Steve Bruce

[CosmicVillan]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

We really were not the shambolic mess that no one could have fixed. 

You really think not ?

We had become a dysfunctional organisation and showed all the classic signs for a number of years. The fact that even with a pre-season RDM couldn't make proper go of it only highlights this, his record was half decent until he got the Villa hot seat. It takes a certain type of leadership to turn these things around and whilst he may not be ideal the steady handed SB suits the club far more at this point in time.

Whether he can do what's needed next season I don't know, but I am fairly certain we won't be on relegation form and we'll be in amongst it.   

[weedman]

Don't know if anyone saw it but Karanka was on sky sports earlier talking about his time at Boro, basically said when he came in they were a shambles, so the first thing he did was make them harder to beat - at the expense of attacking play and was constantly criticised for "being scared of attacking", then the following summer improved the quality and the attacking play improved with those players, got them nearly promoted before they smashed the league the following season. 

Just made me think of us, there is no quick fix when you are as much of a shambles as we were, it takes time, it requires patience. If Bruce had come in and had us dominating and winning games like some seem to expect then that statement simply wouldn't be true, it would have been a pretty simple quick fix by all accounts. We look more organised now, we resemble an actual football team for the first time in 5 years, is it great to watch? No, but these things take time, I'm confident that with Bruce we will be up there next season, I'm confident that things will improve with a few additions and some more time to gel together, that doesn't mean I'm happy with the football we have played so far, or with finishing 13th in the Championship, it just means I have accepted that there isn't a magic wand, there isn't a quick fix, and it will take a bit of time to get things right, I have faith that things will improve next season and am looking forward to it

 

[DCJonah]

21 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

So I write all that, glance back up the thread and there is a perfect example of the false analysis! "Only" 3 games lost???

it doesn't matter how many games we "only" lost - we only had 10 points from 11 games and we were spiralling towards the relegation zone! That form would actually have got us relegated.

D C Jonah, your comments sound a lot like the complacent, delusional remarks RDM was given to making after every new setback - dominated the game, just a bit of bad luck in defence, etc. 

In my view it was actually that self-deception that got him the sack in the end. Not the poor results but the fact that he couldn't accept how much needed to be done to improve things.

Haha false analysis? What was false about the statement I made? Did we or did we not lose 3 games in the league before he was sacked? 

He was rightly sacked. I've said that about 4/5 times now. It wasn't good enough and the points return was terrible. 

But that doesn't also mean it was the unimaginable shambolic mess you and others seem to want to portray it as. 

 

[DCJonah]

11 minutes ago, CosmicVillan said:

You really think not ?

We had become a dysfunctional organisation and showed all the classic signs for a number of years. The fact that even with a pre-season RDM couldn't make proper go of it only highlights this, his record was half decent until he got the Villa hot seat. It takes a certain type of leadership to turn these things around and whilst he may not be ideal the steady handed SB suits the club far more at this point in time.

Whether he can do what's needed next season I don't know, but I am fairly certain we won't be on relegation form and we'll be in amongst it.   

No I really don't think we were a shambolic mess. 

We had some strong championship players. A new wave of optimism surrounding the club and we weren't a million miles away from being a very competitive team. We had some issues, of course we did, hence he was sacked, but it was no where near the mess some claim. 

 

 

[terrytini]

2 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

The relevance is the comparable job he did starting behind us and finishing higher with much fewer resources.

Yeah I see it but don't see it - what's the point ? That he did a good job ? He did. That he did better with Cardiff than Bruce did with us ? Yes he did ... but - so to speak - so what ?

It would only seem relevant to me if someone had said Warnock record last year was worse than Bruce's- then I could understand someone quoting that. But other than that, to me, it's meaningless.

To put it another way I'm sure lots of Managers were outperformed by lots of other Managers last year - so what ?

I can see why some want Bruce and why some don't  - but I can't see what Warnock had to do with it.

[mykeyb]

On 2017-5-20 at 13:33, TRO said:

well I'm not disagreeing with it.

I am just merely saying that very few managers have a monopoly on getting tactics right every time against their opponent.....I think so many other factors are at play too.

Totally agree, better managers get it right more often though, and that is one of the things about Bruce that I am concerned about.

[terrytini]

51 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

No not at all. We were going for promotion and we were right, at the time, to make a change. 

If you just looked at the league position then maybe you could use the phrase shambolic. But if you watched the games, thought back to the summer window and tool it all in it's just not the case. 

