Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[RussellC]

Think it takes longer these days after the Stephen Ireland shenanigans.

Hahaha!

[Allan C]

Brue's crimes are more against football than footballers. Overall he's done a very good job bringing together a great group of players and keeping them pretty much all, focused.

His problem is he hasn't got a fucking clue what to do with them.

100% nail on head.  More players is his only method.

Depressingly true.
Bruce was ok when most teams played hoofball in the Championship.No longer the case and no longer is he suitable for a manager's role.

100% this. His time is past

[old man villa fan]

We talk about Bruce not bringing in the necessary defenders this year but you also have to look back to the start of last season when he didn't fill the glaring gap caused by the injury to Kodjia. You could say that this was partly the reason why we failed to achieve automatic promotion.

[PeterWithesShin]

In some fairness to spudface Kod was due back, and was back playing, by mid September. It's hard to blame him for Kod getting crocked against sha and then totally fecked away on international duty.

[mr underhill]

I think we actually brought him back too early

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Still here is he? Very disappointed! Bruce out he’s had enough chances. More than he’s deserved.

He's the Harry Houdini of football management. Every time you think he can't survive he escapes.

Right now all I can see is a Steve Bell cartoon of our new CEO walking up with a P45 in his hand whilst Bruce is nervously hiding behind a Superhero vested John Terry.

[tomd2103]

In some fairness to spudface Kod was due back, and was back playing, by mid September. It's hard to blame him for Kod getting crocked against sha and then totally fecked away on international duty.

It goes further back than that though PWS.  Signing Hogan in the January before that for a hefty fee when he is totally unsuited to the way the team play was a poor bit of business.   It meant we were heavily reliant on Kodjia coming back when we should have been OK after the amount of money he had spent. 

[Chris Smith]

I think the Hogan thing is a myth. He had a decent short spell when he scored a few in successive game and looked suited enough to the way we played then. He didn’t sustain it though and we had to bring in Grabban.

[eamonn]

In which case whose fault was it he didn't show this form before or afterwards?

[Chris Smith]

In which case whose fault was it he didn't show this form before or afterwards?

Scott Hogan’s.

He’s had numerous chances but only fleetingly shown that he is up to it. As with managers, some players don’t handle the step up to the challenge of working at a club where the weight of expectation is much bigger than they are used to.

[brian green]

If Hogan were a racehorse it would be said that he did not "train on".  He reached a level of performance he could not sustain.

[paul_e]

I think that's over-simplifying it. The first thing we should do is look at what we were doing when he had his better spell and see if we can find anything that might help. That's a fairly basic bit of being an effective manager and it's something Bruce and been unwilling to do with a number of players, it's a core part of why so few players improve under him.

For me the difference was that we were moving the ball through midfield and attack at pace but without just lumping it forward. It meant he was faced by a defence that weren't all in position and he could find gaps and get chances.  Most of this was down to Grealish coming back into the side and picking the ball up in the final third with both Adomah and Snoddy moving off the ball and giving him angles to find passes. After that Blues Kicked Grealish until he missed a few games and by the time he came back Grabban had replaced Hogan in the team.


None of this is to say that Hogan doesn't need to look at himself but it's just pointing out that he played well during the only, in my opinion, sustained run of decent performances we've seen under Bruce.

[PeterWithesShin]

Of his 6 league goals last season 3 were from crosses, 1 a corner, 1 was a good team goal and the other was him closing down the keeper.

[john e]

In which case whose fault was it he didn't show this form before or afterwards?

Scott Hogan’s.

He’s had numerous chances but only fleetingly shown that he is up to it. As with managers, some players don’t handle the step up to the challenge of working at a club where the weight of expectation is much bigger than they are used to.

it’s not Hogans fault if he’s not good enough

[Rudy Can't Fail]

It's worth noting that all of Hogan's goals were scored inside the 6 yard box. Abraham is a very similar type of poacher. If we don't know how to service Hogan what chance does Abraham stand?