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Author Topic: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre-Match Thread  (Read 15704 times)

Online FatSam

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #120 on: January 22, 2021, 10:13:54 PM »
He came in, spent a shit load of money that we didnt have on players that were not good enough. He had and has no idea of tactics which limited any chance of promotion. He failed miserably blamed everybody else until someone chucked a cabbage at him and then he fucked off. Good riddance.

Di Matteo spent £54m (net £30m) summer 2016.

Bruce spent £21m (net £5m) January 2017, £2m (net £-13m) summer 2017, £0m January 2018 (net £0m), £7m (net -£7m) summer 2018. A total of £30m (-£15m)

Hogan was obviously a waste of money in terms of fee and wages, but all of the others were relatively low fees. Lansbury has obviously been a waste of wages, but most of the others have served a purpose, or been off-loaded. He generally played the loan market well.

I agree that this wasn't sustainable long term, because by the time he left we had a relatively old squad apart from the loanees, had to go out and buy a whole new squad in summer 2019, and if we hadn't been promoted would have been royally fucked. However, someone (Xia?) was sanctioning these transfers, and you'd struggle argue that Hourihane, McGinn, El Ghazi, Taylor, Elmohamady and Whelan (ultimately) weren't good value.

I agree that he didn't have a clue about tactics, and that he ultimately failed. However, he was starting from such a low base, with a squad that had been conditioned to lose football matches, and he did start to change this.

I am pleased that he is no longer our manager, but I don't understand the animosity towards him.

That all ignores signing fees and loan fees which was where he was literally giving money away to gamble on short term 'success'. If he'd won the play offs and then kept us up (both things Smith managed) I'd have held my hand up and admitted he's a better manager than I thought but the facts are he failed at the first part and left himself with a near impossible task to try again because the squad he'd assembled was a fucking mess and our problems and takeover meant he couldn't throw another 7-8 players at it and see what happened.

I don’t know the details of the signing on fees and loan fees, and don’t dispute that they would have been significant - maybe they are available somewhere? I would argue though that this was the only realistic option in the circumstances. It would have been quite difficult to attract better players as permanent signings without transfer fees and wages that we couldn’t afford. Why would EPL players sign permanently for us when our prospects were so uncertain. After all, if he had arrived summer 2016 instead of October, he would have been able to spend the £60m that Di Matteo did.

The fact that you are blaming Bruce for the recruitment strategy is an admission that this was his responsibility as we didn’t have the kind of recruitment team that we do now. After all Pitarch carried the can for the summer 2019 signings (which have turned out all right anyway), not Smith.

Again, I agree that it was unsustainable, and I’m pleased he is no longer our manager. I just don’t see why he is reviled for not being a hypothetical manager who would have been better, available and willing to take the job.

Offline cdbearsfan

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #121 on: January 22, 2021, 11:12:57 PM »
I don't really have any animosity to Bruce. He said some daft things towards the end, boasting about how he had "shut some people up" when we managed a home win against mighty Rotherham, for instance. Still, in hindsight, it's pretty easy to get caught up in the moment and it would be harsh to give him too much stick for some ill-judged comments under pressure of the sack.

He helped reverse the culture of losing and, worse, losing with a shrug of the shoulders that had become the Villa Way. He stopped the club being a joke.

He ran out of ideas towards the end, but his departure suited both parties eventually. We are both in the Premier League.

I wouldn't want him back, as feel our ambitions should be far and away from what he'd be capable of achieving, but as the manager to turn around laughing stock Villa he did a decent job of setting us on our way.

Special thanks for John McGinn. Scott Hogan... not so much.

Offline olaftab

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #122 on: January 22, 2021, 11:48:25 PM »
I fear but hope not that he gets a chance post the game to repeat his "I hope it shuts a few up. But I doubt it." remarks after we beat the mighty Rotherham 2-0.

Online paul_e

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #123 on: January 23, 2021, 12:24:27 AM »
In the long run him being with us as long as he was is probably a blessing in disguise because, by failing, he opened the door for NSWE to take over but I think he's a terrible manager, it's really that simple, I don't revile him, I just find it funny how familiar all his excuses in the last couple of months are.