I'm not taking sides I think both have merit but I remember commenting on here after the Boro friendly that I was massively concerned that despite the general optimism everywhere the actual performance was alarmingly like the previous year.

I was very very concerned that RDM had got absolutely nowhere on changing our losing mentality.

And I think performances bore that out. Yes we didn't lose many and yes late goals cost us, but we never felt right.

So whilst not s shambles, and while yes, had a few of those early games gone out way we might have been okay, I DO think we were still close to freefalling.

And I say that as someone who stuck out for RDM being given more time. 

Whilst I can't necessarily support it with Stats, and whilst I have strong reservations about zBruce, it does FEEL like we have a lot more character and resilience now.

[briny_ear]

34 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Haha false analysis? What was false about the statement I made? Did we or did we not lose 3 games in the league before he was sacked? 

 

Sigh. True statement, false analysis.

Chelsea just won the premier league but lost more games than Spurs in 2nd. So nobody counts and gives trophies for the number of games you lost. You win the premier league if you get enough points. Chelsea got more points so win it.

RDM may have "only" lost 3 games but he "only" won one and "only" got 10 points from 11. Which of these do you think is the most relevant statistic?

[bobzy]

People want quick fixes.

Buy new team -> win league. If manager isn't achieving near this after <x> games, sack him and get someone else in. 

Buy new team -> achieve promotion. If manager hasn't achieved this by the end of the season, sack him. 

Buy new team -> win league. If manager isn't...

 

...you get the point.

Having a settled squad and routine is huge. Almost pivotal, but not quite - some clubs are obviously successful straight away. It's rare, though. 

Edited May 21, 2017 by bobzy

[Johnnyp]

2 hours ago, briny_ear said:

It's simple maths but false analysis. If your aim is to achieve a particular position in the table, how many points you have is irrelevant. You just have to achieve the position. We didn't, we came 13th. Coming 13th would have been just as much a failure if we had been 5, 10 or 18 points off. So Bruce's 13th was nearer to 6th than Di Matteo's 19th. They both failed but Bruce got us nearer to success.

These attempts to paint Di Matteo's time here as more successful than Bruce's are laughable. They pick irrelevant statistics such as percentage of losses (what matters is points per match) or "number of points away from 6th place" and regard those as the only statistics that matter. They don't.

Bruce got more points per match (nearly 1.5) than Di Matteo (0.9) and got us nearer to the minimum target of 6th place (13th not 19th). This was of course not good enough, as Bruce has said. He expected to get into the playoffs. It always looked like a two-season job to me so I'm less surprised than he is that he failed.

But the idea being spread on this thread that when he took over we were in good shape to get to the playoffs is just ludicrous. We were 19th with 10 points from 11 games, with an unbalanced squad that didn't know how to win games. I don't think we will be celebrating the Di Matteo era in years to come.

And with Bruce here 8 months can you say with any sincerity that a squad that he's has plenty of time with and added to looks more balanced and knows how to win games  ? Looks actually more unbalanced and utterly confused looking . You keep banging on about the fact he attained a higher league position than when dimatteo left. He did. But, and you really don't seem to be able to grasp this, when we were 19th under Di Matteo we were closer to 6th place IN POINTS than we were when we finished 13th under Bruce.  My point is Bruce did not inherit a team during a season that was beyond salvage. On his watch, with his signings Brentford embarrassed us, Ipswich, Barnsley, Reading, came to villa park and took the piss out of us. His doing..not dimatteo.  Did dimatteo do awful yes but there was loads of the season left to get it right..loads.

Edited May 21, 2017 by Johnnyp
error

[briny_ear]

37 minutes ago, Johnnyp said:

You keep banging on about the fact he attained a higher league position than when dimatteo left. He did. But, and you really don't seem to be able to grasp this, when we were 19th under Di Matteo we were closer to 6th place IN POINTS than we were when we finished 13th under Bruce.

OK, it finishes here for me. I've tried to explain this to you in terms of extreme simplicity, but you still haven't got it.

So you can take comfort from your belief that RDM's performance as a manager, which achieved less than 1 point per game and dragged us down to the edge of the relegation zone, is best judged by the obscure fact that, at that stage in the season, he was 10 points off 6th. Maybe you are disappointed he didn't stay to complete the job?

I usually avoid this thread because the widespread specious use of statistics to try to back up opinions drives me to despair. I only started reading it today because I am laid up ill and was bored. I won't be back tomorrow!

