Stuartc445

54 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

Do those figures only take into account transfer fees? Because if they do, that’s missing a huge chunk of money that he had at his disposal, that went on wages (and potentially loan fees) for Johnstone, Snodgrass, Terry, Tuanzebe, Bolasie, Onomah, Grabban, El Ghazi, Abraham & Moreira.

You’re right, that RDM waste a huge amount of money at Villa, and if he was managing (and making the same mistakes at) a club in the Prem, we’d be talking about him too.

The thing with Bruce, is that he failed at Villa. By the end everyone (who wanted to) could see his flaws. He’s an arrogant, short-sighted, tactically terrible manager who keeps his reputation intact by blaming everyone else, going on the defensive and getting his media mates to back him up.

Who remembers him coming out with “Who else can they get that’s better?” whilst doing terribly for Villa, and then all of the journos agreeing with him, despite the fans knowing that it was the worst football we’d seen since McLeish, Garde or Lambert’s last season, and he probably had more money to spend than those managers, and whilst in a worse league too.

Johnstone - Did well for us would have signed him had our new owners arrived earlier imo.

Snodgrass - Was excellent for us was an integral part that got us so so close to the premier league

Grabban - See Snodgrass and ended that season with the championship Golden Boot

Terry - Helped massively to instil the correct mentality into the dressing room that had stunk of failure for so many years.

Tuanzebe - 1st season did well until injury then last season was an integral member of the defence that got us promoted

El Ghazi - Played a massive part in getting us promoted

Abraham - His Goals got us promoted. imo he is the reason we are in the Premier League now. As if it wasn't for his goals whilst the owners were imo keeping Bruce on whilst they sorted the club out and got the correct advice about who to replace him with we simply would have had no chance of promotion.

I'm a bit confused why you mentioned those because they might get Bruce close to what RDM spent but the value we got from them isn't even close to RDM. Out of 10 signings you showed 3 were duds although Bolasie was good in parts something was strange about this one though as it seemed to all go wrong when Smith came in even though on paper he should have been the happiest to see Smith. 

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Yes I read your comment

You are the only person to mention worst manager ever

Maybe I should have simplified my comment for you i do apologise i didn't think i'd need to to be honest i'll dumb stuff down in future, It was meant as a bit of humour as from reading the comments here you definitely get the impression (see i did explain in future posts to you but i'll carry on anyway)  that a memo has been sent saying that he is the worst.

Now if you still don't get it i don't care as i'm bored with going around in circles with you.

27 minutes ago, useless said:

He's partly responsible for the club nearly going out of existence. As a manaer I file him next to the likes of Paul Ince, Stuat Pearce, Dean Saunders and so on, only reason Bruce has done any better than those is because he's been lucky enough to have a lot of money to spend. If you'd have given Mick McCarthy the same jobs that Bruce has had he would have done a much better job.

Di Matteo:

Spent: £60,500,000 Received: £17,100,000 So Net Spend was £-43,400,000

Bruce:

Spent: £35,650,000  Received: £15,750,000 So Net Spend Was £-19,900,000

Whilst Bruce isn't clear of blame (should have approached the playoff final like he approached Wolves at Home) but looking at those spending figures the damage to our financial future was already done before he arrived because despite the Huge (for the championship) spending of RDM there was still massive faults in our squad.  

I would also say that a huge part of stopping the slide was down to signing John Terry who Bruce played a big part in getting here, for example if it was Smith instead of Bruce (I think i need to add here that I like Smith i'm happy he is our manager and i think he should be kept on even if we do get relegated) do you think he'd have been able to get him here, Yes I know he got him as coach but Terry had already fallen in love with us and he also strikes me as someone who hates failure so convincing him to come here to complete the job he was set when 1st sign wouldn't have been a difficult task.

6 hours ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I don't think anyone has even discussed his time at Villa for a long time.

Rather than just defending him as "not the worst ever", why don't you tell people why they are wrong and the things he has done well at Newcastle?

Because I don't care what Bruce has done well or not well at Newcastle I i only care about what he did here.

7 hours ago, Zatman said:

but nobody said he was the worst manager in history

Again try reading what I said: 

1) "Honestly some of the posts you'd think we were fighting relegation to league 1 under him not narrowly missing out on promotion to the Premier League in a playoff final. "

2) "Read this thread and that is 100% impression you get. An outsider reading this thread would think under Bruce we were uncompetitive and falling straight through the leagues. Whereas the facts are he was the 1st manager since 2010 to get us competitive but hey let's stick to the worst ever manager line."

