Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Ad@m]

He does need to shut the fuck up about the criticism. It’s part and parcel of being at a big club, season 2 in the Championship with high expectations about getting promoted. That’s why he won’t last long term.

Absolutely. If he doesn't think the expectation is realistic he can always resign and go back to a club where the expectation, playing budget and managers wage is far lower.

It's ironic how much he bangs on about the players having to deal with the pressure and expectation that comes with playing for the Villa and silly comments about the fans point to the manager struggling with the same expectation and pressure.

[robbo1874]

Hopefully he’ll be gurning away in May - maybe someone will buy him a celebratory kebab

[robbo1874]

Bruce I mean, not gabby

[Drummond]

I saw a quote from Warnock at the weekend about teams losing five in a row, then winning 4 or 5 and that's the way the Championship is.

Is that just the way this division works? Should we and any other team's fans expect more? (it's a rhetorical question, I know being Aston Villa we should expect the best every time).

If only we'd had a better run earlier in December, we'd be top two now.

[Toronto Villa]

Wolves don’t seem to be losing any in a row. Newcastle had a couple of blips mainly early on last season and the previous time they were in the league they walked it. So it doesn’t have to be that way.

[Clampy]

Wolves don’t seem to be losing any in a row. Newcastle had a couple of blips mainly early on last season and the previous time they were in the league they walked it. So it doesn’t have to be that way.

What about the other teams? All the others chasing second place have roughly had a similar sort of season up to now.

[Toronto Villa]

Wolves don’t seem to be losing any in a row. Newcastle had a couple of blips mainly early on last season and the previous time they were in the league they walked it. So it doesn’t have to be that way.

What about the other teams? All the others chasing second place have roughly had a similar sort of season up to now.

That’s why I said it doesn’t have to be that way. I didn’t disagree with the original assertion that the league is a little like that.

[Ads]

I saw a quote from Warnock at the weekend about teams losing five in a row, then winning 4 or 5 and that's the way the Championship is.

Is that just the way this division works? Should we and any other team's fans expect more? (it's a rhetorical question, I know being Aston Villa we should expect the best every time).

If only we'd had a better run earlier in December, we'd be top two now.

Sounds to me like bluster to keep confidence up. The arse has dropped out of their season. 4 on the spin and likely to get worse.

[Drummond]

I saw a quote from Warnock at the weekend about teams losing five in a row, then winning 4 or 5 and that's the way the Championship is.

Is that just the way this division works? Should we and any other team's fans expect more? (it's a rhetorical question, I know being Aston Villa we should expect the best every time).

If only we'd had a better run earlier in December, we'd be top two now.

Sounds to me like bluster to keep confidence up. The arse has dropped out of their season. 4 on the spin and likely to get worse.

Probably, and I really haven't the time to examine every team's performance but over the years there won't have been many teams that have walked the league without tricky spells. We undoubtedly have too many though.

It would be nice to think that Agnew has made that difference already and if it was Bruce's call to bring him in, it could be the best decision he's made.

[paul_e]

I think, in general, the teams that get the automatic promotion spots don't do that and it's avoiding those spells that sets them apart.  Newcastle and Brighton last year never went more than 3 without a win and only did that twice.  Getting 90+ points makes it necessary to avoid really bad runs.

Also, for info, we're the only team in th etop 6 that has gone 5 without a win this season.  That is slight misleading because Leeds did have a run of 1 win in 7, but then so did we at the start of the season.  Where we've done well is getting decent runs of wins unbeaten runs but we really need to avoid another winless run between now and the summer if we want to make the top 2.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

Last season Newcastle had an 8 game winning run, Brighton had a 5 game winning run. So far our best is a 4 game winning run. We may need to get close to Newcastle's record of 8 if we're to make the top 2 and perhaps the last 2 results can be the start!

[LeeB]

It's not even the defeats, it's the crappy draws that kill us.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

Newcastle only drew 7 all last season, Brighton 9. We had already drawn 8 after 23 games!

[Toronto Villa]

It's not even the defeats, it's the crappy draws that kill us.

yep. And we've looked quite poor in a lot of games. In terms of performances overall, and the quality of football we've been way below standard. Doesn't mean we haven't played well at times because we have, but it is exactly why we are miles behind Wolves who have been much more consistent, and even when they don't played well have found ways to win or turn possible defeats into draws.

[Clampy]

We have drawn too many games and we should be better off points wise but we go into the second half of the season in a reasonable enough position for us to push on. Should be fun.