Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[olaftab]

Sexual Ealing and Monty have you two been at it all night?😘

[olaftab]

Excellent posts above specially Brian and Axl Rose. This is getting painful behind belief.

[The_ads]

All correct except he didn't buy Ross McCormack

Can't sleep.  So angry about what has happened to us.

Stand back from the wreckage of the club.  See the big picture.  We appointed Steve Bruce as our manager.  Yes, that Steve Bruce.  The one we used to laugh at.   He has spent his time (time that he had forgotten how to measure) buying a playerwho refuses to climb a four foot gate to come into training, a player who bangs his head on the goalpost before a game, moved heaven and earth to force back into the team two feckless wasters who were at the very heart of the poisonous dressing room that destroyed every vestige of team spirit and used a precious summer when we teetered on the brink of permanent second class status, showboating the signing of John Terry.  Yes, that John Terry.  The one we used to laugh at.

Stand back and take in all that and all the other elementary blunders.  Ask yourself, are you in the least bit surprised that we get humiliated by a Neil Warnock side?

The other horror that is floating to the surface of the black lagoon is the lack of actual beneficial input by the owner.  He is beginning to look every bit as naive and immature as Lerner.  There is not a shred of evidence that anybody at Villa Park has the first clue about running a successful football club and worse still actually caring.

[Richard]

Nor Elphick but agree with the sentiments totally.

[XXVilla]

All correct except he didn't buy Ross McCormack

Can't sleep.  So angry about what has happened to us.

Stand back from the wreckage of the club.  See the big picture.  We appointed Steve Bruce as our manager.  Yes, that Steve Bruce.  The one we used to laugh at.   He has spent his time (time that he had forgotten how to measure) buying a playerwho refuses to climb a four foot gate to come into training, a player who bangs his head on the goalpost before a game, moved heaven and earth to force back into the team two feckless wasters who were at the very heart of the poisonous dressing room that destroyed every vestige of team spirit and used a precious summer when we teetered on the brink of permanent second class status, showboating the signing of John Terry.  Yes, that John Terry.  The one we used to laugh at.

Stand back and take in all that and all the other elementary blunders.  Ask yourself, are you in the least bit surprised that we get humiliated by a Neil Warnock side?

The other horror that is floating to the surface of the black lagoon is the lack of actual beneficial input by the owner.  He is beginning to look every bit as naive and immature as Lerner.  There is not a shred of evidence that anybody at Villa Park has the first clue about running a successful football club and worse still actually caring.

Nor Elphick

[The_ads]

The whole thing is an utter shit storm

[clash city rocker]

The only way out of this mess is another managerial change and we aren't very good at those. If fact we are piss poor.With this FFP hindering us now we desperately need to look at how we are going to plan for the future going forward.However that won't happen as we make another panic decision and continue our race to the bottom.

[brian green]

Sorry about MCormack and Elphick.  My defence is that all of the eight post MON managers merge in my pre dementia brain into one lump of abject failure.  Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, Black, RDM and Bruce.  That's HMLSGBRB.  Probably an Icelandic word for seal shit.

[ROBBO]

I would have sacked Bruce the moment he bought Gabby back in, how many goals in how many years and yet the idiot thinks Gabby is the answer. Is Bruce on a rolling contract? if he is there is no impediment to him being replaced.

[andyh]

There should be absolutely no surprises that we are in this situation.

The team were eye bleedingly painful, boring and tedious to watch for pretty much all of last season.
We said many times, we have not had a SINGLE game where we have looked dominant and assured and even pleasing to watch. We had a few minutes here and there and we even had a couple of good 45 minutes, but never a full game.

The run in last season was painful. As painful as the slow decent into this division the previous year.

The writing was on the wall. This is the way Steve Bruce's teams play football.
There is no alternative. He has no alternative.

To suggest that by giving him 10 games to see if he can turn this round is like expecting him to have some kind of miraculous transformation, where the scales drop from his eyes and he suddenly realises that the modern game needs a different approach to what he has always delivered.

The writing was on the wall in pre season, where we laboured against low standard opposition in exactly the same way we did for most of last season.

But of course, pre season is just about fitness, so it didn't really matter at alarm bells were starting to tinkle in the distance, did it?

The writing was on the wall last week in the season opener. 1-1 at home, and he takes off one of the most prolific strikers in this division, and replaces him with a midfielder. Not another striker so that we can on to try and win the game, but seemingly to hold what we had.

And then incredulously, with 4 minutes of stoppage time to play, he decides to revert to 1970's pub football by 'throwing on the big centre half up front ' and lumping the ball up to him in the desperate hope of a knock down.

