Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[brian green]

I don't think the identification of Bruce as a nice bloke gives him a free pass out of the chaos at Villa Park.

Was Steve Bruce an innocent bystander while the financial disaster roared to its climax over the last two seasons?

Innocent?  Yes.

A bystander?  No.

Bruce was Wyness's man.  Wyness backed Bruce to the hilt.  Bruce and Wyness are close friends.  It is inconceivable that Bruce was unaware of the magnitude (to say nothing of the propriety or wisdom) of what was happening off the playing pitch at the club.

If I had a good friend who had supported me and helped me in business and in my professional career I would do everything in my power to restrain his risks.

If we had shown a fraction of the caution in the board room that we showed on the pitch we would not be staring into the crater today.  In my opinion.

[GarTomas]

I don’t buy the stability argument.

The signings Bruce has made over the last 18 months have contributed to where we are now.  The stability in the squad given by the likes of Terry, Snodgrass etc. Is false as we can’t afford to keep them.

He suggested where the chips should go when he bet the house on promotion this year. He may not have counted all the chips on the way but his remit under that approach was promotion which he failed.

We’re not as well prepared for next year as the youngsters haven’t been given a chance this year.  I don’t see Bruce as the man to be given the chance to do that this year.

The club is still a massive draw for potential candidates,and if Bruce is earning 3mn a year cutting that down to 1mn would still ensure we could get a credible appointment in.

[Brend'Watkins]

With the constraints we’re going to be under next season I can’t see Bruce being able to maintain any sort of decent form. We’ll just be worse to watch than we were this season with worse results. I can’t look forward to that. If Dean Smith was at the helm I’d actuall look forward to next season.

[Ads]

We're going to be about as appealing a prospect as getting locked in a gimp dungeon with Katie Hopkins, a megaphone and regular deliveries of the Daily Mail, for a year. No decent manager worth his salt will take us on. We could attract and up and comer from the lower leagues certainly, but that's a huge huge gamble given what state our squad is in.

I honestly think our remit next term should be survival. Keep Bruce and we'll be mid ground, pretty safe. But if we go and take a punt on a younger boss, making a step up, they could get chewed up and spat out, and we could find ourselves in even murkier waters.

Of course, this is true. Equally we could find a gem and push on for the next five years.

People keep talking about Eddie Howe - if Bournemouth hadn't taken a punt on him, where would they be?

Burnley did take a punt on him.

Its the expectation that next time we will get it right when we spin the chamber.

We've probably got our best manager since O'Neill. Bruce is pretty average so that tells you a lot about the decisions a series of CEOs and chairmen have made since August 2010.

We might get a gem, but for every success in football, there's 10 you'd rather forget.

[mattjpa]

I think alot of the Bruce backers (myself included) have been so scarred by the lurching between managers, playing styles, recruitment policies of experienced/youngandhungry/unknown foreign players/proven championship players etc in the last 8 years that the prospect of rolling the dice again (considering nothing so far has worked) is frankly, terrifying.
it was 3/4 of a season, yes some of the football was crap but some was scintillating and for the first time in 8 years i did not dread the weekend football. I liked the manager, i liked the entire team and for once they actually gave a shit.
It didnt quite come off but it was so close - maybe a bad couple of refereeing decisions made the difference. Bruce is a safe pair of hands whilst Rome burns. So far Dr Tony has turned everything he has touched to shit - does anyone actually trust him to get it right?

For those that want Bruce out in the hope we are going to unearth the next David Wagner or Eddie Howe...be careful what you wish for.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

What stability has Bruce provided?
The events of the last 2 weeks demonstrates how fragile his form of stability has been.
In league with Wyness, Bruce is as culpable for our current predicament as the inept Xia.in aiming for the so-called promised land of the premier league, Xia trusted Wyness and Bruce (it strikes me that Xia knows little about English football and particularly the championship).
Bearing in mind how quickly Xia got rid of RDM, Bruce survived many hiccups because of Wyness and the so-called expertise of both men, in regards to football matters and getting promotion. Xia naively followed their path and the consequences are there for all to see.
For me Bruce needs to accept his responsibility for failure and walk away without expecting a penny more from the club, that is if he really is as "nice" a man as he is portrayed.

[paul_e]

I can see both sides of Supertom's and OMVF's posts. My reason's for keeping him at the moment are in line with what Supertom has said but I totally get why people want us to start afresh with a new young progressive manager and rebuild. That sounds tempting, it makes sense and probably what should happen but the mess and uncertainty off the pitch says to me it's just not the right time.

2 years ago it wasn't the right time because we could still go straight back up. Last summer wasn't the right time because we absolutely needed promotion, this summer isn't the right time because fucking up the last 2 times means we're a mess. This excuse will never run out, there's always a reason why the pragmatic option is appealing but how far backwards do we need to go before people realise that repeating the same mistakes because it seems like the wise course of action is why we're so fucked.

