have if Lerner were still in charge and he'd had no money to spend, but he took over an expensive squad, and has spent a fortune, and yet the football and the results are still appalling.

Why is he not allowed to acknowledge the fact that we've been relegated? Isn't that a failing?

[passport1]

It might have been some optimistic fans objective. Given his and his staffs opinions of the quality of the playing staff they inherited it was never their objective.

[KevinGage]

How can you really say "it is no good continually switching managers", though?

Surely it depends who you are switching from, and to whom (and I say that as one who wouldn't sack Bruce)?

Indeed.

How often have Watford changed managers in the last five years. Yet it seems to have served their purposes just fine. We are still conditioned to think that any less than four years is reactionary, but the game has moved on from the 80s and 90s.  Managers like Pochettino and Koeman can go into Southampton and do enough in two years to earn bigger moves.

True, the likes of Southampton and Swansea do seem to have a clear philosophy and playing ethos, so that a change of manager/head coach isn't as disruptive as it might be elsewhere.  That doesn't apply so much to Watford. Zola, Jokanović, Sanchez Flores and Mazzari are all quite different in set up and approach.

I don't think any of that lot would have survived in their jobs even a year > two years if they had delivered just one decent performance in five months (and didn't even win that game).

Barring another disastrous sequence of results I would be for giving Bruce until the end of the season. But to continue the relationship longer than that I'd want to see us posing the sort of attacking threat that has been absent in most of his games to date. If we don't score from a set piece or a bit of individual brilliance from Kodija, we really don't seem to have too many other routes to goal. That's a clear failing on his part, with the attacking players he's had available pre and post window.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Barring another disastrous sequence of results I would be for giving Bruce until the end of the season. But to continue the relationship longer than that I'd want to see us posing the sort of attacking threat that has been absent in most of his games to date. If we don't score from a set piece or a bit of individual brilliance from Kodija, we really don't seem to have too many other routes to goal. That's a clear failing on his part, with the attacking players he's had available pre and post window.

I'd stopped a few weeks back looking at the league table but just seen that only Wigan have scored less (one goal difference) than ourselves. And to think last summer we all thought we'd be scoring for fun.

[ChicagoLion]

It might have been some optimistic fans objective. Given his and his staffs opinions of the quality of the playing staff they inherited it was never their objective.

So the Doctor got rid of RDM at considerable expense, then backed Bruce in January with more cash, to float around mid table for the season?
Yeh right.

[Risso]

It's all just so clueless with Bruce.  Banging on about failings of 4 years ago, as if that has any bearing at all on what happens now.  It would have if Lerner were still in charge and he'd had no money to spend, but he took over an expensive squad, and has spent a fortune, and yet the football and the results are still appalling.

Why is he not allowed to acknowledge the fact that we've been relegated? Isn't that a failing?

Missing the point entirely. He was talking about problems of four years ago, NOT relegation.  The problems back then were underinvestment and the forced sales of our best players, not things he's had to deal with.  The only common theme with the problems of the past is the picking of the wrong manager.

[Clampy]

It's all just so clueless with Bruce.  Banging on about failings of 4 years ago, as if that has any bearing at all on what happens now.  It would have if Lerner were still in charge and he'd had no money to spend, but he took over an expensive squad, and has spent a fortune, and yet the football and the results are still appalling.

Why is he not allowed to acknowledge the fact that we've been relegated? Isn't that a failing?

Missing the point entirely. He was talking about problems of four years ago, NOT relegation.  The problems back then were underinvestment and the forced sales of our best players, not things he's had to deal with.  The only common theme with the problems of the past is the picking of the wrong manager.

What has happened in the past has played a part for where we are now. He wasn't here. We mention it, why shouldn't he?

[simboy]

How can you really say "it is no good continually switching managers", though?

Surely it depends who you are switching from, and to whom (and I say that as one who wouldn't sack Bruce)?

Houlier, McTwat, lamberk,sherwood, garde (I have ignored the caretakers and this season) - 6th to relegated with the second lowest points tally ever in Premier league history in six seasons ...

Villa fans demanded Lamberk which gave him time.

Poor choices maybe but who else was in the frame at the time? We don't attract Pep Guardiola, Klopp or even David Moyes.

 For every "let's change the manager every week" success, look at ManUre or Arsenal  ... their success wasn't built on chopping and changing ... Ferguson of course went three seasons without winning anything at all.

That's why I say it doesn't suit us.