Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[mr underhill]

you can colour this anyway you like but Eddie Howe ain't going to manage Villa. Nor is the adenoidal guy at Burnley.

[pauliewalnuts]

Sorry, but it'll be good riddance from me.  He's potentially ruined us for years, and his approach to Saturday was a disgrace.  Let's see how much good will he has when we're flogging Grealish to balance the books.

Ten minutes into the match you knew Fulham were going to win. It was as if he had settled into defending a 2-goal lead from a non-existent first leg.

Absolutely spot on, couldn't have put it better myself.

After fifteen minutes the scoreboard showed they'd had 73% possession and I was amazed we had managed 27.

That set up was absolutely unforgivable, and I find it pretty frightening that Bruce, Calderwood and Clemence genuinely thought it would work.

To compound the stupidity, they then made no change during the first half and no change at half time.

I remember five or six years ago when Swansea had just been promoted we played them in the league at our place and it was embarrassing, they were like visitors from Planet Football. That was what the first half on Saturday was like. It is very worrying that several years later we have not moved on, and the only difference is we are in the championship.

The second half on Saturday was better, yes, but it was all routine, predictable stuff from a ten with no pace and which relied almost entirely on one player to create something.

Given the financial situation, I fear we are going to be here for a long while now. Lerner and his neglect did disgraceful damage to this club, and Bruce with his old school approach is unlikely to provide the spark we need to drag ourselves out of this.

My worry is that Steve Round will stay loyal to that group of archaic older British managers who go from club to club achieving nothing of note and we will just get the same again.

[Risso]

This message board today:

We're absolutely fucked

We're also going to tempt Eddie Howe to resign from premier league Bournemouth to manage here

🤔

Anybody thinking we’ve got any chance whatsoever of getting Eddie Howe is delusional.

[Richard E]

I honestly thought he'd already be gone by now.

[olaftab]

you can colour this anyway you like but Eddie Howe ain't going to manage Villa. Nor is the adenoidal guy at Burnley.

So if I coloured it pink and purple would that make any difference?

[SoccerHQ]

We played our usual game away from Villa Park.

Not saying it's right but think how many games against top 10 teams we've dominated away from home this season.

Cardiff-Rubbish
Wolves- Rubbish
Derby- Rubbish
Fulham- Rubbish.
Brentford- Rubbish
Preston- Good performance but they were missing pretty much all their defence that night and had their full strength team out at VP.
Sheffield United- Great goal to win it but we were very lucky to still be 0-0 of course.

Boro for some reason is only away ground where we seem good for a win and even then we still have to grind things out up there.

We were also going to set up to contain Fulham. It's what we did at Boro which was hailed as a professional away performance. Difference there is Pulis teams move the ball so slowly centrally, they could never score the goal Fulham did in a million years so played into our hands first.

I'd probably just say it was our normal performance in a cup final at Wembley since the 90s.

Would generally be interested how many shots on target we've had combined from the games in 2000, 2010, 2015 and Saturday. Can't be more than five.

We don't have the mentality to win finals I'm afraid. We go mad about winning semi finals thinking this is it and then turn up flat for the final. I would of course love to be proved wrong one day.

[Clampy]

I honestly thought he'd already be gone by now.

If that is what has been decided, then maybe they are waiting for the dust to settle and are planning to handle it with a bit of dignity after the year he has had.

[Des Little]

With the impending player exodus and book-balancing ahead, I honestly think the next manager appointment should be made with stability and survival in mind before even daring to look any further. Do not underestimate the damage that afinal defeat like this can have on a club - just look at the likes of Leeds about a decade ago. What we need is a very safe pair of hands, and most importantly, a plan for the next 5 years.

[The_ads]

With the impending player exodus and book-balancing ahead, I honestly think the next manager appointment should be made with stability and survival in mind before even daring to look any further. Do not underestimate the damage that afinal defeat like this can have on a club - just look at the likes of Leeds about a decade ago. What we need is a very safe pair of hands, and most importantly, a plan for the next 5 years.

You’d have thought Wyness and co would have pre planned all that in the eventuality we weren’t promoted

[Mister E]

We played our usual game away from Villa Park.
...

We don't have the mentality to win finals I'm afraid. We go mad about winning semi finals thinking this is it and then turn up flat for the final. I would of course love to be proved wrong one day.

I don't think Saturday was about winning or not winning finals, in the way you position it. It was to your other point: we have not been very good at setting up against teams away from VP, and you listed the examples.
If we'd been tactically more canny through the season we could have won that final … but, we probably wouldn't have needed the play-off to win promotion.

Leaving aside the poor start to the season, where we lost the chance for promotion was in the post-Wolves-win period when - instead of pushing on and dominating opponents - Bruce set up to contain mediocre opposition. Jeeezus: the games at Bolton and Norwich particularly were absolutely dire!

The manager let us down, and the club strategy has put any prospect of short-medium success very firmly at risk.

[olaftab]

There had been some talk on here of a curse of the final. It’s as if Villa is afflicted with this not having won a final since 1996. This is of course total rubbish along with normal superstitions etc. Yes we have not won a final since 96 but it’s not a club and colours thing it’s how, many different sets of players and coaches, played on the day and if you examine the defeats closely it’s always been a different reason in each case. So let’s not chain link our defeats and compound our misery. When we turn up at Wembley with a winning mentality we will win.

[Clampy]

With the impending player exodus and book-balancing ahead, I honestly think the next manager appointment should be made with stability and survival in mind before even daring to look any further. Do not underestimate the damage that afinal defeat like this can have on a club - just look at the likes of Leeds about a decade ago. What we need is a very safe pair of hands, and most importantly, a plan for the next 5 years.

You’d have thought Wyness and co would have pre planned all that in the eventuality we weren’t promoted

I'm sure they have sat down and discussed different scenario's. They'd have been stupid not to.

[VillaAlways]

With the impending player exodus and book-balancing ahead, I honestly think the next manager appointment should be made with stability and survival in mind before even daring to look any further. Do not underestimate the damage that afinal defeat like this can have on a club - just look at the likes of Leeds about a decade ago. What we need is a very safe pair of hands, and most importantly, a plan for the next 5 years.

We practically mirror Leeds thus far following their relegation from the Premier. They were relegated to League 1 the season after losing in the play off final.

[mr underhill]

look I'm as miserable as the next at times but there's no way we are going to get relegated.

[Matt Collins]

This message board today:

We're absolutely fucked

We're also going to tempt Eddie Howe to resign from premier league Bournemouth to manage here

🤔

Anybody thinking we’ve got any chance whatsoever of getting Eddie Howe is delusional.

Last summer people were suggesting Thomas Tuchel