At some point we're going to have to bite the bullet and make the changes that we can all see need to come, putting them off isn't helping us get a better platform, it's just making the job more difficult. Everything that's happened this summer so far is the extreme end of what I was worried about when we appointed Bruce, by being so focused on the short-term you make everything a binary success or failure scenario and there are very few silver linings. I said months ago that if we didn't get up the squad would be decimated and we'd be into another summer of transition and that's where we are.

Bruce has to go if only to break the cycle, yes replacing him is a risk but is it as a big a risk as the one he took when betting everything on promotion?

[JUAN PABLO]

, have been fun to watch.

really?

[Drummond]

The way things are going it won't bloody matter who's in the dugout next season.

[Allan C]

I would be very sad if he did.

This is the first manager for years who has got the team spirit back and whose matches, a lot anyway, have been fun to watch.
The most recent history showed us a man who, wracked with personal grief, nevertheless led the team to playoffs and the final.

Speaking of which, the players had more than half the bloody game to overcome a 1-goal lead; they could and should have done that, they had the capacity, skills and the leadership.  I’m still very angry with them. The failure of Aston Villa to achieve PL status ultimately does not rest solely with Steve Bruce.

I would criticise and have been pissed off about dodgy runs after overwhelming wins, but I come back to the players, who have to take responsibility as well. This was a good season following a ‘rescue’ one.  He has brought the heart back to the club.

When Bruce arrived he took over a complete basket case of a club following Lambert (lots of fun), and Sherwood, DiMatteo and Garde all within the following 20 months.  Before that...suffice it to say, Villa fans hadn’t been smiling since about 2009 ( based on finishing 6th again).

The club management and ownership when he started was untried. They’ve done better than immediately before them. Or so we believed, until revelations after the bloody final. But that’s not Steve Bruce’s fault.

I will understand if he feels he wants to move on after missing the promotion but I would prefer him to stay and for the club and the team to get the best from his experience to have another go.

That does rather depend on there being some resources to draw on, but he’s been in less er flamboyant clubs in this situation in the past and succeeded. Perhaps this is a 3 season project.

I depends how you define fun. I was happy when we won games but I didn’t think they were fun to watch. You only have to look at the post match threads and this thread to see that for not much difference in actual performance from winning and losing, the “”fun” and “happy” went to “bruceball” and “dinosaur”. You also have to take into account the quality of the opposition which in the vast majority of teams was extremely poor. As for stability, just look at us now. If there’s a least stable club anywhere in this country I’d be surprised. A total fresh start is needed and now is the time to bring in a forward thinking manager to work with the young players so we can play our way out of this awful league. Bruce is not that man and he has to go

[SheffieldVillain]

We're going to be about as appealing a prospect as getting locked in a gimp dungeon with Katie Hopkins, a megaphone and regular deliveries of the Daily Mail, for a year. No decent manager worth his salt will take us on. We could attract and up and comer from the lower leagues certainly, but that's a huge huge gamble given what state our squad is in.

I honestly think our remit next term should be survival. Keep Bruce and we'll be mid ground, pretty safe. But if we go and take a punt on a younger boss, making a step up, they could get chewed up and spat out, and we could find ourselves in even murkier waters.

Of course, this is true. Equally we could find a gem and push on for the next five years.

People keep talking about Eddie Howe - if Bournemouth hadn't taken a punt on him, where would they be?

Burnley did take a punt on him.

Its the expectation that next time we will get it right when we spin the chamber.

We've probably got our best manager since O'Neill. Bruce is pretty average so that tells you a lot about the decisions a series of CEOs and chairmen have made since August 2010.

We might get a gem, but for every success in football, there's 10 you'd rather forget.

Absolutely see where you're coming from. But if we don't try, there's a 0% chance of getting one.

The other thing for me is if you were to draw up a job spec for what will be required next season:
- Team-spirit - Bruce ticks the box on this one
- Coaching and tactical ability to get the best out of what we've got - Absolutely no way would you put Bruce in this category
- Track record of working with and bringing through young players - Nope.
- As small a wage as possible - Nope. One of the highest paid managers in the league.

So I fail to see how he fits the bill for what we need next season anyway. or how he's not just as much of a gamble as any new manager.

[postal]

The way things are going it won't bloody matter who's in the dugout next season.

Sherwood?

[AsTallAsLions]

Hate to say I'm at the point where I couldn't care less whether he stays or goes. As many have said, if he stays we're probably aiming for mid-table safety next season at best. Hard to be enthusiastic about that one way or the other. But by the same token, if he walks then we'll struggle to find someone who can guarantee us even that, and it's frightening how fast we've gone from Play-off finalists to this.

That's money for you. Football. Ridiculous, isn't it?

[Drummond]

The way things are going it won't bloody matter who's in the dugout next season.

Sherwood?

It doesn't matter. Whoever it is won't be good enough.

[Villa Lew]

If Bruce does leave, then Dean Smith should be the no 1 candidate. Brentford had an average attendance of 10k last season, only Burton had lower in the league, to take them to 9th in the table, was a superb achievement.

Despite the financial mess we are in, I believe he would take the job if offered, as he is used to working with very tight budgets, Brentford spent virtually nothing on transfers last season.