Offline Mellin

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #124 on: January 23, 2021, 01:47:30 AM »
Reading the Newcastle forums, they really, really dislike him.

Offline ADVILLAFAN

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #125 on: January 23, 2021, 06:16:29 AM »
Seems like whilst their attack may be available (St Maximim), they're struggling at Centre Back with injuries.

Think Fernandez, Clark and Schar all up against it.

Fancy us to win big tbh.

Offline Three Spires Villa

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #126 on: January 23, 2021, 07:32:29 AM »
I don’t dislike Bruce either, he came did his best, ultimately he couldn’t get us up. Football at times was very bad, and some poor results. His loan signings were good, his buys not so, except Conor.

3-0 Villa

Offline Scratchins

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #127 on: January 23, 2021, 07:45:14 AM »
A friend of mine has seen the video of the cabbage incident. An old chap had done his shopping at Tesco and was let in with his carrier bag. He dropped the bag and the cabbage rolled out.  It was never thrown but because of who it was and the problems he had the club did not reveal the truth. 

Offline London Villan

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #128 on: January 23, 2021, 07:50:54 AM »
Who’d have thought bruce would shop at tescos...

Offline Marlon From Bearwood

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #129 on: January 23, 2021, 09:05:36 AM »
A friend of mine has seen the video of the cabbage incident. An old chap had done his shopping at Tesco and was let in with his carrier bag. He dropped the bag and the cabbage rolled out.  It was never thrown but because of who it was and the problems he had the club did not reveal the truth. 

Not sure how true this is however I always found it strange that their were no witnesses (or no footage, in this era where everything is filmed) and no culprit was ever identified for actually throwing a cabbage.

Offline Mister E

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #130 on: January 23, 2021, 09:15:24 AM »
Never particularly like him.
Irrationally - other than having scored during the original Fergie time, played most of his football for the Plastics and then went on to manage at the Sty.

Online Sexual Ealing

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #131 on: January 23, 2021, 09:29:45 AM »
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?

There was no compulsion to appoint one of the managers 'in the running', but any of the above would've 'steadied the ship', and some of them might have tried to win games. It's almost as though steadying the ship was the easiest goal our manager was tasked with.

Offline RamboandBruno

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #132 on: January 23, 2021, 09:45:41 AM »
Bruce won loads of games when in charge of us, so not sure about that last comment. Saying that I couldn’t give much of a monkeys about Bruce now and I don’t mean that in a horrible way, there does seem to be a familiarity about his recent comments at struggling Newcastle as to when he was struggling at villa at various times.
He nearly got us up and got in some good players that season, Snoddy and Terry, but his tactics in the play off final were all wrong and ultimately reflected his conservative management style. I thought he should of gone after that. But maybe things happen for a reason, and if we had gone up the struggle would of been painful and we would never had the memories of that 10 game run or be building what we are now in the style we’re building it.

Offline Ads

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #133 on: January 23, 2021, 09:53:11 AM »
Absolutely no complacency Villa. We need early pressure and to dominate territory, but no Brighton stupidity please.

Online Dave

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Re: Aston Villa v Newcastle United Pre Match Thread
« Reply #134 on: January 23, 2021, 10:13:11 AM »
FTHPNJWBRNLESFTTFBSDFTCF

Something about Scotland?

I've worked out 3 letters so far. The first and last F obviously, and the D for Dec.

Horse Punching, No Jumper Wearing, Blaydon Racing, No Longer Everybody's Second Favourite Team, Topless Fat Bloking, Sports Direct Financed, Toon Crier.

Newcastle are just us now from 2011-12 and 13-15. Incredibly boring team to watch for a neutral who's sole ambition is to just stay up under manager not one of their fanbase actually want so considering all the hype they had in the 90s (when they were a very exciting team) that must be more soul destroying than never winning anything.

In Callum Wilson they've even got their own Darren Bent.

 


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