The rest of your post which I didn't quote suggests that in your opinion RDM a better manager than Bruce. You are absolutely entitled to that opinion and you use anecdotal and selective evidence to support it. What you mustn't do is take one tiny and obscure aspect of the statistics of our performance and blow that out of all proportion to try to give some pretence of factual basis to your opinions. In a strong sense it actually weakens your argument because the misuse of statistics is so easily dismissed.

[Villan_of_oz]

4 hours ago, DCJonah said:

No I really don't think we were a shambolic mess. 

We had some strong championship players. A new wave of optimism surrounding the club and we weren't a million miles away from being a very competitive team. We had some issues, of course we did, hence he was sacked, but it was no where near the mess some claim. 

 

 

We were a mess, RDM showed what a clueless manager he was. Made the reports that the senior players ran the Chelsea team when he was the manager, seem all the more true. 

[Johnnyp]

6 hours ago, briny_ear said:

OK, it finishes here for me. I've tried to explain this to you in terms of extreme simplicity, but you still haven't got it.

So you can take comfort from your belief that RDM's performance as a manager, which achieved less than 1 point per game and dragged us down to the edge of the relegation zone, is best judged by the obscure fact that, at that stage in the season, he was 10 points off 6th. Maybe you are disappointed he didn't stay to complete the job?

I usually avoid this thread because the widespread specious use of statistics to try to back up opinions drives me to despair. I only started reading it today because I am laid up ill and was bored. I won't be back tomorrow!

The rest of your post which I didn't quote suggests that in your opinion RDM a better manager than Bruce. You are absolutely entitled to that opinion and you use anecdotal and selective evidence to support it. What you mustn't do is take one tiny and obscure aspect of the statistics of our performance and blow that out of all proportion to try to give some pretence of factual basis to your opinions. In a strong sense it actually weakens your argument because the misuse of statistics is so easily dismissed.

Couple of points and for me that's it 1. Dimatteo is a rubbish manager, no i do not wish we kept him instead of Bruce.

2. Never once suggested that dimatteo was a better manager than Bruce. You know i never said that.

3. You can't try and take the moral high ground and speak about factual basis just to suit your argument. We ended up further away from the playoffs after the final game of the season than we were after 11 games of the season. That is fact. 

[Demitri_C]

11 hours ago, DCJonah said:

No not at all. We were going for promotion and we were right, at the time, to make a change. 

If you just looked at the league position then maybe you could use the phrase shambolic. But if you watched the games, thought back to the summer window and tool it all in it's just not the case. 

I go with league position, 19th for me was a complete and utter disgrace DC. We were fighting getting dragged into a relegation battle! I call it a shambles. But don't get me wrong Bruce has no excuses next season. Its his squad, he can plan without Kodj and has a full pre season. 

If a average Huddesfield Town can get to the play off finals, this squad is capable of doing great things in this division.  

[DCJonah]

10 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Sigh. True statement, false analysis.

Chelsea just won the premier league but lost more games than Spurs in 2nd. So nobody counts and gives trophies for the number of games you lost. You win the premier league if you get enough points. Chelsea got more points so win it.

RDM may have "only" lost 3 games but he "only" won one and "only" got 10 points from 11. Which of these do you think is the most relevant statistic?

You seem to be under the impression I'm defending RDM or making out his time here was good. I'm really not. 

Why does one statistic have to be the most relevant? It's this kind of talk that completely exaggerates the situation. You choose one statistic that you deem most relevant and hey presto we are a shambolic mess. 

Why can't we look at a wide range of things? I'm taking into account the positive summer, the performances and the results. And I stand by my belief we were not a shambolic mess

[Villan_of_oz]

2 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

You seem to be under the impression I'm defending RDM or making out his time here was good. I'm really not. 

Why does one statistic have to be the most relevant? It's this kind of talk that completely exaggerates the situation. You choose one statistic that you deem most relevant and hey presto we are a shambolic mess. 

Why can't we look at a wide range of things? I'm taking into account the positive summer, the performances and the results. And I stand by my belief we were not a shambolic mess

Everyone has their own view but in mine we really were more than a mess we were a disaster. 5 + years of momentum building shire then 1 win after 11, were the next Portsmouth waiting to happen

[VillaCas]

11 hours ago, bobzy said:

People want quick fixes.

Buy new team -> win league. If manager isn't achieving near this after <x> games, sack him and get someone else in. 

Buy new team -> achieve promotion. If manager hasn't achieved this by the end of the season, sack him. 

Buy new team -> win league. If manager isn't...

 

...you get the point.

Having a settled squad and routine is huge. Almost pivotal, but not quite - some clubs are obviously successful straight away. It's rare, though. 

