Steve Bruce

[Stevo985]

8 hours ago, Grasshopper said:

We did well under SB from 15th Oct till 26th Nov thats 7 weeks give a day or two

Only The Brighton performance was worth shouting about

Decembers results

Leeds 2-0 loss -shit happens

1-0 Wigan win - poor performance, a struggle, only a worldy from Grealish in the 88th min saved us from an embarrassing home draw

Norwich 1-0 loss - nightmare performance

Qpr 0-1 win - a bit of Kodjia got us a victory

2-1 Burton win - Bruce admitted we were lucky ( run that through your mind - lucky to win 2-1 at home to Burton Albion)

1-1 Leeds draw good result

Cardif 1-0 loss - embarrassing

Wolves 1-0 loss - Lambert showed us eh

2-2 Preston draw - 2-0 up HT ? disgraceful

Brentford 3-0 loss - a joke

Forest 2-1 loss - all in a good days work Stevie

11/11 since Dec

3 wins - 1 of which was a Grealish worldy .1 an unconvincing win to say the least & 1 which SB said we were lucky

2 Draws - 1 good one v Leeds - 1 surrendering a 2-0 HT lead at home

6 defeats to - wait for it - Leeds (shit happens), Norwich awful, Cardiff (Warnock ffs) Embarrassing, Wolves (Lambert ffs), Brentford (conceedind 3 after buying their top scorer) & Forest (well it just went from bad to worse capped of by a 17yo scoring his first ever league goal)

Now please somebody enlighten me to see what is not totally shit about all that. And defend it with a straight face while your at it.

I mean I specifically said I was only talking about results and not performances, so most of this post is wasting your breath.

I, and most others, agree performances need to improve.

In fact, that was basically the point of my post.

 

He had to get results despite what he had to play with until he could add to the squad and hopefully get those performances to where they should be.
Now that's come with a poor january, but he's made the additions that I think will cause those performances to pick up a level. But they need longer than a week to get there.

No one is trying to argue that performances since around December have been good enough.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Stevo985

[Regista]

39 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Well, I assumed that it was a stereotype of British managers, but rereading your post I don't think that was a fair assumption on my part. So I take the word 'stereotype' back. 

You're right, though, that I'm on much stronger ground pointing at your own assumption, which seems completely unsafe. My primary evidence for this is that of the players we brought in in January, seemingly none of them are specialists in the kind of long-ball football that you are assuming is a tactical choice. I think the idea he would spend north of £20m on players without having an idea of what system they would play in is for the birds. 

Judging by his actions so far I personally don't think he has any idea of what type of system he is going to use. It seems as though he changed plans after Brentford and wanted to trial 3-5-2 and may now move forward with this. 

Whatever happens over the next few games I hope to God we see an improvement and that Bruce starts to turn things round, we should at least give him time. (If you ask me about this within a few hours of a dire performance I may think differently). 

I just have this feeling that Bruce may not be the right type of manager to implement a pro active playing style, but like I said I hope I'm proved wrong. 

One final thing is I hope he never attempts to play 4-4-2 as it will never work with the players we have. Hourihane can play in that, but Jedi or Lansbury alongside him will 100% not be effective. Lansbury is so poor without the ball and isn't mobile enough. On the ball however he is brilliant, and we have 3 players who will fit into a perfect 3 CM system with Jedi holding. 

[Lerner's Driver]

It's fair to say that Steve Bruce is not exactly Jean Paul Sartre when it comes to deep thinking.

Indeed, it was Bruce himself who remarked, "I'm not really into tactics", during his time with Sunderland. He may have been half joking, but many a true word, etc

Instead, his forte is man management, whilst typically his number 2 is tasked with the technical stuff. We all knew that before we got him and it hasn't changed since.

As such, the gamble under Bruce is specifically about whether the players find him inspiring and Clemence is drilling them in the right stuff.

Whether you like the mix of roles and responsibilities or not, it's obvious that working in this way adds a layer of complexity to the gelling process at a club, something which is only further complicated by the addition of multiple new recruits all at once.

Relationships like teams take time to build. Xia has accepted this now with talk of going at it next year and so should we.

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, Regista said:

Judging by his actions so far I personally don't think he has any idea of what type of system he is going to use. It seems as though he changed plans after Brentford and wanted to trial 3-5-2 and may now move forward with this. 

Whatever happens over the next few games I hope to God we see an improvement and that Bruce starts to turn things round, we should at least give him time. (If you ask me about this within a few hours of a dire performance I may think differently). 

I just have this feeling that Bruce may not be the right type of manager to implement a pro active playing style, but like I said I hope I'm proved wrong. 

One final thing is I hope he never attempts to play 4-4-2 as it will never work with the players we have. Hourihane can play in that, but Jedi or Lansbury alongside him will 100% not be effective. Lansbury is so poor without the ball and isn't mobile enough. On the ball however he is brilliant, and we have 3 players who will fit into a perfect 3 CM system with Jedi holding. 

These sentences contradict each other?

