Steve Bruce

[TRO]

3 hours ago, Tomaszk said:

Do the last two matches make it clear we don't?

Maybe we can agree whatever it is isn't being executed consistently.

Current issue for me is that no attempt has been made to make us less reliant on Grealish. It's up to him 100% of the time to get us up the pitch. It's up to him to feed Snodgrass and Adomah. He decides how we play because he goes looking for the ball. This was clear right through our great run. If he gets injured our season is over, we could drop out the playoffs. I hope Bruce sees this and can change personnel who won't let him down.

You have to remember its just opinions and I am not claiming to be right anymore than you.

I think opposition teams realise all our danger goes through the 2 wingers....take them out, double up on them, call it what you will, you stop Villa......but if that happens, it should leave other players free.....They have to step up to the plate, but they are not, in the last 2 games.

No player is going to have their own way, all season, but it should in theory make openings for others.....We have to have players who grab that initiative, not just drift in and out of the game.

you can talk until the cows come home about systems, gameplans and set ups....but players have to be up for it and win their duels.....no systems of gameplans will compensate for players not competing.....and I am not talking about going through the motions or "shadow boxing" to coin a phrase, I 'm talking " blood and thunder" thats what some games require, particularly those that are scraping for survival.

This game of ours is not complicated or complex, its simple and if you don't compete, you have to be very highly technically gifted to make up the difference.....not just a bit better, its not enough.

[Demitri_C]

What i dont like about bruce and he has done this countless times is gamble. He says the got selections wrong (If they are tired why is he playing them) like when he played jedinak earlier onntge season and admitting he wasn't fit.

These silly gambles are costing us big time.  

[omariqy]

I can see another bad run happening until the Cardiff game. 

[TRO]

4 hours ago, AntrimBlack said:

Not my job, Tro. I am only a fan and not sufficiently informed. People are earning huge salaries to make those sort of decisions.

But that does not hamper you from criticising our current manager.....bit double standards me thinks.

[TRO]

15 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

What i dont like about bruce and he has done this countless times is gamble. He says the got selections wrong (If they are tired why is he playing them) like when he played jedinak earlier onntge season and admitting he wasn't fit.

These silly gambles are costing us big time.  

Hmmmmm......just being devils advocate.

so he freshens it up with players, much the same in style, but not quite as good, otherwise they would be playing every match.

so they are fresher, but not as good .....could equal same outcome.

I think there are attributes missing from the squad that would serve us well, right now.

I think Samba would help if fit.....few options there.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, striker said:

That’s some post TRO.

If as you imply managers shouldn’t be judged on players purchased, how much money they’ve spent in relation to others and their remit then how should we as fans and respective club boards judge whether managers are doing a good job or not?

Furthermore, as has been pointed out to you time and time again whenever you bring out the ‘there is not a rake of managers better’ point there are teams above Villa this and last season with managers who have had far less resources to fall back on. That is a very good argument which you continually fail to consider.

I see you’ve also mentioned personal dislike of the manager as to why some are criticising him. That’s more than a tad unfair. Most on here have praised him when the team has done well and criticised when he hasn’t. That I’m afraid is the natural way of things something which in your defence of Bruce you seemingly fail to grab hold of.

Bruce’s remit this season is clear. It’s promotion or bust. He said so himself and he personally is under no illusions what will happen if he fails. He has also set out his transfer policy on that basis bringing in experienced players nearing the end of their careers to try and insure promotion rather than trying to bring more of the younger players through even when injuries hit.

At the moment it is now looking like automatic promotion is beyond Villa. That may change of course but if it doesn’t and Villa have to settle for the playoffs then that is the bare minimum of expectation and some would argue with the personnel and resources made available to him, it falls below that.

Ok lets put you right.

"If"is what you started with and its the operative word, because that is not what I am implying at all.

Does the money aspect get raised everytime Spurs or Liverpool win or lose, for folk trying to make points.

Yes, everyone has the right to criticise, but when its time for praise i.e post Wolves...you get things like....." well you would expect it really with our transfer spend".....does that sound like genuine praise or a begrudging attempt of someone dragging their feet.

Last season, is ridiculous, we was work in progress.....where is Reading or Sheff Wed, not to mention Leeds......Wolves have brought in Champions league players, do we really want to pursue that argument.

