Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Malandro]

How is he feeling now? 45 minutes of attacking football and all this could have been avoided.

His son answered that for him, he thinks he's done a good job.

[Toronto Villa]

If everything, literally everything hinged on us being promoted, that this house of cards would collapse if we didn’t go up, why the fuck did Bruce not just go hell for leather to win the game. It’s enough that we were shit and now have spend another year at minimum in this poxy league, but now to find that the consequence of being utterly inept was what has now transpired.

[passitsideways]

I'm not sure even Bruce knew how serious the consequences would be.

Doesn't stop his first half approach being anything but gutless, mind.

[ChicagoLion]

I'm not sure even Bruce knew how serious the consequences would be.

Doesn't stop his first half approach being anything but gutless, mind.

It would have made no difference, he only knows one way to play- negative.

[Mister E]

Perhaps Bruce knew exactly how shit or bust the Fulham game was and was so paralysed by fear of failure that he sent them out the way he did on the first half.

Personally, if I knew it was shit or bust i'd want to go down all guns blazing knowing I/we had given everything. May still have lost, or even suffered a heavier defeat, but at least I wouldn't be looking back thinking "if only".

To be honest PWS, if the hierarchy knew the serious consequences of not going up last season, then surely they should have been doing everything to go up automatically and that includes looking at Bruce’s position during those poor runs before Christmas.

The Doc is almost certainly in denial about the finances.
There'll be an interview with him in a few months time when all of this has been resolved one way or t'other, and he will still be claiming that he had the money … and still has; that he was stitched up by Wyness; that the HMRC are racist; that he should have been given more time …
It's both the 'industry' we're in and human nature.

[Jon Crofts]

How is he feeling now? 45 minutes of attacking football and all this could have been avoided.

Avoided no, delayed yes.

[Nev]

How is he feeling now? 45 minutes of attacking football and all this could have been avoided.

Avoided no, delayed yes.

Conversely, had he been gung ho and left us wide open and too far adrift at the break he would have been subject to equal criticism. I was as angry as anyone with that first half but the events of the last few days puts a different slant on it for me. I believe the manager was fully aware of the financial situation and that would only add to the pressure, in that scenario caution rather than bravado would take over, particularly with Bruce's natural pragmatic approach to football. The reaction of Terry also leads me to believe that he also knew the gravity of the situation, not just FFP but the whole future of the club.

[brian green]

If that stoppage time header by our latter day Roy of The Rovers had been put away, as it should have been, we would probably have been looking into the crater that was our football club in a year's time not now.

[Ads]

If we're in the top flight then it's avoided entirely as our income sky rockets.

[brian green]

Financial incompetence is financial incompetence regardless of the amounts involved.  You finish up in the same place.  Broke.

[FranzBiberkopf]

If we'd have gone up, we'd only be creating an even bigger (hard to believe I know) problem for us down the line.

Does anyone really think that squad would have had a cat in hell's chance of staying up without £150m+ of investment and a new manager and structure around how to spend it?

We'd have been leveraging ourselves even more than we have for the last 3 years.

[themossman]

None of this is Bruce’s fault, not one bit. Daft saying he should have played differently at Wembley if he’d known the consequences. It’s not like he didn’t try to win it the way he thought best.

It does explain why Xia was so keen on the short termist, ‘promotion specialist and stuff the football’ option.

[brian green]

You want another few seasons of Steve Bruce then?  Good luck with that.

[old man villa fan]

This mess doesn't hinge around the play-off final.  We failed in our approach to the whole season.  If finances were so critical, why was there an acceptance of getting into the play-offs being ok.  As others have said, planning out a seasons finances is not difficult.

[themossman]

You want another few seasons of Steve Bruce then?  Good luck with that.

No at all. I’m saying blaming Bruce for what has happened in the last two seasons is misguided. There is plenty of blame to go around for various things but the fact that the result vs Fulham left us this fucked is one person’s fault.