Steve Bruce

[pacbuddies]

44 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yet it's you who can't explain what you meant. You just continue to dodge the question.

Yes I am confused, I've admitted this, I've asked you to explain. You can't.

I know what I infer from that. Happy to be convinced otherwise.

I think it was perfectly clear in my original post what I meant. If I had written it in hieroglyphics I could understand your request for clarification.

[Stevo985]

15 minutes ago, pacbuddies said:

I think it was perfectly clear in my original post what I meant. If I had written it in hieroglyphics I could understand your request for clarification.

Dodged again...

You're original post read as a complaint that people had lowered their expectations to playoffs.

You've since stated that your own expectations are failure to reach the playoffs, and that your original post wasn't a complaint (or a moan).

 

Easy to see why i'm confused.

[Junxs]

17 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

I have to disagree, with the amount of players leaving come june, what we will be left with and less parachute payments, combine with FFP we will once again become unstable and our decline will once again begin.

We need promotion this season no matter what it takes.

I was being sarcastic, sorry it didnt come over that way.

I cant believe he was allowed to say the target last year was survival as it clearly wasnt.

[Stevo985]

33 minutes ago, Dave J said:

Have you ever stopped and wondered if for once it may just possibly be you getting it wrong? Just a thought - i’ll Leave it with you.

I've literally admitted that I am wrong and I don't understand his post. Which is why I've asked for pacbuddies to explain what he meant.

If he could do that then I'd understand and I'll apologise for misinterpreting his post. 

As it stands I'm none the wiser. Do you know what he meant?

[Vive_La_Villa]

While I'm not happy with recent form and being 10 points behind Cardiff. From reading this site you'd think the season had already ended and we had missed promotion. 

[AvfcRigo82]

18 hours ago, pacbuddies said:

I won't be in the slightest bit disappointed. I stopped being upset by Villa after relegation. I want them to win every game and be successful but I no longer think about them between games. The last 6 years or so has seen two owners that don't have a clue and more shit managers than I care to count so why should I depress myself.

I get what you mean..

I also lived and breathed Villa if my life depended on it, I would not miss a game for love nor money, I would get a buzz of excitement before kick off and in build ups to the game etc.

I always felt we could get something from any game.

Sadly for me that feeling also left in 2010.

Since then we have been a team/club on one rapid decline.

Why should we give a shit anymore like we once did just to end up with depression at 5pm.

Villa game would have once seen me cancel everything ensuring I wouldn't miss it. Nowadays after all the years of shit we have had, I don't feel that same love anymore sadly and also follow more sporting interests nowadays that do not leave you feeling so shit come full time.

[AvfcRigo82]

3 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

While I'm not happy with recent form and being 10 points behind Cardiff. From reading this site you'd think the season had already ended and we had missed promotion. 

Sadly, I think we are only a few games/losses away from this becoming a reality.

[Dave J]

34 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I've literally admitted that I am wrong and I don't understand his post. Which is why I've asked for pacbuddies to explain what he meant.

If he could do that then I'd understand and I'll apologise for misinterpreting his post. 

As it stands I'm none the wiser. Do you know what he meant?

Stevo - I genuinely have no desire or will to comment on this further 

[Stevo985]

15 minutes ago, Dave J said:

Stevo - I genuinely have no desire or will to comment on this further 

Why ask me the question in the first place?

You always do this! Ask me a question and when I reply you tell me you don't want to know. It's so weird.

[lexicon]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

We are 10 points off automatic promotion. That is way off. 

We are way off scoring 70+ goals, which Keith Wyness stated was something needed to help get us promoted back in the summer. 

And we are way off averaging 2 pts a game which Dr T spoke about being the aim just a few months ago. 

As i say, we are way off where we aimed to be. Next game is the halfway mark and i wouldn't be that surprised to see us out the playoff spots. 

10 points is 'way off'? Don't be silly.  

At present, we're one game away from the half way point. Worst case scenario and we don't score, we'll be 6 short of the half way target. Not way off.

Currently 7 points off the 2 ppg target, again, not way off. 

It's hyperbole Jonah, plain and simple. We're not doing quite as well as expected but we're not propping up the table either. 

[sne]

Last season we were 7 points off the Play off sometime around this time of year if i remember correctly?

Always felt it was doable even thou a lot of people in hindsight have said it was mission impossible. I had more expectations of Bruce once we got a midfield in as we did in January.

I'm 99.9% sure Bruce won't be able to close the gap this season, as I've seen nothing from him here.

