Steve Bruce

[Mark Albrighton]

[MrBlack]

This can't be a shock to the owners.  This looked like it was on the cards from the minute we kicked off the season with effectively one centre back.  When the transfer window closed the alarm bells should have been ringing and triggering the search for alternatives.  The continued poor performances being masked by acceptable results should have done the same.

The last month of poor results and performances should have been the final straw that saw all the above planning put into action.  Last night's result should then be the trigger being pulled. 

If that isn't the case, then our new owners aren't filling me with confidence that they can guide this club to promotion. There is zero point in giving Bruce the Milwall game.  If he wins, 90+% will still want him gone. If he loses its a game wasted when the rebuild could have begun. Whatever result, the fans are going to be even more hostile than the Preston game and it will do Bruce no favours to go through that.

Only hope it's they are giving him the morning to resign before telling him to walk before lunch.

[ender4]

I think the cabbage throwing was inspired. 

All my liverpool/arsenal/man utd supporting mates are talking about the cabbage.   
Its rightly put the media spotlight on Bruce, for the first time in two years when it should have been much earlier.   

 

[Lerner's Driver]

5 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Perhaps this shows the way for Steve Bruce's next career move...

Gorgeous girlfriend feeling horny and you can't get it up? Try the new 'Get wor boots on' mood killer tapes.

Any enthusiasm you had for life annihilated with a few easy to remember, negative statements.

[Demitri_C]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

Mark you and Briny are right, some of it is uncalled for.....He is human and some of it goes beyond the pale

Unfortunately, That second half was too.....and until someone says it like it is.....The frustration will spin out of control.

That second half was a shocking display of capitulation.......If I was a coach, I would not preside over that, if I thought it wasn't me or I didn't deserve that and  that's the best I could muster out of them I would walk.

I want him out and i agree with mark. The personal on comments ate disgraceful. That av live form the stands group so very veey overly aggressive people on there. One idiot was saying it was banter of a photo of of some idiot holding a pizza to some poor skinny African child.

Back on subject the thing with the lettuce it makes any new manager like Rodgers lets say think the fans are disrespecting their maanger why would I go be a manager under them animals?

Anyway the fool that did that wont be laughing when the police catch him and he gets a life time ban

 

[Zatman]

7 minutes ago, Lerner's Driver said:

Perhaps this shows the way for Steve Bruce's next career move...

Gorgeous girlfriend feeling horny and you can't get it up? Try the new 'Get wor boots on' mood killer tapes.

Any enthusiasm you had for life annihilated with a few easy to remember, negative statements.

You are there or thereabouts in the bedroom

[Jareth]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Back on subject the thing with the lettuce it makes any new manager like Rodgers lets say think the fans are disrespecting their maanger why would I go be a manager under them animals?

Cos we're a big club.

[Zatman]

With his Keeganesque decisions I could see him going on a I would love it if we beat them rant in his next press conference 

[vreitti]

He's never gonna leave is he!? 

[pacbuddies]

7 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I want him out and i agree with mark. The personal on comments ate disgraceful. That av live form the stands group so very veey overly aggressive people on there. One idiot was saying it was banter of a photo of of some idiot holding a pizza to some poor skinny African child.

Back on subject the thing with the lettuce it makes any new manager like Rodgers lets say think the fans are disrespecting their maanger why would I go be a manager under them animals?

Anyway the fool that did that wont be laughing when the police catch him and he gets a life time ban

 

If Celtic were performing like Villa then cabbages being thrown would be the least of his worries. Don't try to make out this is just a Villa thing. Every club has its share of knuckle draggers.

[striker]

2 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I get the frustration mate and I am as frustrated as anyone with how things have panned out. Bruce out chants, you don't know what you're doing, sacked in the morning. Yes fair game given some of the crap served up but some of the vitriol on social media crosses a line into verging on hatred and is way over the top.

Last night was shocking but it wasn't something we haven't witnessed in a number of games we just perhaps hadn't been punished for it. Preston were beaten at half time and trhough our own lack lustre play and coming out foot off the gas on the back foot we let them back in to they game. I'd say in way over 75% of Bruce's games we either put two poor halves together or at least one. A decent 90 minutes is few and far between.

There is no ifs or buts this is down to Bruce. Two years, four transfer windows and backed by a fortune for this level if not in fees then certainly in wages. This is his squad and what we have seen is the best he can muster. I don't think it is down to attitude of the players. I think it is how he tells them to play. He may well have said last night at half time lets be solid, not push for a third, drop back a few yards. He certainly had to have said something as we came out with a completely different mentality and it is not for the first time. Then when all seemed lost we managed to switch up again and go back on the front foot. Something again we have seen plenty of especially this season as backed up by all the late goals. That certainly suggests there is plenty of fight in this team.

I don't know if it needs to be dissected anymore really. I am gutted he is getting the sack. Perhaps selfishly not really for him but for us. Once again a managers tenure ends under a cloud, with a crowd full of vitriol, the culmination of what has to be seen as two years of failure and therefore two more wasted years.

 

 

Very good post.

