Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Ads]

Lets see how we respond at Forest. We ought to be beating them. They've lost a raft of games, despite winning a fair few and are generally pretty meh.

Can we build on Bristol? That's the question. If we can and do go there and pick up a good win, then I think the momentum for the final run in will be with us and given the squad we have, we would have the strongest chance of finishing 2nd out of our rivals.

For what its worth I'd say our rivals are;

Derby
Bristol
Leeds
Boro
Sheffield United
Cardiff
Fulham

I expect Bristol, Cardiff and Sheffield United to fade, but at least one or two to scrape the play offs. I wouldn't be surprised if Boro grind their way into 6th a perhaps pip Fulham who have a fair bit to do and are still very in and out. I think Derby are very similar to us, to the point where their manager is a junior Bruce as well. We have more quality, we just lacked the consistency owing to injuries over Christmas. 5 points is nothing though.

Leeds have been up and down for a few months, but their ups tend to be pretty decent.

[Ayup]

It’s now a time to drop the ‘winnable game’ stuff. Each game must be dealt with like a cup final (not the way we have played in the last two) and then focus on the following one.
You can only afford to drop points against top teams when you are beating three quarters of the division. It is hell for leather now, following some dreadful performances.

[Ads]

Each game must be treated like a semi final against say, oooh, Liverpool.

Domination awaits.

[Clampy]

I dont know where else to put this but.. I am enjoying this season. Its exciting. Its fun. I like our players again ...

Depends what game you see, Cigs. Generally, at home, we've been pretty piss-poor - with occasional shafts of light through the gloom (Naaarrrich, Brissol). It was at Derby that I realised that  - despite "having the players" - we weren't very good. And, the Villa fans knew it, as the noise level in the 2nd half dropped away completely. As OMVF said above, we do not have a high-performing team, despite the apparent quality in the squad.
And yet, as Ads and Clampy keep saying, we're accumulating points and remain in the play-off zone.

I wouldn't describe it as fun

Fair man, fair. I guess what I am saying is its nice to be thinking "oohh can we go up?" versus "will we stay up?" you know? It feels like the slide has stopped. Whether we go up or not we just feel a bit more stable you know? I dont think the football is always entertaining, sadly it isnt . But I think we have likeable players and good reasons to look forward to each game instead of dreading it.

I'm enjoying it as well. I haven't a clue how the season will finish but despite the horror show that was Saturday, I'm looking forward to Forest already.

[Hookeysmith]

I dont know where else to put this but.. I am enjoying this season. Its exciting. Its fun. I like our players again ...

Depends what game you see, Cigs. Generally, at home, we've been pretty piss-poor - with occasional shafts of light through the gloom (Naaarrrich, Brissol). It was at Derby that I realised that  - despite "having the players" - we weren't very good. And, the Villa fans knew it, as the noise level in the 2nd half dropped away completely. As OMVF said above, we do not have a high-performing team, despite the apparent quality in the squad.
And yet, as Ads and Clampy keep saying, we're accumulating points and remain in the play-off zone.

I wouldn't describe it as fun

Fair man, fair. I guess what I am saying is its nice to be thinking "oohh can we go up?" versus "will we stay up?" you know? It feels like the slide has stopped. Whether we go up or not we just feel a bit more stable you know? I dont think the football is always entertaining, sadly it isnt . But I think we have likeable players and good reasons to look forward to each game instead of dreading it.

I'm enjoying it as well. I haven't a clue how the season will finish but despite the horror show that was Saturday, I'm looking forward to Forest already.

Im looking forward to Forest and if we win convincingly then I will forgive that abomination on Saturday. Loose meekly with garbage football and then he has signed his own P45

[Drummond]

I'm mightily pissed off with most clubs' attitude to the FA Cup, including our own. I don't think it reflects on the manager as such because everyone is doing it and his remit will not have included winning the cup.

It's just not the stick to beat him with.

[ktvillan]

We have a squad that should be easily good enough for top 2.   A good manager achieves synergy, i.e. making the whole greater than the sum of the parts.  I'd say Rowett seems to be good at that, as does Dean Smith.  I'm not sure what the name is for making something less than the sum of it's parts but for me that's what Bruce has been doing since he arrived.   

[mr underhill]

I tend to agree - at times, in fact most of the time, he's a timid, craven surrender monkey.And an overweight one at that.

[chrisw1]

I dont know where else to put this but.. I am enjoying this season. Its exciting. Its fun. I like our players again ...

Depends what game you see, Cigs. Generally, at home, we've been pretty piss-poor - with occasional shafts of light through the gloom (Naaarrrich, Brissol). It was at Derby that I realised that  - despite "having the players" - we weren't very good. And, the Villa fans knew it, as the noise level in the 2nd half dropped away completely. As OMVF said above, we do not have a high-performing team, despite the apparent quality in the squad.
And yet, as Ads and Clampy keep saying, we're accumulating points and remain in the play-off zone.