[striker]

It should be noted that results under Bruce took a nose dive using the same players where he originally got the new manager bounce. Considering the drop in level from the Premiership most expected those better results to continue and not tail off.

With his new signings those results have continued on a downward trajectory even though admittedly it is early days yet but Bruce has already made fundamental mistakes not expected of such an experienced manager and it has cost the club dearly in Villa's quest for promotion this season.

Despite Xia's tweet and lets face it the owner was highly unlikely to publicly  criticise the manager when in the process of buying players I feel that Bruce is already under pressure to turn it around.

I sincerely hope that he does just that and he should with arguably the best squad in the Championship (minus the goalkeeping).

He is also well liked by the fan base but liking someone as a person doesn't secure you position as manager if the results aren't there.

[Demitri_C]

5 hours ago, chrisvilla4 said:

Let's get rid of Bruce and get someone else in. He then has the summer to shift the players he doesn't want and replace them with his own. 

No point trying to have some stability and get the team working together in the long term like a lot of the teams that beat us have done and are doing   

Sacking managers constantly is not the way forward. Blimey: the most consistency (as poor as it was)  we have had in recent times was when Lambert was in charge and he had a stable (albeit mostly rubbish) team. 

So on your theory you should sack a manager who has abit of a rough patch? We have been shite for last 7 games. It happens to most teams. If we were to continue this trend we would go through 2-3 managers a season.

And it's easy saying let's get rid of him and get someone else. Let's say we did and he don't rate some of the players then again chop and change another season I

Of disappointment.  No one is more pissed off than me of our event form but bruce is proven and has the cv to prove it. This is his team and he should be given until end of season to turn it round. I am very confident he will turn this round by end of season.  Then once that has happened and we actually look like a team I think we are going to be a real force next season.

[Eastie]

50 minutes ago, striker said:

It should be noted that results under Bruce took a nose dive using the same players where he originally got the new manager bounce. Considering the drop in level from the Premiership most expected those better results to continue and not tail off.

With his new signings those results have continued on a downward trajectory even though admittedly it is early days yet but Bruce has already made fundamental mistakes not expected of such an experienced manager and it has cost the club dearly in Villa's quest for promotion this season.

Despite Xia's tweet and lets face it the owner was highly unlikely to publicly  criticise the manager when in the process of buying players I feel that Bruce is already under pressure to turn it around.

I sincerely hope that he does just that and he should with arguably the best squad in the Championship (minus the goalkeeping).

He is also well liked by the fan base but liking someone as a person doesn't secure you position as manager if the results aren't there.

Results worsened massively with the loss of kodija - since he went we dIdnt wIn a game and took one point  In January - before he went we had taken 10 points from 5 games which is play off in December , so it's wrong to say the nosedive was with the same players as the most important was miSsing.

it is far too soon to judge the new signings of last week but I think once the settle In we will look a decent team again and expect to fInish top 10 at worse .

Anything below that then serious questIons need to be asked come may 

[Grasshopper]

NOBODY is saying sack a manager every 7 games or just sack sack whoever for whatever non reason.

The bottom line (I f*****g hate that expression) is:

We need to have the RIGHT manager for us.

Who that is I dont know, just as nobody else knows either.

In my opinion Steve Bruce has not done enough to give me the belief that he is the right one. His record elsewhere us irrelevent, what he does here is. He is not doing it.

It's simple. Appoint the right manager and we will go up with the squad DrT is financing. Untill we appoint that man, our ONLY option is to sack-appoint-sack-appoint..... untill we appoint the right one, then it will happen.

Whether that takes 7 games 10/15/20 or 1 game its irrelevant because ALL the time we have the Wrong guy we wont go up.

As an example - Eric Black was appointed till seasons end, Cries of disapproval were heard at that, once his 1st team sheet his the forum in the Ore-match thread, people wanted him out before anybody had even kicked a ball. We even re-named the guy Eric ******* Black.

So whos opinion is right or wrong?

However long/many sackings after 1/10/20 games it takes till we get the right manager in is irrelevent.

The only factor of impotance is

The Right Manager

Edited February 8, 2017 by Grasshopper

[Stevo985]

10 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

His record elsewhere us (sic) irrelevent

Of course it isn't

[Regista]

4 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

These sentences contradict each other?

Pointless response, do you have nothing relevant to respond with? In the way you and other people may have construed the sentence yes, it may seem contradictory. 

What I meant was I don't think it was the initial plan and it may be a case of trial and error with regards to formations. He's going to move on to 3-5-2, if that's doesn't work for a few games maybe 4-4-2. Therefore, no long term plan of a system in place or an identity, he basically has no clue how he wants this new team to play. 

[rubberman]

So this is a couple of years old, but covers the years from 2004-14, so has some solid data.

Blueprint for promotion

Quote

Let’s try to answer an age old question. How long should a Championship manager be given to secure promotion? The average length of time a Championship promotion-winning manager’s has in the job before reaching the top flight stands at 1 year, 10 months (22 months).

This against the average tenure of a championship manager of less than a year currently.

Quote

Of the 26 managers managers to achieve Championship promotion, 9 have managed to achieve it in 12 months or less (34.6%). 

