Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Clampy]

Of course Bruce is culpable, he was given the resources to get us up, he fucked up with his negative approach to the game. In the 3 play off he games we managed 1 fucking goal.
Yes the stuff off the pitch is not down to him but he is responsible for what went on the pitch and he failed.

The stuff off the pitch is partially down to him too. As the 'football expert' he was given the money to invest in areas of the squad he thought needed it on players he thought good enough. In many cases, he chose the wrong areas and the wrong players and has wasted a sack load of cash. His negative approach has also cost us the income promotion would have brought. So on the pitch, off the pitch he is culpable along with the others.

Also on the flip side, if the club knew deep down we couldn't afford for example John Terry but went ahead and got him anyway, then who's fault is that? Like I said, no-one is blameless.

For some reason You take criticism of Bruce personally.

Not at all. Like I said, no-one is blameless. Not sure which part of that you're struggling with.

well as long as you are happy.

Ah, that old chestnut when I haven't said anything of the sort.

I'll try again. No-one is blameless. Please try to understand before one of us dies.

[dorsetvillian]

The only people not to blame are the supportors,  who have given tremendous backing to the club and team both home and away over the past two years in the Championship.  The manager,  CEO,  board and Chairman all share some of the responsibility for this sorry state of affairs.

[aj2k77]

Bruce - Total failure
Wyness- Total failure
Xia - Total failure

Complete and utter failure by the 3 most important men at the club. No one more so than the other, all an utter shit fest. They all carry the can of us being in such a financial predicament.

By the time Delboy has sold off all the silverware and assets the gutting of the club that started under Randolph Fuckwit will be finished by this dangerous, high stakes delboy of a ''business man'' and we will have nothing left and start afresh with the one decent thing we've got, the support.

[Rigadon]

I think it's harsh to blame Bruce for this particular predicament.  Yes, the footballing failure to get promoted falls on him, but to put the clubs financial issues on a football manager? Not for me.  He asks for funds, the owner signs that off if he thinks he can afford it.  Most of the big salary drains are pre-Bruce anyway.

There should've been a plan B.  Maybe there is and we haven't heard it yet but it's not looking good right now.

Agree that the club's fans don't deserve this at all.  None of it.     

[Mister E]

Of course Bruce is culpable, he was given the resources to get us up, he fucked up with his negative approach to the game. In the 3 play off he games we managed 1 fucking goal.
Yes the stuff off the pitch is not down to him but he is responsible for what went on the pitch and he failed.

The stuff off the pitch is partially down to him too. As the 'football expert' he was given the money to invest in areas of the squad he thought needed it on players he thought good enough. In many cases, he chose the wrong areas and the wrong players and has wasted a sack load of cash. His negative approach has also cost us the income promotion would have brought. So on the pitch, off the pitch he is culpable along with the others.

Steve Round has to be a large part of this as well, though, as the Director of Football role.

[aj2k77]

There was no plan B. It was a lie. Where is it? They knew the exact ramifications of failure, nothing surprising has shot up that needs paying for, it was all in black and white months and months ago.

[GarTomas]

It’s a multi layered blame game.

Bruce has/had several options this season. Develop and utilise players from the academy (which he did when his hand was forced but not by default), use money available to him to sign players with a long term view (Bree + Hourihane would fall into that category) or use the funds available to him on tried and tested players (Terry, Snodgrass, Whelan, Elmo etc.)

Each approach would of given him more or less support from certain sections of the fan base,for every fan wanting younger players to be given on option at the expense of more proven and experienced players there would be another wanting an instant return to the top league. You could argue that the tried and tested route offered the best chance of an instant return but also was the most high risk in terms of risk/reward as we have seen played out.