He should be given his P45 now to save him from more attacks in the next game. I don’t condone what happened to Bruce last night but if the game against Milwall goes pear shaped then Milwall fans who are not noted for their diplomacy will also join in.

I don’t want to see any manager of AVFC suffer that.

[RimmyJimmer]

34 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

I think Bruce came in when we were sinking faster then a very full bollock in a bathtub.  

He came in, made us solid and gave us a team I personally enjoyed watching.  We had Terry at Aston Villa FFS.  That's mental.  We had wingers who crossed AND scored goals.  We had Jack Grealish who (after his bad kidney injury) was given license to go an express himself.  We had Hourihane who could score from midfield.. what the **** was that about?!  Alan Hutton turned into something resembling NOT A SHITHOUSE.  

It was good. 

We didn't get up.  That was bad. We nearly got there, but ultimately, we didn't. 

This season, has been largely bad. 

I think it's time for Steve to go now.  He's lost the support and it's nigh-on impossible to turn that ship around once it's set its course, ask Jose.  

I've got a lot of questions about the seeming scatter-gun approach he's had to get us winning, but that's because he is desperate to find a solution, and I don't think he's being pragmatic enough, that's bad management.  We don't have CB's, that's bad management.  

What I do find pretty despicable though, and embarrassing is just how much spiteful hate there is going around.  Imagine hating someone you don't know personally, who is probably trying their hardest to do well.. Imagine that?  Then imagine hating someone so much you go on social media and express your opinion (who no-one gives a shit about), telling us all who are unfortunate enough to scroll past your asshat comment, how much you hate "POTATO MAN" or any of the other clever little names you've imagined for him.  

I was looking through Twitter earlier.  I came across the Villa social media team's tweet which just said "PENALTY TO VILLA" with a gif of Jack going "COME ON!!".  The tweets in reply to it were **** abysmal.  "The Bantz", or however you want to put it, were **** moronic.  Like seriously, Jeremy Kyle wouldn't even have the type of people who were dribbling over their keyboards in it's reply. 

I know it's "cool" to be over-the-top or whatever, but when every **** thinks they're Micky Flanagan it's boring. 

I mean, throwing a cabbage ffs.. 

Grow up and **** off.  I hate football fans, they're the absolute dregs of society most of them. 

Bruce has had his time, he hasn't worked out, I think it would be best for us and him to say bye now.  But I will say, that whilst it ultimately didn't work - I do have some good memories about his tenure.  And at the end of the day, only the very few get to walk away from a football job.  And at a club like Villa, that's even less likely than normal. 

 

Absolutely spot on. 

It's this idiotic sideshow that has made me pay less and less attention to a sport and team I have always loved. I still love watching the games...but as for all the nonsense spouted by some 'fans', who, in all probabilty, struggle to walk and breath at the same time, I just shake my head and walk away.

Steve Bruce is a good man, I really like him and I think he has instilled a lot of things at villa that have being missing for many years. For that he deserved respect. 

I agree that he looks like he has reached the end of his time at villa, I agree that some of his decisions are baffling, and I agree that the squad looks really unbalanced. But throwing a cabbage?? Calling him names on a little screen that he won't read anyway and can't respond to? Singing 'u dont know what you're doing?'...from morons who, by and large, don't know one end of a football pitch from the other? This is the 'hysteria' he has alluded to in the past that all the meat heads have got their knickers in a twist about...and he's spot on.

If he leaves then I wish him all the best of luck. As for the next victim, well I wish him all the best of luck too, because he's going to need it. 

[villabromsgrove]

I didn't comment after the match last night because I was too annoyed to be objective.

We played some good positive and attractive football at times in the first half and it resulted in two goals.

It was obvious to everyone that Villa were a class above a poor Preston team that clearly lacked confidence. There was only going to one way that Preston were going to get back in the game, and that was if we inexplicably decided to negatively defend that two goal lead for the rest of the match.

What was said by Bruce at half time?

The first ten minutes of the second half clearly told us that his words were "what we have we hold"!

The players didn't suddenly decide to sit twenty/thirty metres deeper as a unit. The players didn't decide to concede the acres of midfield space to Preston and get ten men behind the ball! The players didn't say to each other "let's give Preston the chance to get their confidence back"!

When you invite a team to attack you the chances of corners, free kicks, and tackles turning into penalties in the box grow exponentially, and that of course happened.

How do we know it was Bruce who told the players to change from playing attacking to defensive football? Simple .... He was stood in his technical area only feet away from the transformation and he didn't remonstrate with the players

 or try to change anything about that negative first ten minutes, so he was clearly okay with it .... even though the rest of us were tearing our hair out!

Bruce's default negativity sunk us again last night, on an occasion when we were given a glimpse (in the first half) of just how good our players can be.

Ending up with a last choice keeper, 4 right backs, 4 central midfielders, no strikers and a winger up front on his own, demonstrates the clueless lack of a "team" plan under Bruce over the past few months. 

Even so the players showed enough last night in the first half to indicate that a decent manager could immediately get so much more out of them than SB does.