Another manager... who knows.

With Bruce the best we can hope for is around 6th and the Play off lottery that I feel will be stacked against us.

[pacbuddies]

41 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Why ask me the question in the first place?

You always do this! Ask me a question and when I reply you tell me you don't want to know. It's so weird.

Perhaps he doesn't wish to confuse you! 

[peterms]

31 minutes ago, lexicon said:

10 points is 'way off'? Don't be silly.  

At present, we're one game away from the half way point. Worst case scenario and we don't score, we'll be 6 short of the half way target. Not way off.

Currently 7 points off the 2 ppg target, again, not way off. 

It's hyperbole Jonah, plain and simple. We're not doing quite as well as expected but we're not propping up the table either. 

Our points total is closer to Brentford in 13th than Cardiff in 2nd position.  It feels like quite a distance off an automatic spot to me.

It's also a more challenging task than at the start of the season - catching up 10 points on Cardiff, and 6 on Bristol City and 4 on Derby, while also not being caught by the 4 teams who are within 2 points of us.  And doing that with only half the games left in which to do it.  The quality of the play in many of the games doesn't suggest that we are going to be able to make that level of improvement.  I suppose other teams might collapse like Sheff Utd have, with 4 defeats in the last 5 games, but it's pretty unlikely.

The need for an automatic spot, as we've discussed ad nauseam, is because our pretty poor record against the teams likely to be in the playoffs doesn't inspire confidence of getting promoted via that route.

[Grasshopper]

6 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

Jesus Christ, this again. NO it is not the return of two points from 3 games that has caused the knives to come out. In case you missed most of this thread (and this season) it is the negative tactics, piss poor management, our team looking inept, our lack of any playing style, the scraping of results, the lack of any visible plan B, the inability to influence a game, the excuses, the lack of playing to the player's strengths and the lack of sufficient improvement in the team for OVER A YEAR that has caused the knives to come out, the last few games are the icing on the cake showing that we have not "turned a corner" as the Bruce-in camp have been saying after each win, in fact our concerns have come true, our "good form" was not sustainable (just like last season).

We have not beaten a top 8 team (certainly this season) and yet people are confident that we will go up via the play offs?????. 

It's not funny, it really isn't. It is actually devastating, and any true Villa fan should be seriously worried about the future of this club. 

I get that the objective this year is "get promoted by any means" and Steve Bruce has achieved this miracle FOUR times, FOUR but he really does not look capable of doing it again. 

He simply IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH - We have to get rid. There is a reason he has hovered around this level for most of his managerial career.

As for the injuries excuse - Other clubs seem to have injuries as well, yet it is only us that is crippled by them - why is this? is it the lack of afore-mentioned plan B, would it be the fact that Bruce sacked off most of our strikers, and didn't think about getting in a replacement (other than Gabby?????? Jesus!), who thought that Terry, Chester and Samba was all we needed at CB for the season? Whatever it may be, injuries are part of football and it is the manager's job to mitigate injuries, and have the squad in a position where they are able to deal with the situation. If we had a system where everyone knew their roles, a different player could slot into that role and the overall team strength would remain at a similar/slightly lower level, we just seem to collapse. 

In addition, we could rotate players into and out of those roles so that they weren't playing as many games, had more recovery time and perhaps therefore would not get injured as much, and if they did then their replacement would be ready.

Best post of the whole Thread

100% correct

AND

on Sooooooo many points.

Reel those points off to a „company owner“ who „flies by“ ocassionally leaving a CEO in charge and he would go straight down to the managers office and SACK him immediately

[Grasshopper]

6 hours ago, lexicon said:

It's funny really - last 10 games we've had 5 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. Knives are now out for Bruce after a run of 3 games and a return of 2 points.

The team is suffering badly from injuries, which is not Bruce's fault and it does explain the form. 

It's never been pretty and it'll never be pretty but it has been pretty effective so far this season and can continue to be. 

I think criticism of him is warranted and fair but wanting him sacked is foolish at this juncture, IMO. 

With all due respect

You are completely and utterly missing the point

[Grasshopper]

6 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

I believe a large number of the squad are now fed up with the way they are being coached and how the team are being set up. I doubt they dislike Steve Bruce as he comes across as a blokey bloke, who’s a nice guy. However I don’t think they believe in his tactical style and are frustrated by how we set up. 

This is a squad that could play better than they have been. A decent manager would recognise this and let them off the leash, which would give them all a huge boost. New manager bounce bringing out some good individual performances, would let the confidence flow and we could finish the season very strongly. 

