Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[paul_e]

Yes, imagine taking charge of the biggest and richest club in the division and winning some games! Unthinkable.

Look, he's really turned it round and deserves huge credit, but we have to get out of this little-old-Villa mentality while we're in this league. We effing well should be winning loads of games, and a manager with Bruce's record isn't achieving more than is reasonable to expect. He is achieving it, so well done him, but let's not act like we're some tinpot club suddenly storming to promotion. We're doing well, we could do better, we have done worse. That's it.

Under normal circumstances I would agree with you.  But he took over the most dysfunctional squad in most of our living memories and the poorest performing team since the PL was conceived.  Sunderland have shown just how easy it is to carry on that trajectory.

Yeah, we've spent quite a lot but we were going from a standing start and having to entirely rebuild the squad, not just a few tweaks here and there.

So yes, getting us from there to here has been an outstanding achievement.  But I still agree with Paul about the relevance of the stats.

No he really didn't.  He took over a squad that had just had £70-80m spent on it and had, as a full unit, played about 5 games together.  The midfield was a mess and needed work, which he did in January, but the comparison to Sunderland is massively wide of the mark.

[Monty]

Agreed, and the most impressive part of the job he's done is the building of a surprisingly competitive squad. Nevertheless, I have to say, that really was the least I expected from this season. Yes Sunderland show how bad it can get, but saying 'he did better than Sunderland' is damning with faint praise, no?

[AsTallAsLions]

Yes, imagine taking charge of the biggest and richest club in the division and winning some games! Unthinkable.

Look, he's really turned it round and deserves huge credit, but we have to get out of this little-old-Villa mentality while we're in this league. We effing well should be winning loads of games, and a manager with Bruce's record isn't achieving more than is reasonable to expect. He is achieving it, so well done him, but let's not act like we're some tinpot club suddenly storming to promotion. We're doing well, we could do better, we have done worse. That's it.

Well put. There is absolutely no excuse why Aston Villa should finish beneath Cardiff City, and if that happens this season without promotion via the Playoffs, then we've had an OK year at best. Everyone is of like mind about the minimum target for this year - chairman, manager, players, and fans alike - and anything less than promotion has to be considered failure.

I've felt all season that we don't have the mentality for a playoff dogfight. Interesting to note that the last 2 seasons, the 3rd placed team have not succeeded in the playoffs.

[Toronto Villa]

There’s a lot of fragile souls on here. It’s a natural state after the last 8 years or so. But I agree Bruce with what he’s has at his disposal, both inherited and what he’s acquired has done the very minimum expected of him at this level. Relatively speaking what Warnock has done is far more impressive.

I hope that once we gain promotion we can get back to being Aston Villa again versus the shell of a club we’ve been for too long. It’s almost 22 years since our last trophy. Collectively I hope as a club and as fans we find our balls again and bravado and not cower to anyone ever again.

[PeterWithesShin]

Regardless of how shit we were in 2015/16, being 3rd in division 2 is never an outstanding achievement for either Aston Villa or the manager.

[AsTallAsLions]

Regardless of how shit we were in 2015/16, being 3rd in division 2 is never an outstanding achievement for either Aston Villa or the manager.

Agreed!

[sirlordbaltimore]

Regardless of how shit we were in 2015/16, being 3rd in division 2 is never an outstanding achievement for either Aston Villa or the manager.

True, but it's been far more enjoyable than the last 6 seasons or so. Some folks would rather still be in the PL even if we were struggling to stay up every year, and i totally get that. Personally i'm more than happy in the EFL winning more than losing and actually having something 'realistic' to play for every season.

If we go up and are just there to tread water and stay up at all costs then i'd just rather stay here 100%.

I'm not confident one iota that we'd spend what we'd need to to be a competitive PL side should we go up. And by that i mean at least 50m.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Agreed, and the most impressive part of the job he's done is the building of a surprisingly competitive squad. Nevertheless, I have to say, that really was the least I expected from this season. Yes Sunderland show how bad it can get, but saying 'he did better than Sunderland' is damning with faint praise, no?