Bruce has gone past the point of just holding the players back. He's now actively damaging us on a match by match basis!

Let's just remind ourselves .... Preston were bottom of the table .... the 24th worst team in the league! Bruce's fear of losing to the worst form team in the league killed us last night! 

 

Message to NSWE .... BRUCE .... OUT .... NOW !!!!!!

[villaglint]

9 minutes ago, villabromsgrove said:

Ending up with a last choice keeper, 4 right backs, 4 central midfielders, no strikers and a winger up front on his own, demonstrates the clueless lack of a "team" plan under Bruce over the past few months. 

Message to NSWE .... BRUCE .... OUT .... NOW !!!!!!

Been laughing to myself about the 4 RB thing this morning. Completely forgot about the 4 Central midfielder thing and the winger upfront thing. It's all completely mad and you wonder how someone with so much experience can get themselves into this kind of mess. 

One thing is clear though the management of Villa came into this season fully backing Bruce and have been really caught out by this run. They are clearly nowhere near hiring anyone else and don't want to go down the caretaker route. I genuinely can't believe after that performance and result that he's still here at lunchtime the following day. 

[Indigo]

I've been as patient with him as I can this season after he managed to curry enough favour from last year, but I've gone from on the fence over him leaving (simply because of the dearth of obvious and suitable replacements out there, mind) to willing to accept whatever comes next as long as there's some kind of change. 1 win in 10 against the level of opposition we've been playing with our squad is past the point of unacceptable.

Needless to say the lack of numbers at the back is an issue, but we don't exactly help ourselves do we? Last night I couldn't believe how we came out for the second half. If you're a side as top-heavy as we are then you have to play to your strengths and ensure there's as little defending to do as possible, and in the first half we did that. Defensive frailties weren't exposed because Preston weren't given the chance to do so - we played on the front foot, kept them pinned back with our far more talented midfielders and forwards and deservedly were two goals up. Quite why we abandoned that after half time and invited Preston onto us is absolutely bizarre and we got what we asked for. You have to expect that team's will come into the game more - or at least attempt to - after half time under those circumstances, so shifts in momentum are fine, but you ride that out and gradually get back to taking control over the game. There was no sign of that on our end, rather we voluntarily limited ourselves in a desperate effort to hold onto something we easily could have built on.

That was shocking and has summed up the way things have gone recently, the equaliser and subsequent penalty hammered home even more how ridiculous and haphazard we are.

The personal insults are genuinely embarrassing and some people should really give their heads a shake for some of the vitriolic nonsense they've come out with, but we're past the point of Bruce being able to rescue this and it's best we get shot of him as soon as possible while there's still enough time to put a run together to get us challenging again.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Indigo

[rubberman]

Just one thing re the 4 right backs.  For the whole season, Bruce has been castigated for playing Axel (nominally a CB) out of position at RB. You can't then give him grief for playing '4 RBs' when Axel is one of them.  I know it doesn't fit the 'Bruce doesn't know what he's doing' narrative', but it's unnecessary.   There's more than enough real crap to have a go about.

[hippo]

1 hour ago, MrBlack said:

This can't be a shock to the owners.  This looked like it was on the cards from the minute we kicked off the season with effectively one centre back.  When the transfer window closed the alarm bells should have been ringing and triggering the search for alternatives.  The continued poor performances being masked by acceptable results should have done the same.

The last month of poor results and performances should have been the final straw that saw all the above planning put into action.  Last night's result should then be the trigger being pulled. 

If that isn't the case, then our new owners aren't filling me with confidence that they can guide this club to promotion. There is zero point in giving Bruce the Milwall game.  If he wins, 90+% will still want him gone. If he loses its a game wasted when the rebuild could have begun. Whatever result, the fans are going to be even more hostile than the Preston game and it will do Bruce no favours to go through that.

Only hope it's they are giving him the morning to resign before telling him to walk before lunch.

Exactly my thoughts - He will go - but I am sensing a farcical manager search - and we will end up with someone that we could have appointed all along..

Whilst Bruce is clearly finished - I am not hopeful that we are on the cusp of a brave new era.

[villaglint]

10 minutes ago, rubberman said:

Just one thing re the 4 right backs.  For the whole season, Bruce has been castigated for playing Axel (nominally a CB) out of position at RB. You can't then give him grief for playing '4 RBs' when Axel is one of them.  I know it doesn't fit the 'Bruce doesn't know what he's doing' narrative', but it's unnecessary.   There's more than enough real crap to have a go about.

You are right it isn't necessary but it is funny. Given the number of RBs at the club it was only a matter of time I suppose. 

[rodders0223]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

With his Keeganesque decisions I could see him going on a I would love it if we beat them rant in his next press conference 

I WOULD LOVE IT IF WE WENT OUT THERE AND ROLLED OUR SLEEVES UP. LOVE IT!!

[rodders0223]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

With his Keeganesque decisions I could see him going on a I would love it if we beat them rant in his next press conference 

I WOULD LOVE IT IF WE WENT OUT THERE AND ROLLED OUR SLEEVES UP. LOVE IT!!