Don't roll out the Neil Warnock fella, many on here only seen him as a joke, when Steve was vying for the job.....myself and only one or 2 mentioned him as an option....and If Steve went, I would still have him, baring age is now against him.

sorry, I think some arguments against him are personal, not all, just some.

i think Auto has gone, if in fact, it was ever really there, but I think we can go up via the play offs, if we can get back on track.

I am not sure what the club's position is with promotion or quit or Steve Bruces position.

If we don't go up.....

Me......I would give him another season, yes another season and make the adjustments necessary where we have failed and build on the successful bits.

Ps forget the resources argument its a cop out....there is nothing written any where that gives you extra credit or doc points for having good or poor resources.....its a cheap attempt to discredit.....it makes it sound like Pep can only operate with money as a parallel, its pointless.

Edited March 19, 2018 by TRO

[AntrimBlack]

51 minutes ago, TRO said:

But that does not hamper you from criticising our current manager.....bit double standards me thinks.

Entirely different things. I can watch a match and have an opinion on how the team and manager are performing.

Doesn't mean I know who should be our next manager. I just do not know enough to choose, nor do I have to, but I will certainly base my opinion on the next manager on what he and the team achieves on the pitch.

And you must have seen that Bruce had my unqualified support when the team were playing well. My recent criticism is justified by recent performances.

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Ok lets put you right.

"If"is what you started with and its the operative word, because that is not what I am implying at all.

Does the money aspect get raised everytime Spurs or Liverpool win or lose, for folk trying to make points.

Yes, everyone has the right to criticise, but when its time for praise i.e post Wolves...you get things like....." well you would expect it really with our transfer spend".....does that sound like genuine praise or a begrudging attempt of someone dragging their feet.

Last season, is ridiculous, we was work in progress.....where is Reading or Sheff Wed, not to mention Leeds......Wolves have brought in Champions league players, do we really want to pursue that argument.

Don't roll out the Neil Warnock fella, many on here only seen him as a joke, when Steve was vying for the job.....myself and only one or 2 mentioned him as an option....and If Steve went, I would still have him, baring age is now against him.

sorry, I think some arguments against him are personal, not all, just some.

i think Auto has gone, if in fact, it was ever really there, but I think we can go up via the play offs, if we can get back on track.

I am not sure what the club's position is with promotion or quit or Steve Bruces position.

If we don't go up.....

Me......I would give him another season, yes another season and make the adjustments necessary where we have failed and build on the successful bits.

Ps forget the resources argument its a cop out....there is nothing written any where that gives you extra credit or doc points for having good or poor resources.....its a cheap attempt to discredit.....it makes it sound like Pep can only operate with money as a parallel, its pointless.

Think that is nonsense. He got lots of praise and credit for that result. Seems you're focusing on one or two comments, exaggerating or just making it up as that clearly was not the reaction from the vast majority after that game. 

Is he the man to make those adjustments? If we don't go up i think he has shown he isn't

[blandy]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Ps forget the resources argument its a cop out....there is nothing written any where that gives you extra credit or doc points for having good or poor resources.....its a cheap attempt to discredit.....it makes it sound like Pep can only operate with money as a parallel, its pointless.

As a general point, I totally disagree on that, TRO. - It makes a massive difference and is not at all a cop out. No one in the world think (at the start of the season) Burton Albion should go up to the Prem, but that doesn't mean Clough is a bad manager - he has no resources. Dyche is hailed (rightly) at Burnley, and the likes of Man CIty absolutely should and are expected to win the League (and the Champions league, and if they don't the manager (Pelligrini, and now Guardiola) will pay the price, precisely because they have the resources. Same applies at Man U, Real Madrid and so on.

[Nabby]

1 hour ago, TRO said:

Ok lets put you right.

"If"is what you started with and its the operative word, because that is not what I am implying at all.

Does the money aspect get raised everytime Spurs or Liverpool win or lose, for folk trying to make points.

Yes, everyone has the right to criticise, but when its time for praise i.e post Wolves...you get things like....." well you would expect it really with our transfer spend".....does that sound like genuine praise or a begrudging attempt of someone dragging their feet.

