Villa Park Redevelopment

[Gareth]

I don't care what anybody says, Bruce did stabilise us.

Yes, only as a Playoff-chasing Championship team, but that's better than what went before!

As others have said, we were in freefall.

Nobody knew how well Deano would do. Nobody knew that within a decade we'd be winning a major trophy and qualifying for the Champions League.

But a modicum of respect is owed, because another appointment like Lambert, Garde, Di Matteo and we wouldn't be where we are now.

Bruce didn’t stabilize us at
We spent more money than anyone has ever done in the championship and he turned us into the archetypal championship team

Absolutely shocking Football shocking manager where did we finish 13th or something and you call that stabilization I call it the most abysmal time to be a Villa fan watching that shit every week
Don’t think I enjoyed one second of his tenure because I knew where it was going and where it was ending in total and abject failure

I don’t think I’ve ever been more depressed as a Villa fan than when Bruce was in charge because in my mind there was never any hope while he was there

Stabilized us my arse

I’m there too…bloke is the absolute ‘nice but dim’ character….had the most resources in that league but always behaved like the underdog as that is his level and always was his level

[walsall villain]

Bruce’s time with us was summed up for me in the opening game at home against Hull (2017?). Game was level at 1-1 and he brought on Samba to play up front. He has all summer and a pre-season to come up with that tactical brainwave.

[Max Villan]

People forget how badly prepared our squad was that season - Chester had to ruin his career to get us through. Its only thanks to Smith we are where we are, Bruce would have finished us lower midtable.

[PeterWithesShin]

There is no chance we'd have gone up without Ty and Hause coming in. We were reduced to playing Bree and Jedi at times as spud face had fucked the squad up so badly. Choosing to go through a grueling championship season with your only CBs being Chester and Tuanzebe is abysmal mismanagement.

[cdbearsfan]

Yep, he fucked up in his last season, which is the case for pretty much every Villa manager, even the beloved and successful ones.

[algy]

Bruce stopped the rot following the Di Matteo disaster, brought in important players like Hourihane, Terry, Johnstone, Whelan, Elmo and of course McGinn. After the play off defeat, he lost the plot completely and was rightly replaced, but he gets a pass from me. A chancer? No.

Yeah, my view is that Steve Bruce was the manager we needed right then. Willing to give him a pass on the playoffs, what with the stuff with his dad and that. Must’ve been tough.

IMO he’s a good guy, turned a juggernaut around in terms of our direction of travel, and there’s plenty of managers worse than him in my time watching the Villa (in rough order of how good I think they were: Emery, Graham Taylor v1, BFR, Little, Deano, MON, Gregory, Graham Taylor v2, Houllier, Brucey, DOL,  Lambert, McLeish, Gerrard, Dr Jo, Tactics Tim, Garde, Di Matteo)

[Chris Harte]

What got me with Bruce was we'd won something like two or three games in ten, baring in mind we wanted to get out of that league at the top end, and he's response is "everyone's panicing, we were bobbing along nicely."

Hmm... really?