Or to put it another way, 65% have been in place for longer than a year.

Unless something catastrophic happens, we need to stick with Bruce and let him build the team.  

[Jas10]

So basically, those who want Bruce to stay are saying so on the basis of his past record and reputation. And the assumption that things will improve, given time, due to that.

Those who want him gone (or are just fed up) see the lack of progress since he arrived: negative, dour & clueless football...the lack of any positive effect on the team & players overall...

Whatever happens, I just hope we can improve and start getting results but there aren't any signs of that happening anytime soon. Hopefully it will, even if the football is relatively poor 

[Grasshopper]

25 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Of course it isn't

So I guess the "certificates" he got for 4 promotions elsewhere, means 21 other clubs will just step aside and let his "reputation" qualify him to do it again.

I've stated my opinion and you are just ridiculing it because you think otherwise.

[Grasshopper]

52 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Of course it isn't

....and you make a habit of Isolating one sentence to make some sort of contra.

We agree on a lot of things, however, you just target to ridicule.

[striker]

1 hour ago, Eastie said:

Results worsened massively with the loss of kodija - since he went we dIdnt wIn a game and took one point  In January - before he went we had taken 10 points from 5 games which is play off in December , so it's wrong to say the nosedive was with the same players as the most important was miSsing.

it is far too soon to judge the new signings of last week but I think once the settle In we will look a decent team again and expect to fInish top 10 at worse .

Anything below that then serious questIons need to be asked come may 

Your first point concerning Kodjia is fair enough but I'm not so sure it would have made much difference, losing again when Kodjia returned. Villa were already struggling to put any kind of performance together with Kodjia in the side.

Top ten outside the playoffs must be seen as abject failure if you are going to apply your previous point concerning Kodjia's importance to the team. I don't think any Villa fan would have settled for that at the start of the season or when Bruce first arrived.

[bannedfromHandV]

I didn't want Bruce initially, like everyone else I warmed to him after the turn in results early on, I'm now back to thinking he wasn't the right man for us in the first place.

Such is the nature of football, a results based game.

If we win the next 5 I'll be back on board with him, as I would imagine will most other people.

 

I don't think we need to go round the houses on this one, if we're winning he's great, if we're losing he's shite.

[chrisvilla4]

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

So on your theory you should sack a manager who has abit of a rough patch? We have been shite for last 7 games. It happens to most teams. If we were to continue this trend we would go through 2-3 managers a season.

And it's easy saying let's get rid of him and get someone else. Let's say we did and he don't rate some of the players then again chop and change another season I

Of disappointment.  No one is more pissed off than me of our event form but bruce is proven and has the cv to prove it. This is his team and he should be given until end of season to turn it round. I am very confident he will turn this round by end of season.  Then once that has happened and we actually look like a team I think we are going to be a real force next season.

No mate. I'm saying the opposite. Sorry it's probably the way it's written. 

[Eastie]

1 hour ago, striker said:

Your first point concerning Kodjia is fair enough but I'm not so sure it would have made much difference, losing again when Kodjia returned. Villa were already struggling to put any kind of performance together with Kodjia in the side.

Top ten outside the playoffs must be seen as abject failure if you are going to apply your previous point concerning Kodjia's importance to the team. I don't think any Villa fan would have settled for that at the start of the season or when Bruce first arrived.

Considering we were 19 th when he arrived and the turnover of players in January I think 10th is acceptable in those circumstances - of course we would have hoped for better than that but it is what it is . 

We may well finish top 8 - who knows ? Until January we were Not far off the pace but one point in 15 has killed us - yes there are reasons that can be used etc kodjia absent, many changes in personnel , but what matters now is that we see a good turnaround in form and results between now and may .

if we were to finish  top 10 it would not be abject failure considering where we were when he took over - it would be acceptable but not as good as hoped .

There has been a huge turnaround in recent windows - now we have the basis of a very good team and need to see results on the pitch.

obviously should the season continue as the last month has then serious questions will be asked - too soon to judge at this moment .

Edited February 8, 2017 by Eastie

[Grasshopper]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I didn't want Bruce initially, like everyone else I warmed to him after the turn in results early on, I'm now back to thinking he wasn't the right man for us in the first place.

Such is the nature of football, a results based game.

If we win the next 5 I'll be back on board with him, as I would imagine will most other people.

 

I don't think we need to go round the houses on this one, if we're winning he's great, if we're losing he's shite.

At the moment we're losing so he's shit

Logic out

[kurtsimonw]

2 hours ago, Grasshopper said:

So I guess the "certificates" he got for 4 promotions elsewhere, means 21 other clubs will just step aside and let his "reputation" qualify him to do it again.

He's not doing that GH, this is a messageboard and the purpose is to debate opinions really. I think you know Stevo is not that type of guy either.

I agree that reputation only means so much. It's what gets you through the door. Bruce got the Villa job because of his excellent record in this division. The same way a bunch of our players were signed because of their record in the division. But obviously for us to go up, both the manager and the playing staff need to continue to perform in that way. We can't just coast to promotion because we have high quality in the team.