In terms of Wyness and Round to an extent I’d expect Wyness to be more hands on in terms of input to the tried and tested method due to the natural increase in wages and strain on the clubs balance sheet. In that respect the one year deal for Terry, loan for Snodgrass and Johnstone made sense as was we aren’t promoted we aren’t anchored with the cost going forward.  Round would or should be more focused on the players being signed permanently and how they would be used by anyone other than Bruce which I see as part of his remit i.e. the continuation of how the club performs on the pitch removing the danger of it being at the style of one man who if they depart leaves a squad unbalanced in an number of ways.

What I’m still struggling with is some of th signings that don’t seem to fit anywhere or the reported wages we’ve thrown around.  Bree is a great example; I saw he is reportedly on 23k a week (this could be utter nonsense.) Given his career to date this makes no sense.  If we were in a bidding war then unless he is seen as being a certain starter surely you’d make a stand and if you lose out you lose out? When we signed him we already had Hutton who Bruce has always said is first in the team sheet. Why did we then sign Elmo and Axel on loan?

Likewise with players like Lansbury, McCormack etc why were the signed with such huge contracts? With respect to Forest and Fulham at the time surely they didn’t need to be tempted with huge contracts to sign? I can understand incentivising them wth promotion bonuses and wage rises if we did get promoted.

[onje_villa]

I can't actually believe people on here are blaming Bruce for the position we are in. There are quite clearly big positives and negatives of his stay here and you could certainly make the point that overall he has failed to get us up, you could equally point out that he's the first manager in years who has at the very least sorted the dressing room out, got the team working their socks off and at least had some sort of plan, even if the plan wouldn't be my first choice.

I'm no great fan of his football (to put it mildly) and would be OK with a new manager being brought in but at worst he's a manager who has finished 4th with a squad we could well have come 2nd with. A failure? Possibly. The main reason we're in the shit? No chance.

[old man villa fan]

I wonder how the conversation between Bruce and Xia/Wyness went at the end of last season when they started talking about transfers.

I wonder whether it went along the lines of:

 Bruce "I need another £20m to bring in X,Y & Z".
Xia "We can't afford to buy anyone".
Bruce "Unless I can bring players in, I'm off".
Wyness "Well, we could afford a couple of players on loan".
Bruce "Ok, I'll sort it".

[dicedlam]

Not blaming Bruce for the total amount, but us spunking money on right backs for one would of kept our heads above water.
Hutton, Elmo, De Laet, Bree, Tuanzebe, Micah Fucking Richards...Christ knows what we have paid out in salary's alone on that lot.

The mind boggles.

[ChicagoLion]

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Not blaming Bruce for the total amount, but us spunking money on right backs for one would of kept our heads above water.
Hutton, Elmo, De Laet, Bree, Tuanzebe, Micah Fucking Richards...Christ knows what we have paid out in salary's alone on that lot.

The mind boggles.

Some managers like being active in the transfer market.

[Brend'Watkins]

He was given a remit to get the club up. Sorting out the dressing room and making the club stable are all well and good and might help him on his way to achieving the remit. He did sort the dressing room, he got us to be stable sort of but he hasn’t achieved what he was employed to do. Got quite close but still failed.

[old man villa fan]

The problem we have had going back to MON (and probably before) is that successive managers have been allowed to buy players before selling. This leads to the manager having no interest in being involved in the selling of players (particularly if they are a previous manager's players) and we end up stock piling. Managers get off lightly in this respect. Who would be an owner paying the bills these days.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Not blaming Bruce for the total amount, but us spunking money on right backs for one would of kept our heads above water.
Hutton, Elmo, De Laet, Bree, Tuanzebe, Micah Fucking Richards...Christ knows what we have paid out in salary's alone on that lot.

The mind boggles.

A quick guestimate puts that lot at about £9m a year.

[itbrvilla]

The problem we have had going back to MON (and probably before) is that successive managers have been allowed to buy players before selling. This leads to the manager having no interest in being involved in the selling of players (particularly if they are a previous manager's players) and we end up stock piling. Managers get off lightly in this respect. Who would be an owner paying the bills these days.

Buying too much over priced shit on high wages and long contracts meaning no resale value.