Lerner's Driver

You been twitching again, Jareth?

Some shit stuck to the wall.

I agree.

Empathy on Villa Talk? Whatever next? Well said, JPA! Irrespective of his performance thus far, he doesn't deserve the swearing and abuse he gets from some.

Pardew though

I think we'll draw or win.

Firstly, I never once said everyone else was wrong, you just made that up. My main issue was with the way dissenters chose to express their concerns. As I said above, I didn't/don't have any particular affection for Bruce, I simply prefer taking a balanced view and attempting to articulate it in the same way. On balance, he's finished, so you were right all along.

With the greatest of respect, you have no idea what I saw or didn't see, all you know is that I called for time and a reasonable approach because that's all I did! Irrespective of the outcome, there was absolutely nothing wrong with that at the time and nor is there now. We can all scream I told you so in hindsight, but every manager has their positives and their negatives, every manager is a gamble and more to the point, most of them fail, especially with us. So, let's be clear, you and others have no special insight or gift in predicting future success.

I can empathise, but really, you have no need to scold yourself. All you were doing is arguing for reasonable time to be given to a manager and players who have shown they can perform at other clubs in similar situations. It wasn't even so much a passionate argument for Bruce, as it was for time. There are many intangible things which can influence success and failure and you sensibly erred on the side of wait and see, rather than diving in with your analysis. That said, given the time, he has now wasted his opportunity. Personally, I'm not so much depressed as baffled, as to why Bruce has failed to implement 'his way' on this team. Personally, I never really liked him as a manager of other clubs because his professional salt of the earth banter just comes across as hokey, but never the less, he often seemed to fashion a side capable of getting results and going on long winning runs, even if the end product was predominantly functional, rather than stylish. There was a spirit and determination to his teams' displays, which most of the time, guaranteed a performance at the very least, but that core feature, (which was really just a reflection of him as player and a man), has not been transposed at Villa. Many of us were prepared to accept his somewhat lumpen approach as a needs must, but the results have now dried up and without determination to succeed, or a system that encourages flare to create problems for the opposition, what else have you got? By his own admission, he doesn't know what to do and he has nothing left to give, so he has to go. Allardyce is a more effective Bruce, so would probably get us in the top six this year, but he is apparently retired now and again, has his limitations. I think we have decent players, they just need organising to their strengths by a manager with nous. Warnock would jump at Villa and could probably do a job,, but he's also unlikeable. We need someone with the right mix of imagination, ingenuity and steel, who can hit the ground running and wouldn't take months trying to 'understand' the Villa conundrum. Possibly someone who has been watching from afar and may even be secretly coveting the job. Is Dean Smith our next John Gregory?

The time has come. I've long argued for him to have more time on the basis that he's done it before, but the lack of any discernible pattern to our play, despite the abundant resources at his disposal, means it's time. Bruce Out.

Not yet, but the jurors are being assembled and the evidence is gradually building. Some think he has 2-3 more games and he's a dead man walking. Don't worry, there will be a general consensus before you know it.

Final ball is his eternal failing, but his assist for the goal. Well done Alan!

C'mon Villa. 2-0

Enjoy the temporary peace and rest for your eyes - there will be another essay of doom packed full of proof, before you know it...

But it seemed so certain. We'd all decided it a week ago. I'm sorry if it upset you.

Why didn't we lose? We were supposed to be incoherent, clueless and lose. Bruce out anyway. Sack him now.

Is commitment enough? No. Take the money if it's on offer.

Gotcha. Irrational then.

Why not?

It all works beautifully on my One Plus 3. Good work. Looks great!

I'm sure most people don't give a monkeys, but I don't understand the point of 'the first interview' with a new signing because they all say exactly the same thing in exactly the same 'voice' which clearly isn't theirs. Bruce, big club, back where we belong. It's not even subtle! Whatever happened to the good old days when footballers told us about their favourite colour and meant it?

Very easily inferred from the evidence available and 'proof' is King to the soothsayers.

Our fortunes have to change at some point and we have arrested the slide, so some would argue perfectly reasonably, that some progress has already been made. Whether it's enough progress is of course debatable, but progress of sorts it is. By this definition, to predict a trend of 'continuous failure' would be inaccurate. Secondly, was it not the opinion of several vociferously anti Bruce posters that citing his previous record was irrelevant? If so, perhaps the same rule should be applied to his critics. They correctly predicted failure in the past, but that is surely no basis for assuming your success again now because now is now with a whole new set of experiences and accumulated knowledge. Moral of the story: nobody can be certain so why not retain an open mind and dare I say it, even a little positivity?

Yawn. Endless. Grinding. Drudgery.

Im not sure our fans are the worst in the world because much as it may seem otherwise, we certainly have not 'suffered' as much as some clubs with our decline... yet. However, I do agree with the general thrust of your post, which to my eyes, seems to describe a potent cocktail of inherent, deep Brummie scepticism, the aforementioned perceived suffering of fans and in some cases, the over zealous modern disease of utterly ridiculous over reacting on social media. I agree with Trent's view that people are entitled to moan on here, at the match and wherever else they like, but the reason I sometimes comment sarcastically on it happening here is because I also believe there is a consequence to endlessly repeated negativity, namely that fans and players do ultimately give up because they are affected by the prevailing mood. Sure, fans can say I pay good money and the players serve up crap, but if we accept all players are limited to some degree, how exactly is a campaign of booing and highlighting their mistakes going to help? 'Screaming' that X is shite because he made ten missed passes last season, or that Bruce is an old school dinosaur, even if true, isn't going to enable either to overcome their shortcomings and this gets to the nub of it. Yes, your moan may be valid and yes, you are free to express it if you so choose, but by the same token, you could choose not to express it and look for the positives instead. In the end, like most things in life, it comes down to an attitude of mind. In my opinion, negativity breeds negativity, in the same way that positivity breeds positivity, to the point that either can become a self fulfilling prophecy and both, to some extent, are a choice we make. Some booing or sarcasm is fine, but when it's endless, it quickly becomes dull, annoying and a part of the problem, rather than a simple reaction to it.