I wouldn't describe it as fun

Fair man, fair. I guess what I am saying is its nice to be thinking "oohh can we go up?" versus "will we stay up?" you know? It feels like the slide has stopped. Whether we go up or not we just feel a bit more stable you know? I dont think the football is always entertaining, sadly it isnt . But I think we have likeable players and good reasons to look forward to each game instead of dreading it.

I'm enjoying it as well. I haven't a clue how the season will finish but despite the horror show that was Saturday, I'm looking forward to Forest already.

Im looking forward to Forest and if we win convincingly then I will forgive that abomination on Saturday. Loose meekly with garbage football and then he has signed his own P45

Do you think every manager who put out a weakened team for the cup should be sacked if they don't win on Saturday?  That's going to be a hell of a lot of out of work managers.

[Ads]

Its actually attitudes like that which ensures managers play weakened teams.

[pbavfckuwait]

Maybe the wrong place, but it is not even just Bruce. Bruce is doing what Bruce does, grabs results from a style of football that will never be nice on the eye, but to a certain level is effective.
Some one mentioned a style of play, again that might be the wrong way to describe what I would like to see, a Villa supporter of over 50 years and for a portion of that we were in a worse position that where we are now by a fair way, but even if the dark days we had an identity, that identity came shining through to most effect in the early 80's, but even since them Big Ron, Sir Graham, Gregory for a while, Sir Brian and alot will disagree but even for a very small period of time under Dim Tim, we had a go. I do not mention O'Neil as I always thought with what he had been given we under performed and that's what we were perceived as.
Mega money has changed everything, but when I read on here, well I would have liked to have stayed in the Cup, so we could have had a good day out at a Prem club, it boils my piss, even when we were in the 3rd, I went to a match against whoever thinking we are Aston Villa we can beat anyone on our day, as we have proved over many years.
Bruce is a result or maybe a sympton of how some have had their expectations managed, he is here, most do not like him, but he wins more than he loses, so he will do, whilst we drift ever further from an identity that we should always strife for, whatever the suits tell us, we are and always will be The Mighty Aston Villa, we may not win the league, but we should never accept a good day out whilst we have 11 players behind the ball.

[chrisw1]

Its actually attitudes like that which ensures managers play weakened teams.

It's nothing to do with attitudes like that.  It's everything to do with the vast amounts of money involved in league placings, whether that be promotion, avoiding relegation, securing a place in the Champions league etc.

As Dave W said, pretty much every single club in the top two leagues does this so the hand wringing over Villa's approach this year is just a bit much.

[paul_e]

Its actually attitudes like that which ensures managers play weakened teams.

It's nothing to do with attitudes like that.  It's everything to do with the vast amounts of money involved in league placings, whether that be promotion, avoiding relegation, securing a place in the Champions league etc.

As Dave W said, pretty much every single club in the top two leagues does this so the hand wringing over Villa's approach this year is just a bit much.

The problem is if you go from a 5-0 win over a promotion rival to a 3-1 defeat against a lower league team then people are going to be frustrated, especially when that 5-0 was the first genuinely good performance for 2-3 months.  That's why people are critical this time because it means 1 of 3 things, he didn't give a shit about the game (which some people will be fine with and will piss others off) or we're still an inconsistent mess and learned nothing from the Bristol game or the squad is far worse than we want to believe.

[Ads]

Its actually attitudes like that which ensures managers play weakened teams.

It's nothing to do with attitudes like that.  It's everything to do with the vast amounts of money involved in league placings, whether that be promotion, avoiding relegation, securing a place in the Champions league etc.

As Dave W said, pretty much every single club in the top two leagues does this so the hand wringing over Villa's approach this year is just a bit much.

I don't think you've understood what I meant.

You cannot bemoan playing a weakened side in the Cup and then say a manager is one game away from the sack in the same breath. The pressure managers are under in the top flight in particular to simply stay in the league is suffocating any sort of development. Everything is short term because at the end of the day, its the managers job and neck on the block and he will do what he can to keep himself employed.

[chrisw1]

Its actually attitudes like that which ensures managers play weakened teams.

It's nothing to do with attitudes like that.  It's everything to do with the vast amounts of money involved in league placings, whether that be promotion, avoiding relegation, securing a place in the Champions league etc.

As Dave W said, pretty much every single club in the top two leagues does this so the hand wringing over Villa's approach this year is just a bit much.

The problem is if you go from a 5-0 win over a promotion rival to a 3-1 defeat against a lower league team then people are going to be frustrated, especially when that 5-0 was the first genuinely good performance for 2-3 months.  That's why people are critical this time because it means 1 of 3 things, he didn't give a shit about the game (which some people will be fine with and will piss others off) or we're still an inconsistent mess and learned nothing from the Bristol game or the squad is far worse than we want to believe.

I completely get this Paul - it was a massively disappointing performance.  But on paper it looked a reasonably strong team (save maybe for Bree at centre back) and he had valid reasons to go with the changes.  Bruce and the team deserve criticism for the performance but the inference that he is a disgraceful manager for rotating a team for a cup game is a bit daft when everybody does it.  And lets face it we've had a very fragile squad this season and giving players a rest in a hectic season has to make sense.