So i suggest you actually read what I have said then you'd see i haven't said what you keep saying i have.  Now you've read what I have put you will see i said if you were someone who had no idea what Bruce did here you'd think he was the one responsible for us being relegated to the championship. 

11 hours ago, PaulC said:

Benitez keeps them out of relegation he has done a great job. I  reckon Bruce will do the same but will still have his critics. I prefer the manager we have now of course. 

I think we all do 

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

So your saying that the impression is that he is the worst manager ever but the only person that ever posted it is you 

I suggest you read this thread because clearly you haven't. Honestly some of the posts you'd think we were fighting relegation to league 1 under him not narrowly missing out on promotion to the Premier League in a playoff final. 

23 hours ago, villa4europe said:

apart from...someone pull up the PL era managers who have more than 100 games in charge

then yes he is actually the worst manager

But we weren't in the premier league when he managed us.  Bizzare to compare his premier league record when hasn't managed 1 game of ours in the premier league. 

But as I have said let's stick to the worst manager ever line because it's not like we were completely in a tail spin before he came and he managed to stop it. Because that didn't happen did it. 

23 hours ago, Zatman said:

yet nobody has ever said that last phrase

Read this thread and that is 100% impression you get. 

An outsider reading this thread would think under Bruce we were uncompetitive and falling straight through the leagues. Whereas the facts are he was the 1st manager since 2010 to get us competitive but hey let's stick to the worst ever manager line. 

12 hours ago, bobzy said:

Maybe. I’d have expected them to lose to all of Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester and Man Utd though. 

Careful with the not slating Bruce comments.

Did you not get the memo? Bruce is the worst manager to ever manage a team since Football was invented 

On 27/09/2019 at 17:47, Zatman said:

Lescott was certainly the poison in that dressing room maybe Gabby and for some reason I feel Guzan too

Richards was shit but think he seems a decent guy. Was it a cup game he actually came and spoke to the fans. Others not just in our squad but in other clubs would have just ignored them

Yes it was the cup game where Richards spoke to fans saying that he's trying giving his all, which was strange thing to say for a premir league player to say when he'd just had league two opposition run rings around him. 

On 27/09/2019 at 16:11, Keyblade said:

That isn't his fault. Blame Tim Sherwood and Paddy Riley for signing him, not him. They were the viruses that literally led to us getting relegated and spending 3 years in the Championship.

You can blame Paddy Reily for a lot of things but not Lescott and Richards and they were one of Sherwoods "winners" Richards was 100% Sherwoods signing. 

But even so to blame Sherwood and Reily for some of the most half hearted performances I've ever seen from a player is ridiculous. Yes Sherwood is to blame for signing him but how is he to blame for Richards complete lack of effort. You seem to want to excuse Richards of blame but he is the only one that can control the amount of effort he puts in no one else. 

21 hours ago, WakefieldVillan said:

Any talk what so ever of sacking Smith is absolutely mind blowing, it really is, thankfully I think our owners aren't that stupid. 

We all knew that this season was going to be tough and I think even the most ardent supporter would have taken a 17th place finish come the end of the season, so I really don't get all the dejection after what, six games?! 

Unless we lose 10 on the spin and he completely loses the dressing room would I then contemplate sacking him, but that is not going to happen, we are competing, we have been in contention in each game and there are positives to take for sure.

Don't get me wrong, he has made mistakes (I'm sure he's aware of this), he's not flawless, but who is? Klopp? Guardiola? Let's bring one of them in shall we.

End of the day, he's one of our own, he is a positive person, he talks a good game, he won us promotion with a 10 game winning streak and one of the main reasons we got promoted last season was due to the players, management and fans all being together and the only way we will stay in this league and progress is for us fans to get behind them again - (to be fair, at the games we are doing that and it is a pleasure to see, long may it continue).

I have only seen highlights of the Arsenal game (couldn't find a decent stream) and it seems the biggest issue amongst fans was with us sitting back and inviting pressure - However listening to his post-match analysis it seemed that this wasn't the HT instruction, therefore I think the players have to take responsibility there as much as Smith. I think the players do need to believe in themselves a little more. Another blame was laid to the lack of substitutions which I get totally, it sounded very much like the players were absolutely knackered after 60 mins, I think this is definitely something that the head coach needs to look at, freshening things up sooner - I am sure he is regretting this now but hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

With a bit of luck (we have had less than most this season) a bit more guile (when we are winning, seeing out games) and a bit more doggedness (see Sheff Utd) we would be sat on about 9-10 points - I think it's been a frustrating start to the season but not a disastrous one.

