TheStagMan

I refer you to my previous post asking if I have woken up in a parallel universe this morning.

Agreed, how many right backs and right sided players do we have now? How light are we on the left? How many midfielders vs how many (decent) center backs? We don't have a balanced squad, nor a stable first team (or tactics, or formation) By now, we absolutely should. Any manager worth his salt would have got these things in place by now. Bruce hasn't. I absolutely agree that some of the players we got were unnecessary. Maybe they were bought in to add to the excuse of more changes and more players needing time to settle.

I think you are confusing "comfortable" and "familiar" with "not giving a shit" and "being utterly crap" Seriously, are you using this as an argument against having a settled team? I am wondering if I have woken up in some parallel universe this morning.

They would probably say something like "yes, they will blend more quickly if you play them in a position they are familiar with playing in, in a team that is settled so that they know who their teammates are and how they play, if they have a set style of play to adapt to and clear instructions from the manager in a formation which plays to their strengths. You know what would be stupid would be to change the team and formation every game and play those players in positions they are not familiar with with different team mates each time, that would put you on a hiding to nothing and will never work, only an idiot would do that." Seriously - I cannot believe that people are still spouting stuff like give him time and players need to blend. . Players need time, yes they do, some longer than others, but ours seem to need at least a season en-masse. That is down to the manager NOT providing stability. Oh my word. What is going to magically change over the next 5 games? seriously - can anyone see Bruce suddenly seeing the light and changing 20+ years of management style to suddenly click with this team. I was hoping we had turned a corner with the two good results, but then he went 3 at the back and ended up playing Chester at RB, showing that he had learned nothing. It makes me want to pull my hair out when I hear people saying we need stability, so we should stick with Bruce. He is not providing stability - he is changing the team and formation every sodding game (when did we last play two-three games unchanged?). That is not stability and is one of the reasons we are as shit as we are. It us an utter disgrace that after 40+ games and nearly a year (or three months I cant remember which) of being here he does not have a first team of players, or a set formation.

I know he pissed Bruce off, but making him moonwalk all the way to Sunderland seems harsh.

When I saw "promotion hopefuls" in the title I knew it wasn't us!

We're saved!

Batten down the hatches. Right 3 at the back for the rest of the season then lads. What happened to managers that said things like "go out there and win" The more I hear from this guy, the more I want him just to f*** off.

So, TRO. You have asked people to specify who they would replace Bruce with. Let me ask you a question then in the same vein WHEN is Bruce going to turn this around and start providing this long promised consistency and results. WHEN are we going to see effective football firing us up the league? When is he going to get us promoted? If you cannot give us a date for that, you cannot be asking people who they would replace Bruce with.

Which, everyone, himself included KNEW was going to happen - yet he decided the best approach was to rely on Gabby, even though there was a January transfer window available to him. Jesus wept! So yes, I am going to include those games in my assessment of him. I guess I will have to deal with it, as unfortunately he does not seem to have been sacked yet. Doesn't mean that I have to like it, or that I can't comment on his MANY faults and the fact he is doing a shit job.

I'm freaked out by the cat head and human hand. Catmanager OUT

See, one of my nieces thought this about her abusive, scumbag boyfriend. She wouldn't leave him because she was scared of being alone. It took a major event happening (him attacking her sister) for her to see the light and to leave him and now she couldn't be happier and is flourishing. Wonder what our major event will be to finally see the light and get rid of Bruce? Frankly at this point a cat in a suit could get better performances and results out of this group of players.

I understand what Jareth is trying to say - and that is - Samuelson was never related to the main Recon company, and Tony's tweet was referring to Samuelson not being related to the main company. Now the argument is that Samuelson was a director of Recon UK - which is not the Recon group, or Recon itself - just a shell created to do the business of buying Villa, but there is a relationship between the two companies, ergo technically a link between Samuelson and Recon. Now, as I see it there are various ways to interpret this Tony is referring to Recon (the main company) when he says Samuelson is nothing to do with Recon (as would be my interpretation, and seems to be Jareth's) Tony is using bad English (or not fully understanding the nuance) when saying that Samuelson has no involvement with Recon - and is being picked apart for being technically incorrect (Recon UK is owned by Recon so technically Samuelson has a tenuous relationship to the parent company). Tony used a throwaway comment about Samuelson in order to calm the nerves of Villa fans who were losing their sh*t about Samuelson being anywhere near the Villa and the specific wording used has come back to haunt him (well, i'm sure he doesn't care, but in the context of this thread) Tony is a LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE. Watch out everyone he is going to murder us all to death and steal Villa Park in the middle of the night - we will head down there and there will just be a hole in the ground (but it will still be more inviting and pleasant than St Andrews) Given that Tony said Samuelson was just involved in helping get the transaction completed (its what he does after all) and that Samuelson departed shortly afterwards, the events would seem to corroborate interpretations 1 or 2. Others however seem to have jumped to a conclusion based on interpretation 4 Personally I thing that basing a judgement of Tony being a liar and not to be trusted on this, and this alone is more than a little unfair and perhaps a bit silly. If there are other reasons to believe he is dishonest, then fine, but I do not think there are (some may surface in the future, but until they do......). It is fair to say he is Naive and has made some bad choices, absolutely. But to question his honesty, no. For what it is worth, I do think the Xenophobia comment was unwarranted. The question of his honesty came from what he said, no mention was made of his nationality or background.

And yet, despite that, he is still shit.

Frankly yes, it is all John Terry's fault. We got carried away.

And our expectations are all wrong.

But but that's last season, I don't understand why you feel the need to bring up the past like this, it bears no relevance to this season.

Yes, when compared with the absolute horror displays that were Cardiff and Reading, this was not too bad. In the grand scheme of things vs where we need to be, it was simply not good enough. Reversion to type for Bruce after a couple of out of character attacking performances.

Our expectations are too high. Its all the fans fault! Honestly, at this point I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Piss off back to LiverpoolTalk. Yes, and 2010.

Yeah, she's nice. Ohh, you meant the goal.

so this is our good half, yes?

David Cameron, Forest Gump - same thing I suppose.

And those are fair points BUT, that was more in response to the bolded bit below. Sorry - should have made it clearer.