I think most fans are more realistic than you make out here - they don't expect to win the league every season but they do expect that the manager will show progression. We can get into an argument over whether Bruce moving us from 19th to 13th is sufficient progression but personally I have absolutely no confidence in the guy to trust him next season

Your point above suggests that we should have stuck with RDM for example longer than we did - I can't agree with this way of thinking. The manager needs to meet fans half way and deliver something positive. If it is not points or league position then he must show something in the way his team plays - we just aren't getting enough from Bruce

Sadly, I'm pretty certain that Bruce will still be with us at the start of the season and equally sure that he will fail to deliver the required level of performance or attainment.

 

[bobzy]

4 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

I think most fans are more realistic than you make out here - they don't expect to win the league every season but they do expect that the manager will show progression. We can get into an argument over whether Bruce moving us from 19th to 13th is sufficient progression but personally I have absolutely no confidence in the guy to trust him next season

Your point above suggests that we should have stuck with RDM for example longer than we did - I can't agree with this way of thinking. The manager needs to meet fans half way and deliver something positive. If it is not points or league position then he must show something in the way his team plays - we just aren't getting enough from Bruce

Sadly, I'm pretty certain that Bruce will still be with us at the start of the season and equally sure that he will fail to deliver the required level of performance or attainment.

 

No, I disagree - fans expect immediate promotion back to the Premier League. They may not think we should win the Championship, but certainly that we should have been promoted last season. The £70m spend or whatever heightened that, of course. 

RDM is an interesting one because, yes, 11 games is just no time at all to stamp your authority on a team. However, at the same time, he seemed to lose the players' confidence and some of our games were clueless performances rather than incredibly dull ones.

I'm not really "defending" Bruce in any of this - I've hated the way we play under him and it's sucked the enjoyment of the season away from me. I understand the clamour for something different, therefore. However, the expectation from our fans (rightly or wrongly) is absolutely promotion this season.

Some people have discussed replacing him with (the new?) Eddie Howe-esque managers. He's an interesting case and another that highlights how beneficial a settled period and knowledge of a club can be. At Burnley, he achieved a win percentage of 39%. Bruce apparently has achieved 41% with us this season. He may not have us playing nice football, but please let's not continue to be the club that uproots the manager after 20 games because things aren't going perfectly. Most projects take time.

Even if, ultimately, Bruce fails in the job, it's better to let him try with a settled summer behind him than simply bring in someone else to re-shape the squad and start again. 

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, bobzy said:

 

Even if, ultimately, Bruce fails in the job, it's better to let him try with a settled summer behind him than simply bring in someone else to re-shape the squad and start again. 

Exactly, i just don't get why anyone wants ANOTHER sacking. It done so well for us so far.

Give him a full pre season and lets see how he does. Bet he performs far better than RDM did in his first 11 games 

[VillaCas]

15 minutes ago, bobzy said:

No, I disagree - fans expect immediate promotion back to the Premier League. They may not think we should win the Championship, but certainly that we should have been promoted last season. The £70m spend or whatever heightened that, of course. 

RDM is an interesting one because, yes, 11 games is just no time at all to stamp your authority on a team. However, at the same time, he seemed to lose the players' confidence and some of our games were clueless performances rather than incredibly dull ones.

I'm not really "defending" Bruce in any of this - I've hated the way we play under him and it's sucked the enjoyment of the season away from me. I understand the clamour for something different, therefore. However, the expectation from our fans (rightly or wrongly) is absolutely promotion this season.

Some people have discussed replacing him with (the new?) Eddie Howe-esque managers. He's an interesting case and another that highlights how beneficial a settled period and knowledge of a club can be. At Burnley, he achieved a win percentage of 39%. Bruce apparently has achieved 41% with us this season. He may not have us playing nice football, but please let's not continue to be the club that uproots the manager after 20 games because things aren't going perfectly. Most projects take time.

Even if, ultimately, Bruce fails in the job, it's better to let him try with a settled summer behind him than simply bring in someone else to re-shape the squad and start again. 

I understand your thinking, I really do, but ultimately it comes down to a gut feel - my gut feel was that Sherwood and RDM would not be up to the job (you could argue Sherwood delivered salvation I guess) and I have the same feeling about Bruce (to be fair, not that he would be a total distaster like those two but rather that we would potter along under him and ultimately go nowhere)

I get the argument that we might give him a full summer to prepare but I do so with the absolute confidence that the end of next season will still see us looking forward to Championship football - again

 

Edited May 22, 2017 by VillaCas