Some BIG home games coming up where I feel we will get some positive results 

 

 

 

I think it's more a case of people reacting to the Arsenal game rather than the 6 games. I felt absolutely devistated leaving the ground on Sunday, it took a long time to think clearly and remember the feeling the last time we left the arsenal stadium.

It was Smiths subs that caused it imo, I still want him as our manager and I'm a long way from even thinking about wanting him out. 

7 hours ago, Ghost said:

With the amount of money floating around the PL, I was of the belief that not using technology to assist in making the correct decisions bordered on being irresponsible. Surely with the millions of pounds tied to every game and position on the ladder (and by extension - jobs and livelihoods), you'd want to use every method available to get the calls right? 

But the implementation of VAR in the PL has been so absolutely incompetent that it boggles the mind.

Tin foil hat on but I'm beginning to think more and more that the PL have purposely and knowingly implemented a half-arsed version of VAR to show that it doesn't work, and so can scrap it next year saying "at least we tried" .

It's difficult to disagree with the bit in bold, in fact I think it's fair to say that is exactly what they have done. 

9 hours ago, Chindie said:

The PL doesn't want referees stopping the game constantly ala rugby, to have decisions double checked (or in the specific case of football, to go look at a screen at pitchside).

Unfortunately this therefore means the ref can only, occasionally, get a second opinion which they can choose to ignore.

Or, in short, it's shit.

They won't need to keep stopping the game, example yesterday it would have been stopped once. 

Also the difference from Rugby is that in Football you rarely need more than one replay from a different angle to come to the correct decision whereas in Rugby they sometimes need several different angles because the ball is under a load of players. 

The most annoying thing for me is that as football is one of the last sports to start using this technology they really have no excuse for the stupid way they have implemented it, because they have plenty of case studies on how to use it and have plenty of expertise out there that they could have used to advise them. 

1 hour ago, Jimzk5 said:

The reason for this system was to correct clear and obvious errors, not to freeze frame 2 players on the same line showing a leg hair offside, it they are going to be that tight they need to review if he was offside when the ball left the team mates foot and then annalise it. 

It's shit, especially when the ref has made a clear and obvious **** up, VAR can't intervine because the ref blowed the whistle and the refs decision is final. 

These aren't teething problems, its just shit. 

 

That's the problem VAR implemented correctly is a good thing, the reason why it works well in Rugby is because the TMO can overrule the on field Refs decision. Had they asked for advice how to implement it then it'd be working so much better.

It is teething problems because these are problems that should be removed if the authorities didn't want it to fail. The problem is the authorities imo want it to fail.

With the offside the only sensible thing to do imo is to use the procedure cricket do with LBW when the original decision is not out if it's reviewed and the ball is only touching the bails then the original decision stands, So for example in Football if the linesman hasn't flagged then if it is extremely marginal like we are seeing then it's not offside say if the players whole foot / head is offside then it's offside less than that then give the goal. Because the small margins we are seeing are a bit daft tbh

3 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Really starting to wonder if PGMOL are deliberately doing VAR as badly as possible in order to protect the "elite" high-paid status of the match referee. In no other sport or league is TV reviewing implemented so badly. How are they so incompetent?

The concept of "umpire's call" in cricket is an easy enough one to understand. Have they not involved professional statisticians / sports scientists / forensic specialists, etc. in designing this? Surely they have the budget to get some proper expert advice instead of just winging it?

This, The thing is they could have easily have got advice from Rugby who have the TMO and have been through all the teething problems so could have advised how to implement this better.  But I completely agree with the comments about the Premier League wanting it to fail. 

It is clear by the way the Premier League have implemented VAR that they didn't want it so have implemented it it such a terrible way that it is designed to fail.

8 hours ago, tomav84 said:

my feeling is that there will be people throughout the season saying it's too early. there will be posts in a week saying "It's been 6 games...6!" or at xmas saying "It's been 18 games...18!" at what point does slack stop getting cut because it's early days for him?

i do get it's early, and i do feel sometimes we do write players off too early, but by and large i think most of us have watched enough footy in our time to know if someone is going to click or not. benteke had something. lack of goals aside, we saw a player there. i dont see anything in wesley except that one of the biggest, strongest players i've seen to put on a villa shirt who throws himself to the deck whenever an opposing player makes contact. he is simply not doing what he was brought in to do. he must have been told about it after spurs, therefore he must be downright disobeying the coaching staff

i desperately hope i'm wrong. i was so excited about him when we signed him. he went straight into my fantasy team....but i'm calling it...he's not gonna make it for us. 5 games in or not...i just have that feeling

Probably never as there are still people that give Hogan some slack. 