Last season, is ridiculous, we was work in progress.....where is Reading or Sheff Wed, not to mention Leeds......Wolves have brought in Champions league players, do we really want to pursue that argument.

Don't roll out the Neil Warnock fella, many on here only seen him as a joke, when Steve was vying for the job.....myself and only one or 2 mentioned him as an option....and If Steve went, I would still have him, baring age is now against him.

sorry, I think some arguments against him are personal, not all, just some.

i think Auto has gone, if in fact, it was ever really there, but I think we can go up via the play offs, if we can get back on track.

I am not sure what the club's position is with promotion or quit or Steve Bruces position.

If we don't go up.....

Me......I would give him another season, yes another season and make the adjustments necessary where we have failed and build on the successful bits.

Ps forget the resources argument its a cop out....there is nothing written any where that gives you extra credit or doc points for having good or poor resources.....its a cheap attempt to discredit.....it makes it sound like Pep can only operate with money as a parallel, its pointless.

Then your in for disappointment if we don't go us as they is no chance in the slightest he is getting another go ..for a start on the subject of resources I would say he has to be one of the highest paid managers in the league for which he was paid this on the premise ,with his history he would get promotion if he doesn't frankly we will need to save money and he will be the first causality of the cost cutting due to FFP. There was a reason he wasn't given a long contract ..so we if he failed we wouldn't end up with another pay off .

 

[sne]

2 minutes ago, Nabby said:

Then your in for disappointment if we don't go us as they is no chance in the slightest he is getting another go ..for a start on the subject of resources I would say he has to be one of the highest paid managers in the league for which he was paid this on the premise ,with his history he would get promotion if he doesn't frankly we will need to save money and he will be the first causality of the cost cutting due to FFP. There was a reason he wasn't given a long contract ..so we if he failed we wouldn't end up with another pay off .

 

Sad thing is that since he's on a rolling contract he'll get 12 months of salary whenever he's sacked.

If I understand how these things work, and that is a big if 

[Nabby]

7 minutes ago, sne said:

Sad thing is that since he's on a rolling contract he'll get 12 months of salary whenever he's sacked.

If I understand how these things work, and that is a big if 

Bad enough but least it not 2/3 years like the other muppets we have had to bin off also I just don't think he will want to stay .The constraints this season have constantly been mentioned by him next season will be even tighter I don't think at his age he will be up for that in the slightest ..remember he walked out of Hull when he didn't get the backign he wanted.

[Demitri_C]

3 hours ago, TRO said:

Hmmmmm......just being devils advocate.

so he freshens it up with players, much the same in style, but not quite as good, otherwise they would be playing every match.

so they are fresher, but not as good .....could equal same outcome.

I think there are attributes missing from the squad that would serve us well, right now.

I think Samba would help if fit.....few options there.

Samba is fit god knows why he isn’t even on the bench. 

Someone like lansbury for hourihane, hogan did well when he came on. Bruce would have been better bringing hogan on instead of RHM and played grabban on the shoulder.

last two games grabban missed sitters that have cost us dearly

Edited March 19, 2018 by Demitri_C

[TRO]

1 hour ago, AntrimBlack said:

Entirely different things. I can watch a match and have an opinion on how the team and manager are performing.

Doesn't mean I know who should be our next manager. I just do not know enough to choose, nor do I have to, but I will certainly base my opinion on the next manager on what he and the team achieves on the pitch.

And you must have seen that Bruce had my unqualified support when the team were playing well. My recent criticism is justified by recent performances.

AB My point is, you have to judge him over a period of time, not just after every match depending if it suits the recipients agenda.

I also think if we all know so much about the game and whats going wrong in the face of an experienced manager.....We must know who could do better.

We can all throw stones then run away, its not really on is it....We are all better than that surely.

If someone comes on here and criticises the performance and result and then goes on to say what they think is wrong.....not like that was **** or we should be doing better than that for the money we have spent, which basically means jack ****.

If a plausible explanation is put forward of where they think we went wrong, I think that is fair enough.

No one on here is as ****** off with the last 2 results as much as me.

[sne]

If someone could specify what wages we are offering a potential manager, what budget he will have for transfers and salaries, what the expectations will be on him, how his contract situation will be, what attributes and experience the club is looking for, if he will be allowed to bring his own coach team and so on and so on.

