tomav84

it is, and the players need to realise that...

i dont fancy our chances against anyone right now. teams will be looking at us and saying "they're catchable" and if millwall need a win last game of the season to take our playoff place i know where i would put my money

unfortunately we cannot use that line anymore sir....the stadiums could be empty every week and they would still be paid handsomely

right now i dont feel much better about this lot than the garbage that took us down. agree with you on albert and snod. irrespective on how folks feel about bruce, surely everyone must agree this lot aren't giving 100%, and if they somehow get through a 2 leg playoff semi final i'll be amazed

call me a sentimental old sod but i can't get on board with the dislike for him. i agree, the way he let himself go during our relegation season does take away his rights to any kind of testimonial, grand farewell etc, but some of my happiest memories as a villa fan have come from watching him and young tearing oppositions apart. it wasn't just vs blues, he was unplayable on his day i know i'm in the minority, but i'll have more good memories than bad of him...good luck to him wherever he ends up

that's an interesting theory - i was always keen on keeping bruce during the bad run partly because i simply couldn't think of a better alternative...i'm not convinced by dean smith and i dont recall hearing many other names mentioned by the folks calling for bruce's head, but had wagner for example found himself unemployed at xmas you may well have been right I actually had money on Bruce being our manager last summer at decent odds as i heard he would have walked if hull hadn't been promoted and we were waiting in the wings to pounce...apparently was the reason for the delay in announcing RDM which (if i could be bothered to look back through news articles) i believe came shortly after the playoff final

Bruce has said non-internationals have had today, tomorrow and sunday off but have trained as normal all week however he appears as though he's been in dubai since the bolton game...special treatment?

i can see fulham beating us to 3rd which means we avoid them...i cannot see us finishing as low as 6th

i agree, i dont fancy them over 2 legs as apparently we can no longer win at craven cottage but i would definitely fancy us at wembley...35k noisy villa vs 25k (30k max) quiet fulham fans. dont ask me why, but i can just see us rising to the occasion

not going to happen is it

bruce has admitted he should have freshened it up a bit but hindsight is a wonderful thing. had we still dropped points of course questions would have been asked as to why the team was changed big weekend this one before 2 weeks off...cardiff have another tough game and i expect bruce to get a reaction from the players

yeah - it's almost on par with what klopp said about us when they dicked us after we had given up...you do have to feel for them. under RDM i feared that would be us too and sunderland prove how easily it can happen assuming no injuries and an extra day's recovery (not that it's needed after tonight) that'll do just nicely going into saturday

derby is...for now

in MON's defense, real life isnt football manager - managers don't make the bids, it's the DOF/MD/Chief exec/owner going back to Bruce vs RMc i would be amazed if any manager doesn't do due diligence on any player that the club is about to shell out multi-millions on. RDM probably just thought he could handle him. or maybe RDM isn't as well connected as bruce, and bruce might have been told when he arrived by one of his chums elsewhere "get rid, the lad's poison"

including him in the matchday 18 would be at the expense of someone like o'hare or RHM. could you imagine the slating bruce would get if he did that? the aforementioned youngsters are much more deserving of a place than RMc

I dont see how scoring a few penalties and free kicks in a league with the standard of 3rd or 4th tier over here says "ok I messed up - can we not start over". In fact from interviews i heard he's come across as "i like it here, can i stay?" rather than "i really hope brucie is watching as i'm desperate to get back in the villa side". i'm with TRO on this and i'm quite surprised that so many are willing to give a chap who could have given less **** about the club a chance yet gabby who in his few sporadic appearances for us over the last year or so has at least looked like he cared and still says the right things on his social media regarding the villa is slated and no one wants to see him in a villa shirt again (not saying i want gabby in the team FYI, just using as a comparison)

with the weather coming in, any chance of the game being postponed?

for some unfortunately that will always be the case

spot on apart for the slightly inaccurate bit highlighted

was he? i have plugged into google "bruce 1 game from sack" and similar and the only thing i can find is an article quoting redknapp saying that bruce thought he would be sacked if we lost to barnsley and another article (from the star...enough said) saying following reading away he was 3 games off the sack. hardly reliable sources, and certainly nowhere i can see that indicates a loss to boro and he would have been gone. regarding your point on Xia not being totally sold on him, the fact that he has kept him in through the 2 quite sticky patches you indicated shows that he believes he is the right man to take us forward for me

this all along has been my reasoning for keeping him...i'm less keen on entering that lottery personally. for us to drop out of playoffs now would mean something has gone seriously wrong and the dressing room has been lost (or a 3 month long flu bug has hit B6 and ruled out most of our first team, which i could forgive)

interesting point...i can see you being in the minority if we don't go up. for me it would depend on the circumstances, if we just drop to playoffs, and lose playoff final unluckily i would say keep him. a total capitulation where we don't make playoffs would be somewhat unforgivable however

My mrs is going in sept for a few days and looking for good food ideas and things to do. already been and done the more touristy things so looking for other things to do...any input appreciated, thanks!

you really didnt miss much...one of the bigger disappointments of paris IMO

Absolutely loving shadow of war at the moment...quality game