Personally I don't know about Wesley early signs aren't looking good and reading through here it's getting very close to the Hogan line of we don't play the correct style. 

For Wesley it is still early so he can easily turn out to be a good signing but there has to be signs of improvement soon because this can't go on forever at some point he's going to have to at least show some signs of a quality player. 

On 06/09/2019 at 22:35, Davkaus said:

This is pretty **** amateur to be honest. Ok, demand is higher than they expected, but we're talking nearly 2 months to get a letter and a plastic cards out in the post? Are they having the ladies in the ticket office print them off individually? 

This is nothing new when these new pre paid card season tickets came out I was being sent paper tickets for about 3 or 4 games until I received mine. 

The ticket office is shocking they only have 1 job and they seem incapable of doing it. 

34 minutes ago, sne said:

Well we could have waited however long we wanted because apparently according to the VA Ref it was the right call and the whistle was blown anyway.

Obviously I disagree but since the refs are never wrong in the PL the wrong decision turned out to be the right decision, even with VAR.

The VAR line From the premier league is just a lie to protect the ref it was never checked the timings doesn't match up also has been said the ref blowing up meant VAR couldn't get involved.

I've been supportive of VAR but it is being implemented in the most useless possible way in the premier league, and it looks like it's going to be used to protect the ref if he makes a dodgy call like what happened Vs Palace someone questions it and they reply saying VAR checked it and agreed. IMO in its current state VAR needs to be scrapped

2 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

Absolutely no point in this. Grealish with a great run and assist, loses balance in the process, pulled up for a 'dive'. If VAR isn't there to correct incompetence then there's absolutely no place for it.

I have defended VAR but i struggle to disagree with this point, if VAR didn't get involved with today's clear incorrect decision then there is no point in having it in the game at all. 

On 19/08/2019 at 13:24, villa4europe said:

agree but at the same time I think the professionalism, especially with regards to the athleticism, is now way behind where it could and should be

how many people are working behind the scenes to put aston villa players out on the pitch? (how many are there for city...) and then how many are there for Martin Atkinson? he has fitness tests and assessments during the year, its still not the well paid full time job that it needs to be

it wouldn't bother me if Atkinson was a multi multi millionaire from being a ref, I just want him to be better, we jumped feet first in with technology rather than employing more people to help get it right, he should have a physio, a sports scientist, a nutritionist, the lot supporting him, definitely a psychologist 

 

They didn't need to jump straight in though they should have seeked advice from Rugby, who have been using the TMO for years and have gone through all the teething problems that football is going through right now. 

8 hours ago, Monsieur Hazdazler said:

Great game for wesley and it resulted in me getting blocked on twitter by Stan Collymore. A win for everyone 

Getting blocked on twitter by Stan Collymore means you've finally done twitter correctly. Rumour has it that Stan has even blocked his mother on twitter because she had a different opinion than him  

21 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Why are people talking about his coaching? Because presumably he did his bullying whilst coaching. I doubt he was on MSN messenger of an evening calling Farrelly a shit word removed.

No-one in the thread has said "KMac was not a bully".

We acknowledge he was a bully, because an investigation found him to be so.

But likewise, he wasn't a bully to those who have publicly backed him.

We don't know the level of abuse, whether it was physical or mental.  It could have been hard coaching to one person, but personal abuse to others.

It's down the the individual to make that assessment, and it's down to them to report it or as it appears (probably due to age) suffer in silence.

He's got his deserved punishment anyway, he's gone.

He probably didn't differentiate his treatment of kids and adults, which is probably what some are alluding to with comparisons to Alex Ferguson.

I dare say his attitude was "we'll make men out of these boys".  Very presumptuous, but it's possible.

 

Bullies are cowards the reason why some players have backed him is because they were probably the ones in the dressing room that have big personalities so people a bully would stay well clear of.

Bullies go after the quieter ones in a group because they know that it's unlikely they'll get any comeback so it makes them feel really big and hard whereas if they did that to someone with a big personality they would have comeback and would be made to feel like the pathetic little cowards that they are.

On 22/08/2019 at 15:05, Robbie09 said:

Seen enough of Wes to be confident he’ll be a huge success. Astounded people are writing him off so soon.

Don't think we've seen enough to be confident that he'll be a success, but we also haven't seen enough to say he's a flop either.

For me he's still in the settling in stage so can't be judged yet but is after 10 or so games nothing has changed then it'll start to become a concern that isn't a settling in problem.