I dont deny injuries haven’t helped, but they haven’t really altered how we play. We haven’t played consistently decent attacking football over the last 15 months. And let’s not kid ourselves that other clubs don’t have injury problems. When we played Sheffield Wednesday recently they had something like 7 first team defenders missing. And I noticed a comment from a Cardiff player about looking forward to 5 first team players coming back from injury soon.

I would like to think that the board aren’t blind to our problems and have a plan B. Any decent board should always have a plan B (C, D, E...) regardless of how they are doing and who their manager is. If and when we replace the manager may well give us an insight as to how well we are run as a club under our new ambitious owner.

100% ^

[Grasshopper]

3 hours ago, Dave J said:

Or you could take the view that now could be a productive time to make change ahead of the window?

ran out of likes

spot on

[AvfcRigo82]

6 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

Jesus Christ, this again. NO it is not the return of two points from 3 games that has caused the knives to come out. In case you missed most of this thread (and this season) it is the negative tactics, piss poor management, our team looking inept, our lack of any playing style, the scraping of results, the lack of any visible plan B, the inability to influence a game, the excuses, the lack of playing to the player's strengths and the lack of sufficient improvement in the team for OVER A YEAR that has caused the knives to come out, the last few games are the icing on the cake showing that we have not "turned a corner" as the Bruce-in camp have been saying after each win, in fact our concerns have come true, our "good form" was not sustainable (just like last season).

We have not beaten a top 8 team (certainly this season) and yet people are confident that we will go up via the play offs?????. 

It's not funny, it really isn't. It is actually devastating, and any true Villa fan should be seriously worried about the future of this club. 

I get that the objective this year is "get promoted by any means" and Steve Bruce has achieved this miracle FOUR times, FOUR but he really does not look capable of doing it again. 

He simply IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH - We have to get rid. There is a reason he has hovered around this level for most of his managerial career.

As for the injuries excuse - Other clubs seem to have injuries as well, yet it is only us that is crippled by them - why is this? is it the lack of afore-mentioned plan B, would it be the fact that Bruce sacked off most of our strikers, and didn't think about getting in a replacement (other than Gabby?????? Jesus!), who thought that Terry, Chester and Samba was all we needed at CB for the season? Whatever it may be, injuries are part of football and it is the manager's job to mitigate injuries, and have the squad in a position where they are able to deal with the situation. If we had a system where everyone knew their roles, a different player could slot into that role and the overall team strength would remain at a similar/slightly lower level, we just seem to collapse. 

In addition, we could rotate players into and out of those roles so that they weren't playing as many games, had more recovery time and perhaps therefore would not get injured as much, and if they did then their replacement would be ready.

For me..cracking post.

[Grasshopper]

3 hours ago, lexicon said:

Saturday's line up was always going to be less than desirable given the injuries. I didn't agree with Onomah up front but we had a half-fit striker in Hogan and an absolute mess of a person in Gabby there. 

As for the post-match - he said that we made too many individual mistakes, which was true and also  'We didn't deserve to get beaten 2-0 but we also didn't do enough to win' - which is also true. What upset you so much about it?

I think automatic promotion is possible. It's certainly not a given but it can be done. I don't think we'll finish outside of the playoffs, at any rate. 

What you dont appear to comprehend is the simple facts that.

1 his appointment last season was the boards attempt to appoint someone who WOULD get us promoted

* note - even if is was an impossible task (playoffs) there was also a target of 10th set - which he failed (we finished 13th)

2 it was stated by Owner & CEO that the target this season was/is promotion

We are NOT in a promotion position

we ARE in a playoff position

* note we would have to beat 2 of the teams who finish 3rd-6th - we havent beaten a top 8 side yet this season

The point about injuries is 2 fold

1 injuries happen - some teams have more others less

2 reccuring injuries can be avoided by rotating the squad and not rushing back players from injuries or playing injured players - Bruce has done this

*note - a positive side-effect of rotation is that

1 players dont get complacent

2 rested players benefit the team over a whole season

3 players coming in and out helps the team become a unit regardless of who plays - if the manager sets out a style/system

the list goes on

Bruce seemingly ignores these factors, and appears prepared to let the consequences happen thus creating a ready made excuse for his shortcomings

[Grasshopper]

2 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

I have to disagree, with the amount of players leaving come june, what we will be left with and less parachute payments, combine with FFP we will once again become unstable and our decline will once again begin.

We need promotion this season no matter what it takes.

yes