Sunderland didn't throw £83m at the problem. 'Outstanding acheivement'? I'd say Wagner turning Huddersfield around in a similar timeframe on a budget of £3m was an 'outstanding achievement'. Bruce has steadied the ship and is going a decent job. Nothing more until now. Let's see how he finishes the season before judging him fully.

[PeterWithesShin]

Aston Villa FC @AVFCOfficial

Congratulations to Steve Bruce who has been nominated for the @SkyBetChamp Manager of the Month award for February 👏

He's up against Neil Harris of @MillwallFC, @Jokanovic of @FulhamFC and Neil Warnock of @CardiffCityFC

[MoetVillan]

sorry for posting the stat

[Ad@m]

Aston Villa FC @AVFCOfficial

Congratulations to Steve Bruce who has been nominated for the @SkyBetChamp Manager of the Month award for February 👏

He's up against Neil Harris of @MillwallFC, @Jokanovic of @FulhamFC and Neil Warnock of @CardiffCityFC

Jokanovic is an absolute shoe in for that given the fixtures they had.  Do bookies run bets on this kind of thing?  If so, it's free money!

[john e]

Yes, imagine taking charge of the biggest and richest club in the division and winning some games! Unthinkable.

Look, he's really turned it round and deserves huge credit, but we have to get out of this little-old-Villa mentality while we're in this league. We effing well should be winning loads of games, and a manager with Bruce's record isn't achieving more than is reasonable to expect. He is achieving it, so well done him, but let's not act like we're some tinpot club suddenly storming to promotion. We're doing well, we could do better, we have done worse. That's it.

unsurprisingly I don’t disagree with any of that

[Richard E]

Aston Villa FC @AVFCOfficial

Congratulations to Steve Bruce who has been nominated for the @SkyBetChamp Manager of the Month award for February 👏

He's up against Neil Harris of @MillwallFC, @Jokanovic of @FulhamFC and Neil Warnock of @CardiffCityFC

Jokanovic is an absolute shoe in for that given the fixtures they had.  Do bookies run bets on this kind of thing?  If so, it's free money!

Hopefully Jokanovic and Colin will win it jointly, given that it generally curses the winner*


*yes, I know all about "regression to the mean", and that is not really a curse.

[cheltenhamlion]

Yes, imagine taking charge of the biggest and richest club in the division and winning some games! Unthinkable.

Look, he's really turned it round and deserves huge credit, but we have to get out of this little-old-Villa mentality while we're in this league. We effing well should be winning loads of games, and a manager with Bruce's record isn't achieving more than is reasonable to expect. He is achieving it, so well done him, but let's not act like we're some tinpot club suddenly storming to promotion. We're doing well, we could do better, we have done worse. That's it.

Under normal circumstances I would agree with you.  But he took over the most dysfunctional squad in most of our living memories and the poorest performing team since the PL was conceived.  Sunderland have shown just how easy it is to carry on that trajectory.

Yeah, we've spent quite a lot but we were going from a standing start and having to entirely rebuild the squad, not just a few tweaks here and there.

So yes, getting us from there to here has been an outstanding achievement.  But I still agree with Paul about the relevance of the stats.

Nah. A previous version of Sunderland were the worst ever and our team that dropped in 87 were crap. Remember as well, we had only lost 3 games when Bruce took over in the October. It was the drawing and late goals that did for RDM.

He is doing well at the minute and fair play to him for that. But I think the pudding is being over egged somewhat about how good a job he has done.

We have spent more on strikers in the past 18 months than most teams have on their entire squads. Also, it should be remembered he has added quite significantly to an already crippling wage bill despite just about being in the black on transfer fees.

[john e]

he's doing exactly how I thought he would do,
he's put together a team of mainly championship quality players and has got us into a position to compete for promotion

if any of the other merry-go-round British managers had got the gig ie Alardyce, Pulis, Moyes, Lambert Warnock etc with the same backing they would in my opinion be doing much the same job with similar type players playing the same sort of football

He's nothing special
but we desperately need to go up so let's hope he can get us over the line