Steve Bruce

[Villarocker]

Just now, AvfcRigo82 said:

Granted.. what happens when we are promoted, can he take us on to that next level where Tony Xia is aiming for, I am not to sure he could?

That all comes down to personal opinion mate. He might, he might not. Sometimes it works - ala Eddie Howe. Sometimes it doesn't - ala Dyche's first promotion season. Burnley are now reaping the rewards of keeping faith with Dyche and not pushing the panic button.

All I know is this, the prophets of FFP claim that this is our make or break season. If so, I believe it is more important than ever to part company with Bruce and take a chance that someone else can come in and get us beating the teams around us at the top of this league.

[Villarocker]

Interesting stats rom this season:

Brentford have taken 7 points out of 21 against the current top 7 - played 4 at home and 3 away.

Villa have taken 4 points from 21 against the top 7 - played 3 at home and 4 away.

Brentford lost 3 of their best players in the summer, including one of their top scorers from last season. Villa recruited a Champions League winner to bolster our defence and Captain the team. Whether you rate Smith or not, he is doing a great job at Brentord.

Villa v 'Boro stats

Villa have won 3 and drew 1 of  last 4 visits to the Riverside.

Pulis has never lost a home match against Villa - 5 wins and 1 draw.

Bruce has never won at the Riverside 8 defeats and 1 draw.

Villa have a good record but the manager doesn't. Why do I feel the best we will do is sneak a point?

Come on Brucey - prove me wrong and get a vital win on the board!

 

[Demitri_C]

2 hours ago, sidcow said:

Not if we appoint the right man.  They are not all pants you know. 

Yeah we have done so well on that front in the past.

Also we go a 3-5 bad run and fans always want the manager sacked. 

[sidcow]

56 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

It's whether our own aims and ambitions are as high really or if we are an attractive pull.

I fear the longer we gamble in a hope Bruce gets a miracle the more likely we are to attract someone like Citizen Smith, let alone Dean Smith!

POWER TO THE PEOPLE 

[TheStagMan]

2 hours ago, M_Afro said:

I think you should read back. I never wanted Bruce. I knew exactly what we would be getting with him and I was right. A lack of imagination lead us to Bruce. A similar lack of imagination would lead us to Smith. What are his credentials; His team play well against us, he is a villa fan, he isn’t Steve Bruce! What else exactly? 

He may turn out to be a brilliant manager at a big club but why take the risk. The Villa job is much more attractive than people give it credit. We are a big club, have great facilities, great support, a patient owner, a good squad at this level, a big budget. We should not be scraping around for managers like Smith who have never achieved anything. There is a World of difference between managing Brentford and managing AVFC. We need an innovative but shrewd appointment. We cannot afford another failure!

Apologies, i was not clear what I meant. which was......

the attitude of "we must employ someone who has achieved this before" is what has lead us to Bruce. (not saying YOU wanted Bruce). The likely outcome of the same sort of thinking now will be one of the also men from the usual manager merry-go round. 

Given our failings in the past, I would be more than happy to give someone like Smith a chance. Experience and big club history in a manager has not worked in the past. Time to try something new.

[dn1982]

People saying the Villa job would be too big for Dean Smith seem to be missing the fact it’s too big for Steve Bruce so who do we go for? Everyone here would take Sean Dyche or Eddie Howe but they’re a team clubs no where near as big as us. The reason I’d have Dean Smith is the Football his team play. If we’d are going to be crap let’s at least make it enjoyable. At present it’s crap football and not very good results which I dont think is hard for a new manager to beat. I hope we sack Bruce and appoint someone to match the vision of this mythical Villa Engine. I don’t buy into our club being too big for any manager or player it’s something Bruce peddles to get leeway. He isn’t a good enough manger and sometimes players aren’t going good enough either. 

[TheStagMan]

9 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Yeah we have done so well on that front in the past.

Also we go a 3-5 bad run and fans always want the manager sacked. 

Rubbish. 

He has been given lots of time. Its a 5 game bad run on the end of a year of diabolical performances.

 

I do agree Learner's managerial appointment record has been poor, and Xia has not done *that* well either, but past failures should not prevent us from getting rid of a current failure.

[Eastie]

Intersting no press conference from Bruce today - the website usually make a big issue of broadcasting it and tweet news from it but today not a peep . 

[Tayls]

8 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Intersting no press conference from Bruce today - the website usually make a big issue of broadcasting it and tweet news from it but today not a peep . 

That’s because Marketing (who control social media etc) are still in Tenerife. Kev will be back soon. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

12 hours ago, sidcow said:

Whelan player of the year many times voted by the fans. 

Snodgrass promoted before important part of a winning team. 

Adomah promoted before important part of a winning team.

Lansbury best stats in the league and my Forest supporting mate was gutted he left, easily their best player. 

Elmohamady promoted before important part of a winning team. 

Elphick promoted before important part of a winning team. 

Neil Taylor many adequate performances in The Premier League which is light years ahead of where we are. 

Jack Grealish in a previous Aston Villa teams has shaken Liverpool at Wembley and made Everton players look like children. 

I have heard rumours that John Terry looked a decent Premier League quality defender. 

Shall I go on? 

In addition to the 2 you have already mentioned we have always got at least 11 players which every team in this league would look at enviously. 