The cup game in midweek saw us squeak past 4th division opponents. The football we played in the second half was nothing short of embarrassing.

But of course, the weather was bad, and it 'was a leveller'. Yes, it levelled us down to 4th division quality football (but we weren't even that good!).

And yesterday was just a fecking disgrace, no two ways about it.

The writing has been on the wall for months.
He ain't changing. His 'style' and approach ain't changing.

Unless someone at the club has the balls to pull the trigger on this footballing dinosaur very,very soon we should resign ourselves to being bored to tears every week, and probably remaining in this division for at least another year.

I just hope and pray the writing is on the wall for Mr.Bruce.

[Steve67]

I know it was on the telly but 31k for the first game of the season, when we have several new players on show, I think was down to the realisation that we face more of the same turgid shit. After all, how many of those players are bums in seats signings?

The cup game? We were really fortunate thanks to a long sighted linesman, an own goal and Steer' s penalty save. The second half, yes maybe because of the changes, was diabolical.  Xia has to grow a ruthless streak right now. Waiting ten games will just give us less time to catch the play off places.

[Dante Lavelli]

The cash we waste is not just to a financial detriment to the club but it's made us lazy too.

We stopped bringing talent through. We show no sign of improving players on the training field.

For too long it's been trying to solve problems by throwing more and more money at them with unfortunately poor managers at the helm. It's one thing giving your top managers cash to throw around but another game when you are letting the likes of Lambert, Sherwood, Di Matteo and Bruce conduct the splurge.

We have become lazy, complacent and overly arrogant of our own abilities in a division full of hard workers who are striving to make the step up.

I'll add to that by suggesting that we have also neglected the scouting network Round was tasked with building (due to the laziness stated above).  Signing players aged 30+ has it's advantages but it does not generate cash through player sales which means it is only a matter of time before FFP kicks in.

[mr underhill]

Dr T is facing his toughest decision yet in respect of our club.

[chrisw1]

I always thought one way or another Bruce would sort us out and get us promoted.  With his experience & Xia's cash I thought it would be pretty nailed on.

Last season our lack of progress and any sort of cohesive game plan started to give me doubts, but I thought after a full summer and a few additions it would start to click, maybe not pretty but effective.

But it was our obvious lack of progress in preseason that really set alarm bells and changed my thinking.  Pretty much all our old failings were still there and still no obvious game plan or signs of turning this round despite a few more signings.  It was only preseason so maybe not time to panic, but the fact nothing had changed was obvious for all to see.

I still think our squad is ok and it could possibly be turned round.  But two games in it is hard to see this.

I still have mixed feelings about sacking him right now.  I can't see any way we would get a decent manager to jump ship two games into the season and the likes of Moyes have lost their appeal.  I think Allardyce would get more out the squad than Bruce has but I just couldn't face seeing him as Villa manager.  It's easy to say go and hunt out the next Wagner, but for every success like him there must be doezens of failures - look at Garde & Solskear etc. 

We're in a difficult position with no easy answers.  I don't think there's any prospect of us sacking him until we're several games further into the season.  But I'm interested to hear who people think we could realistically attract right now in our current position?

[Malandro]

This is Mick McCarthy talking about his last game

"“Hecky (Paul Heckingbottom) got his tactics right against us,” said McCarthy. “We played 3-5-2, having done really well with that in our two previous games, but if I’d have been up against us today I’d have gone 4-3-3 against it. He did and they had the better of the first half. We were lucky to get away with it. They were doubling up on our wing-backs and having a field day.

“Bart (keeper Bartosz Bialkowski) has kept us in the game, certainly with the save just before half-time when he (George Moncur) was one-on-one. He should score, but we’ve got the wizard in the nets. He’s unbelievable. I say wizard, he’s more like an octopus at times!

“That’s just the norm from him, We may have got relegated without him last year. He was just outstanding.”

There was a tactical reshuffle at the break as McGoldrick and Waghorn replaced Myles Kenlock and Tristan Nydam.

“I was tempted to change it beforehand, but I wanted to see the half out and thankfully we did,” said the Blues boss. “I was always going to go 4-4-2 at half-time.

“The subs deserve credit. They’ve sat on the bench and watched it thinking they should be playing. Didzy (McGoldrick) was desperate to play. Their response was brilliant. I’ve just said to them that you don’t win games without having a squad and players who can come on and make a difference. That’s nice"

I was scared when we were linked with Mick, but how many people on here thinks that Bruce can react to the opposition like that?