Michael118

100% serious. The first 6 in particular I rated fairly highly. For me, they're all Premier League quality players who underperformed while they were here. I honestly can't see how anybody doesn't see it.

Gil, Amavi, Westwood, Bacuna, Cissokho, Kozak & Sanchez for me are all Premier League quality. The only players of similar quality Bruce has signed are Johnstone, Snodgrass and Terry. Johnstone and Snodgrass are both on loan and Terry is at the end of his career and we'll be lucky if he can still have a positive impact at Premier League level. For me, the squad is in a far worse position now than when Bruce took over which is the most disappointing thing. He swapped a lot of untapped potential for 'safer bets'', but players with lower ceilings. If he gets us promoted, then great, but if he doesn't and we change managers, I think we've taken some giant steps backwards under him.

Yep, you're right. O'Leary's average position is 7th/8th and Bruce's is 13/14th. I calculated their medians. I rated O'Leary. If the early 2000's version of him was managing us next season in the Premier League I think he'd take us further than Bruce. His stats as well, if you just singled out his time managing us, still compare favourably against Bruce's stats.

David O'Leary Completed Premier League seasons - 6 Finishes - 4th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th, 16th Average position - 5th/6th Top 10 finishes - 5 (83%) Bottom 10 finishes - 1 (16%) Relegations - 0 Other achievements - UEFA Cup & Champions League Qualification, Champions League Semi Finalist Steve Bruce Completed Premier League seasons - 10 Finishes - 13th, 10th, 12th, 18th, 14th, 11th, 13th, 10th, 16th, 18th Average position - 13th Top 10 finishes - 2 (20%) Bottom 10 finishes - 8 (80%) Relegations - 2 Other achievements: Promoted 4 times from the Championship, FA Cup Finalist

A manager can only be 'bottom 3 quality' if they've been relegated more times than they've survived. Say he was re-hired by Stoke. It might be unfair to label him a 'bottom half manager' based on his history, but it certainly wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest he was more likely to finish in the bottom 10 than top 10. That's a matter of opinion and the stats are not strong enough in either direction to suggest it's an unreasonable one.

I think your applying the definition too strictly. There's enough 'evidence' in both scenarios to reasonably suggest Ranieri is 'top 2 quality' and Bruce is 'bottom 3 quality'. Just because Mark Hughes finished 9th, 9th, 9th and 13th in his last 4 seasons at Stoke doesn't make it unreasonable to suggest he is more likely to finish in the bottom 10 than top 10 if he took over at another club next season. The results are so close and everyone has their own opinion as to 'why' an event or series of events happened.

Would you exclude Ranieri from the tag of 'top 2 manager' if he moved to Swansea for example and won the Premier League again but before achieving it finished 7th, 3rd and 5th?

I just don't think finishing in the bottom 3 more than 50% of the time is any kind of measure for saying a manager is or isn't bottom 3 quality. For me, relegation says more about a manager than survival. Plenty of fairly poor managers have survived, but very few decent managers get relegated. Bruce has been relegated twice in the last 7 seasons, which is more than any other current manager and equal 2nd most in Premier League history. Most seasons there are a lot of underwhelming managers striving to avoid relegation so he'll always be in with a chance, but if the competition is strong his chances of staying up will be slim.

So by your logic, he needs 4 more relegations in his next 4 attempts so he can reach 6 relegations in his last 11 seasons (relegated more than 50% of the time) before he can be regarded as a 'bottom 3 manager''?

Doesn't Bruce employ similar tactics though? For me, there's a big difference in quality which separates them.

Sam Allardyce and Tony Pulis have made it to the end of 20 Premier League seasons combined with a total of 0 relegations.

Those stats are a bit misleading. You included his last season at Birmingham where he left after 13 games when they were in 15th and also his last season at Sunderland where he was sacked when they were in 16th. Out of the last 7 times he's made it to the end of a Premier League season he's been relegated twice. If you assume he would have been relegated at Sunderland that would make it 3 out of the last 7. Those aren't good survival odds for a 'bottom half Premier League manager'.

I haven't been watching them so I don't know. The stats are supportive of it to a degree and I rated him higher than others did last season so I wouldn't be surprised at all if he is playing a significant role.

For me, Bruce is bottom 3 PL quality. O'Leary and Lambert had/have higher ceilings and give you a better chance of staying up as well.

Since I've been following Villa it's - O'Neill O'Leary, Lambert ------------------------------------------ Houlier, Bruce, Garde McLeish, RDM Sherwood

2016/17: 52 pts from 35 games = 1.48 ppg (26% below the 2 ppg target) 2017/18: 47 pts from 27 games = 1.74 ppg (13% below the 2 ppg target) Overall: 99 pts from 62 games = 1.59 ppg (20% below the 2 ppg target)

https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/720483/Aston-Villa-Steve-Bruce-Championship-manager

Dec 17, 2016 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/17/steve-bruce-no-illusions-hard-task-restoring-fallen-giant-aston/ Bruce's record up until this point was 18 points from 10 games. 2 points per game after Bruce's arrival last season would have given us 80 points which going by the previous season was a comfortable spot in the play offs.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/37646701

4 clean sheets out of the last 6 for Barnsley which have all come since Gardner's first full 90 mins for them against Brentford on Dec 16. He's played a full 90 mins in every game since aside from their win against Sunderland where he went off after 74 mins with Barnsley ahead.

https://www.thestar.co.uk/sport/football/barnsley-fc/barnsley-0-wolves-0-true-grit-as-reds-hold-runaway-leaders-1-8957249 https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/barnsley-fc/video-the-verdict-barnsley-keep-wolves-from-the-door-with-defiant-display-1-8957615

He played as a CDM and was Barnsley's equal best player next to Liam Lindsay in their 0-0 draw with Wolves yesterday. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/barnsley-fc/barnsley-0-wolves-0-how-the-players-rated-1-8956540

The principle is the same. He's trying to 'keep a lid on it' but at the same time isn't respecting the reality of the situation which is he's in a far better position than 90% of teams in the division. For me it comes across as disingenuous.

Not word for word but more or less.

Steve Bruce: "The club will try to help me, I know they will. I'm due to see the chairman. He's talking to me. Money is an issue because of FFP - still. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see how much money the club has spent over the years. "We spent £2m in the summer and took in £20m. Personally, I'm in credit. But I've still got a hole to look at. "I understand it's difficult at a club like this. "And I know the people here will do the best they can. We begged, stole and borrowed in the summer. "We got in Josh Onomah, Sam Johnstone and Robert Snodgrass - all on loan, all good players. "That's the situation we are in - and that's what we are facing. "And that's when I, as a manager, earn my money." https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/881619/Aston-Villa-News-Steve-Bruce-Tony-Xia-Transfer-Budget-January-EFL-Championship