Bruce without any question or doubt has the tools to get automatic promotion from this league regardless of expectation or blips. 

The only question remaining is why these talented people look so bloody awful week in week out and look highly likely to lose everytime they take the field and even when they have manged to win with reasonable frequency it's been on a wing and a prayer. 

It never looked likely to take much to turn our wins into draws and our draws into defeats and so it has turned out. 

The manager is the problem not the players. 

Ok fair points. Yet no striker. How on earth does a team get automatic promotion without a decent striker? No manager has ever achieved that. 

[peterms]

1 hour ago, Eastie said:

Said this was the case before the game - 

Bruce gave us the perfect team talk to beat Aston Villa says Brentford star

“I think it’s hard, no disrespect to Brentford, Barnsley, but this is a different kettle to those clubs where there’s no real expectation,” he said.

“Staying in the division is probably the expectation, with that they can flourish.

Canos added: “I think we read what the Aston Villa manager said about us and we didn't agree in the changing room and we showed everyone that we can push and beat big clubs in this league. That's a challenge.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-bruce-gave-perfect-team-14090958

Well, you might at least give Steve credit for being able to motivate players.

A bit churlish of you not to mention it, I thought.

[jacketspuds]

I was just thinking. If you compared the PL to the Championship surely we would be the Championship equivalent of Man City or Man Utd, in terms of squad, finances and infrastructure. We should be there or thereabouts, in serious contention for the title every season.

Wonder where the City or Utd managers would be if their clubs were languishing in 8th place halfway through the season.

[Eastie]

9 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

I was just thinking. If you compared the PL to the Championship surely we would be the Championship equivalent of Man City or Man Utd, in terms of squad, finances and infrastructure. We should be there or thereabouts, in serious contention for the title every season.

Wonder where the City or Utd managers would be if their clubs were languishing in 8th place halfway through the season.

Ask David moyes

[sidcow]

33 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

I was just thinking. If you compared the PL to the Championship surely we would be the Championship equivalent of Man City or Man Utd, in terms of squad, finances and infrastructure. We should be there or thereabouts, in serious contention for the title every season.

Wonder where the City or Utd managers would be if their clubs were languishing in 8th place halfway through the season.

Or if the fans of those clubs basically blame the players and feel the managers doing a fine job. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by sidcow

[sne]

31 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Ok fair points. Yet no striker. How on earth does a team get automatic promotion without a decent striker? No manager has ever achieved that. 

Huddersfield did it last season under Wagner.

Weills had 10 and Kachunga had 12

Adomah already has 11 for us this season, but then again he's not a striker.

[sidcow]

36 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Ok fair points. Yet no striker. How on earth does a team get automatic promotion without a decent striker? No manager has ever achieved that. 

You mentioned Hogan in your original post. He is another who has been a worldie elsewhere but Bruce can't get a tune out of him. 

Not to mention McCormack, OK he might be unstable but plenty of other managers have got him scoring. 

[Rob182]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Yeah we have done so well on that front in the past.

Also we go a 3-5 bad run and fans always want the manager sacked. 

Yep. It's a shame that we had a bad run right at the start of the season, because it means that some fans will rightly or wrongly have that in their mind for the rest of the year, and also that the fans/players may fear a loss as soon as we go 1 goal down.

 

If our decent run of form from September to November (WWWWLWDWLWWW) was at the start of the season, then we might be looking at this season completely differently.

[TheStagMan]

1 minute ago, Rob182 said:

Yep. It's a shame that we had a bad run right at the start of the season, because it means that some fans will rightly or wrongly have that in their mind for the rest of the year, and also that the fans/players may fear a loss as soon as we go 1 goal down.

 

If our decent run of form from September to November (WWWWLWDWLWWW) was at the start of the season, then we might be looking at this season completely differently.

But it wasn't and we aren't. Unfortunately.

 

To add to that, very few of our wins have looked convincing. That's the problem, not just the results. If we were playing well with intent and losing the same number I think there would be a lot less people calling for his head.

[hippo]

1 minute ago, TheStagMan said:

But it wasn't and we aren't. Unfortunately.

 

To add to that, very few of our wins have looked convincing. That's the problem, not just the results. If we were playing well with intent and losing the same number I think there would be a lot less people calling for his head.

Really ? 

Although to be honest you don't play well and loose on a regular basis. I think Dean Smith would be very similar to Sherwood, very gung ho, up and at em , but error prone in defence . Smith has quite a few detractors at Brentford for his sides defensive frailties - I believe they have dropped more points from winning positions than anyone else. 

You might think you would be enthralled by a few 6-5 defeats, but that would be very short lived IMO.

 

[TheStagMan]

2 minutes ago, hippo said:

Really ? 

Although to be honest you don't play well and loose on a regular basis. I think Dean Smith would be very similar to Sherwood, very gung ho, up and at em , but error prone in defence . Smith has quite a few detractors at Brentford for his sides defensive frailties - I believe they have dropped more points from winning positions than anyone else. 

You might think you would be enthralled by a few 6-5 defeats, but that would be very short lived IMO.

 

Yes, really. The issue for me (and many others, based on their posts). Its the different between feeling we lost a game due to bad luck vs feeling that we won due to good luck. 

In the former scenario the mindset is that wins are the normality and the latter (where we are) that failing to win is the normality, so are more worried when we don't.