Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre-Match Thread

[PaulWinch again]

He left us better than he found us, which was an improvement on his five immediate predecessors.

Yes very true.

[garyellis]

I did not want Steve Bruce and when we sacked him I thought it was the right thing to do.
However, if I had chance I would buy him a pint and thank him for his part in where we are now.

[dave.woodhall]

I did not want Steve Bruce and when we sacked him I thought it was the right thing to do.
However, if I had chance I would buy him a pint and thank him for his part in where we are now.

Agreed. Without the buying bit, obvs.

[FatSam]

I did not want Steve Bruce and when we sacked him I thought it was the right thing to do.
However, if I had chance I would buy him a pint and thank him for his part in where we are now.

Agreed. Without the buying bit, obvs.

Yes, he is a multi-millionaire after all.

[Damo70]

No away end could possibly be as cold as Meadow Lane in 1992. And it was a terrible game.

I seem to recall Staunton missed a penalty.

And nobody could fathom what it had been given for in the first place.

I was probably too cold to care.

[Exeter 77]

No away end could possibly be as cold as Meadow Lane in 1992. And it was a terrible game.

I seem to recall Staunton missed a penalty.

And nobody could fathom what it had been given for in the first place.

I was probably too cold to care.

Was that game when we had three players standing over a free kick and they all ran over the ball?

[dave.woodhall]

No away end could possibly be as cold as Meadow Lane in 1992. And it was a terrible game.

I seem to recall Staunton missed a penalty.

And nobody could fathom what it had been given for in the first place.

I was probably too cold to care.

Was that game when we had three players standing over a free kick and they all ran over the ball?

We did. It was wet rather than cold and I don't think we missed a penalty.

[olaftab]

Well, we stopped losing which was the main thing really. Sunderland will tell you that.

If our current set up were happy with being better than Sunderland we'd still be in the Championship.

Indeed. There is some revisionism going on here. There is no evidence now to say Bruce did better than DiMatteo would have done but I do not think we were heading for the third division under him and somehow Bruce delivered a miracle to take us to play-offs. .

[Damo70]

He left us better than he found us, which was an improvement on his five immediate predecessors.

I think MON left us with a better squad than he inherited. He took over a side that had finished 16th and took us to three top six finishes, a league cup final and a FA cup semi final.

My mistake, off the top of my head I miscounted how many predecessors we were counting despite Dave clearly
stating five.

[London Villan]

He turned us into a competent football team again. Something we hadn't been for the previous 5 years... That said, having the most expensively assembled squad ever to have graced the Championship then any competent manager could have probably done the same and delivered what Bruce did, a mid-table finish and losing play-off finalists.

[eamonn]

No away end could possibly be as cold as Meadow Lane in 1992. And it was a terrible game.

I seem to recall Staunton missed a penalty.

And nobody could fathom what it had been given for in the first place.

The ref felt sorry for us that we hadn't scored a goal in years ?

[olaftab]

This thread has gone off piste. Can we get back to discussing tactics Bruce is going to deploy tomorrow and do we have any chance of countering  his strategy?

[FatSam]

There is no evidence now to say Bruce did better than DiMatteo would have done but I do not think we were heading for the third division under him and somehow Bruce delivered a miracle to take us to play-offs.

Of course there is no evidence, it is completely hypothetical. I don’t understand why you would be willing to give Di Matteo the benefit of the doubt, but not Bruce. We won 1 of our 11 league games under Di Matteo, and went out of the League Cup to Luton. Bruce at least turned that form around, and got us competing.

[Nunkin1965]

No away end could possibly be as cold as Meadow Lane in 1992. And it was a terrible game.

I seem to recall Staunton missed a penalty.

And nobody could fathom what it had been given for in the first place.

The ref felt sorry for us that we hadn't scored a goal in years ?

Jesus I remember that game!
Certainly one of the coldest games I ever attended.

[FatSam]

The rot needed to stop first and foremost regardless of who came in.

Which a good manager would have done whilst being, well, good.

The other names in the running at the time were Pearson, McLaren, Allardyce, Wagner and Smith. With the benefit of hindsight we can say that Smith would have been the best choice, but he was a couple of years less experienced and would have been arriving into a complete shit show. I don’t know who from the rest of the list would have taken the job, but which of them do you think would have been a better appointment, or would have performed better than Bruce?