allani

So ****ing bored of this ****. 50 minutes playing against a team with 10 men and we manage 1 shot on target. So dull. So boring. So underwhelming. So unambitious. So risk averse. So clueless. So meh. So Bruce.

1-1. Opposition have a man sent off with 50 minutes left. "Great boys - we should be able to hold on for a draw here."

So we are playing against 10 men and have had 3 shots in the entire match (Ipswich have had almost three times as many)....

I think the club needs an upgrade or two as well...

Have to say that I think all three kits are fantastic. I think they've done a great job at combining tradition with something "fresh" which is not easy to do.

The two groups that were originally defined were related to whether we are a badly run Championship side who should have limited ambitions or a team who should be in the top tier and should expect the best of everything. In that regard I am definitely in between the two "camps". We have been run very badly for a long time and we are not entitled to anything - however, we are still a big club capable of attracting good players, a good backroom staff, etc. McGinn is a great example - up and coming player who chose us over Celtic (I think I read that his family support Celtic but might have made that up). Based on 1 performance (plus hearsay from Hibs fans) he is exactly the type of player we should have been signing. We needed reinforcements and some steel 2 years ago - but signings like Elmo, Whelan, etc are pretty underwhelming. Indeed we seem to have signed several players who don't seem to fit into any designed plan (Hogan, Taylor, Lansbury, even Bree). This isn't all Bruce's fault (the bizarre signings certainly started well before he arrived) by any stretch. However, no-one else picked the team that had 3 of 4 defenders playing out of position. I'd even say that he was probably exactly what we did need when he arrived (although he wouldn't actually have been on my short-list) and I think he has done a good job of stopping the rot. So he gets my respect and thanks for that. But getting back to the original point - Camp 1 seems to be we should accept Bruce because we are mediocre and he is the best we can get, Camp 2 seems to be that we should be able to hire a top, top manager like Newcastle did with Rafa. So I am between the two camps. I don't expect us to attract a Top 10 PL manager but by the same token I do expect us to have a coherent plan, tactics and starting formation rather than seemingly just pulling 11 names out a hat and randomly sticking them on the team sheet (which the Wigan formation looked like).

Well I wouldn't really class Fulham or Wolves as top 10 Premier League clubs so you could argue that both have already reached their Point C. No approach is guaranteed to be successful obviously - however, I would suggest that both are more likely to stay up than Cardiff. Partly through the extra money they have invested but largely because their style of football is more suited to the Premier League. Put it this way though - would I rather Villa get promoted this season and relegated next season but play like Wolves or Fulham have or get promoted this season and relegated next season and play like Cardiff. The end result is the same - but I'd personally prefer the former option. However, I still think that we are different to all three of this season's promoted teams in that if we can survive for a season or two then we should be better placed to invest and start trying to earn our way back into being a regular Top 8 club. I guess the most refreshing part of the whole hypothesis is that 4 weeks ago I thought we would be doing well to avoid being sucked into the relegation battle this season. Still need reinforcements but we can at least dream for a while! ?

I think there was a discussion a while back about how we rebuild. If we are at A and need to get to C (where C is being competitive in the Premier League) - we either adopt a plan now (as per Wolves / Fulham) that will hopefully take us the whole way with incremental changes along the way. Or we try and get from A to B and then B to C. I personally think that two transitions is riskier than one (twice as many changes). The other worry is that if you get from A to B then you need to make sure that you don't just go straight back to A. Given timescales with the takeover we didn't have enough time for the A to C approach. So I hope that Bruce can get us from A to B and that the new owners then give him a huge pat on the back and replace him - I just think he would be more likely to take us back to A than on to C (an argument supported by his career to date). So here is hoping that the team play progressive football, win loads of matches, score plenty of goals and keep a few more clean sheets despite whatever SB is up to! ?

I think actually most people will probably sit somewhere between the two. I do. We need to rebuild and that will take time. However, my problem with Bruce is twofold: Firstly, I am not convinced that he will create a team with a long-term plan. If we rebuild now with Bruce I think we will need to rebuild again (unless he suddenly changes his "usual" approach). Wolves and Fulham are examples of teams similar to us who have built a team around a plan - they've both invested heavily since being promoted but their style of football does not need to change significantly (it is not certain that either will survive but I fancy their chances better than Cardiff - who I think are closer to a Bruce style team). Even if we get promoted under Bruce I don't believe that his brand of football will see us survive in the Premier League. Having to change the style of play and bring in reinforcements and adapt to a higher standard of opposition every week is not easy. Also I don't think that you can sack a manager who wins promotion - so we would probably be making those changes mid-season whilst trying to get out of a relegation battle. I would prefer that we were trying to change vision now. I appreciate that this was almost impossible given the changes in the ownership, etc and to an extent maybe it is better that the new owners can bring in their own man and own "vision" rather than Dr T having fired the bullet in January. Secondly, I still find his team selections bizarre and his substitutions strange. Does he deserve credit for bringing in a battling spirit that helped us snatch a last gasp winner (at home against a newly promoted team) or does he deserve criticism for a shambles of a defensive performance where 3 of the 4 defenders were playing out of position? Would we have needed a last minute winner if Mile wasn't giving away the ball as the last man, or we had a fullback closing down the winger making a cross and a centre back defending the back post from that cross? Does he get credit for bringing on the player who provided the assist for the winner or criticism for taking off a striker and bringing on a midfielder with 5 minutes left (at home against a newly promoted team)? For me, we won at the weekend despite Bruce's team selection, despite his tactical approach and despite his substitutions. Yes Bruce has been hamstrung by the off-field issues this close season and if McGinn was his recommendation then he definitely deserves credit for that because he looks like a player (for now and if / when we get promoted). But he's had plenty of time and money now to build a vision and I don't quite know what it is. There were several matches last season where we just didn't turn up (particularly after we'd just snuck into the automatic promotion places) and the players didn't look like they knew what to do or what to change. Obviously you are never going to win every game but you'd like to try and win every game. We seemed to settle for hanging onto a draw too quickly. Also you say that Bruce is the best we could hope for. Is that really the case? Wolves have brought in two more progressive managers in the last two seasons, Fulham are unrecognisable with their new approach, Newcastle were in just a dire state as us and got Rafa (although I'm not his biggest fan)? Compared to most European leagues the Championship is still pretty competitive and a big team in our league would still represent a step up from the top flight of many European leagues. Obviously there was no time to do that this close season with everything else that was going on. Maybe with a couple of extra players a new style will magically appear - I am very excited about the prospect of Jack, McGinn and Hourihane ripping teams to pieces. I hope that Bruce (or whoever) is targeting the type of players who will see a change of mentality rather than just the type who will steady the boat (which is what we needed 2 seasons ago) and that he is then willing to let them rip. Forest / Leeds / etc should be worried about coming to Villa Park. A couple of additional signings and a more dynamic style of football will mean that they will. More "steady Eddie" Brucey specials won't.

People should watch the send off that Totti got when he hung up his boots at Roma last year. Honestly one of THE most moving things I have ever seen at a sports stadium - I don't think there was a single person there who didn't shed at least a few tears. You could see some of his team-mates just completely awestruck by the reaction - and you could see in their eyes that at that moment money was a long way from the front of their minds. How long that lasted is another matter. But maybe we should get someone to show the video to Jack?

John Gregory is coming back? Now that would be a step forward.

Or he has made enough money from his existing business ventures and is happy that his existing management teams there can manage his businesses with minimal intervention from him whilst he has some "fun" running a type of business that he has always wanted to run / turning around a failing business with a rich history and famous brand and making it successful again. We just don't know how much time and effort he is willing to put into the club yet.

I dunno - I wouldn't be too fussed about Grealish being part of a deal to bring in Trippier, Kane and Alli even if they did bottle it in Russia and the Premier League. Maybe Bruce can do something with their fragile self-confidence and get them to turn up to some of the bigger games?

Oh well. There is always next season.

But if he had 7-8 games and does poorly then the next manager is completely screwed - it is another 4 months before they can do anything to the squad that they will inherit, their team will be out of form and they'll be trying to introduce a new approach / system / coaching / tactics (or whatever it is they think SB has been doing wrong) with a team low in confidence and desperate for points. So we'd be pretty much writing off the first 3-4 months of the season by which time we will have no chance of being promoted and we will have little appeal to any new signings in terms of the prospect of PL football within 18 months. I think you have to be bold and either stick or twist. If you are only initially willing to gamble on 7-8 games then that suggests to me that you aren't very confident about sticking. In which case should you really be gambling any spending money on new signings on a situation that you are not confident in? Also say we do OK after 7-8 games - what then happens when / if form drops? Does he get another 7-8 games? I guess my view is that if you are genuinely unsure about something then it probably isn't right or even if it is right, it probably will not work because you are not 100% committed to it being right. If Bruce stays I hope it is because the new owners believe that he is the best bet (under the current circumstances) to succeed this season. If he goes I hope it is because they fully believe his replacement is a better (ideally the best possible) option. Of course that logic does kind of assume that you have the luxury of some time to make a decision and I appreciate that is something we don't really have!

If it takes a manager 8 or 9 months to "settle" new signings into a squad then he deserves to be sacked. Possible excuse if they have come from abroad and don't speak the language (like JPA) but for players from the same country, used to the "hustle and bustle" of the British game - you can't expect it to take the best part of a season for them to settle.

Everything in life is a gamble. The question is whether getting a new manager in is more / less of a gamble than keeping the existing manager. Keeping Bruce would probably be less of a gamble than hiring an unproven manager. But hiring Wenger would be less of a risk than keeping Bruce. Surely it is impossible to determine whether hiring a new manager is an unnecessary risk until the name of the new manager is revealed? Also if you have no confidence that the current manager is the right man to achieve your ambitions for the season then it is less of a risk to replace him now and give the new manager time to sign new players that he wants / start trying to get the team playing his style of football than it is 6, 8, 10 weeks into the season. If the new owners want to be playing Premier League football next season then it is up to them to determine (a) whether Bruce has the capability to do that and (b) whether there is someone else who they think is more likely to do so. Also (and I appreciate that this wasn't your comment) just because you buy 5 crap cars on the trot doesn't mean that you should keep your current car. Maybe you just need to get better advice on which car to buy.

Doesn't the press release say that they have already been approved by the EFL?

That was my thought and then I scrolled down the full list and there is only 1 other role with two people - HR Business Partner (Lucy Ford and Lisa Bailey) and they are not listed in alphabetical order. So it intrigued me...

Just looking at what has been happening in the states - major stadium rebuild, massive increase in season ticket sales. Looks like these guys have BIG connections who will see the bigger picture and potential to invest in a brand. Welcome to WES Villa Park, sponsored by Adidas.

Is the fact that Tony is the third name on the list significant? I think so. This is not two guys adding in some investment. This is a takeover.

Do it now!

Is he? I've put his name to friends who are fans of Swansea, West Ham, Everton (who were in big trouble at the time), Southampton, Leeds, Millwall and Sunderland and none of them wanted Bruce to even be on their short-list of potential managers. Maybe they all have unrealistic expectations but they all regarded Bruce as old school, past his best and dull. I don't see many clubs coming in for him - I think the appeal of a younger manager, imposing a new style with young players who wouldn't need replacing within 12 months is going to make Bruce a difficult appointment for another club to get the fans behind.

Yep - but trying to stay under the radar!

Good to hear!