Then I'd try to make a few suggestions on who I'd like as our next manager that is also IMO realistic.

As it is now we don't even know which league we'll be playing in next season.

[jim]

9 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I dont think many of us saw it. If i knew this were to happen I would have preferred a draw against wolves if it meant we didn't take our foot off vs QPR and Bolton.

It's been dreadful these last two. I think its been a bottle job. If it was just QPRyou could say ok maybe a one kff. But we were not much better against Bolton. It seems we are trying to do a impersonation of derby !

I might be in a minority then but I could see we were always going to get performances like the last 2. We have played really well only a handful of times (imo) 

The rest of our performances have been mediocre at best, even when we went on that great run a lot of the performances weren’t great. The cracks have been there to see for most of the season.

I would go as far to say the Wolves performance was what I didn’t see coming, as we have seen some very average displays for the majority of the season. 

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, jim said:

The rest of our performances have been mediocre at best, even when we went on that great run a lot of the performances weren’t great. The cracks have been there to see for most of the season.

I kind of agree. In terms of me saying something new, rather than repeat what I've said many times before, I'm concerned that playing 2 games a week is not our strength. Bruce's way is solidity, with a few key players "making the difference". The two games a week thing tends to drag down the level of Terry, Snoddy, Hourihan and maybe a couple of others, which negate the "make a difference" thing to an extent, makes us less solid as well.

We have two games a week after the break, to the end of the season. Maybe we'll (hopefully) get some injured players back in the break and start again bright and bushy tailed, but I expect the standard to drop after a 2 or 3 games and it to be a real struggle after that.

[TRO]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

As a general point, I totally disagree on that, TRO. - It makes a massive difference and is not at all a cop out. No one in the world think (at the start of the season) Burton Albion should go up to the Prem, but that doesn't mean Clough is a bad manager - he has no resources. Dyche is hailed (rightly) at Burnley, and the likes of Man CIty absolutely should and are expected to win the League (and the Champions league, and if they don't the manager (Pelligrini, and now Guardiola) will pay the price, precisely because they have the resources. Same applies at Man U, Real Madrid and so on.

I get all that, but the crazy Gang had no respect whatsoever of what a team had spent facing them.....they quite often negated it.

Pete, expectation is one thing reality is another.....some teams like we have just found out put 2 fingers up to it by the way they play.

Teams do defy Money being spent in huge quantities....Aston Villa 80/81..... Leicester 2016/17......Cardiff this Season in our league.

I cannot understand how a manager can be good enough against Wolves but not in the next few days against lower placed teams......does he change his whole ethos, training methods, motivational talks and all the other things managers do in the space of 7 days.

My overall point Pete is this......I judge a manager over a season, not game to game......game to game I look more at the players, but I accept they are all in it together.

I also understand that Steve Bruce himself is taking the blame.....very noble.....I think he is screening players, but thats just my suspicion.

Edited March 19, 2018 by TRO

[TRO]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

I kind of agree. In terms of me saying something new, rather than repeat what I've said many times before, I'm concerned that playing 2 games a week is not our strength. Bruce's way is solidity, with a few key players "making the difference". The two games a week thing tends to drag down the level of Terry, Snoddy, Hourihan and maybe a couple of others, which negate the "make a difference" thing to an extent, makes us less solid as well.

We have two games a week after the break, to the end of the season. Maybe we'll (hopefully) get some injured players back in the break and start again bright and bushy tailed, but I expect the standard to drop after a 2 or 3 games and it to be a real struggle after that.

All that makes sense to me.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

Pete, expectation is one thing reality is another.

Teams do defy Money being spent in huge quantities....Aston Villa 80/81..... Leicester 2016/17......Cardiff this Season in our league.

I cannot understand how a manager can be good enough against Wolves but not in the next few days against lower placed teams......does he change his whole ethos, training methods, motivational talks and all the other things managers do in the space of 7 days.

My overall point Pete is this......I judge a manager over a season, not game to game......game to game I look more at the players, but I accept they are all in it together.

I also understand that Steve Bruce himself is taking the blame.....very noble.....I think he is screening players, but thats just my suspicion.

Yeah, fair enough, TRO - I did say it was a general point and deliberately didn't mention Bruce.

I think I've made my views on him clear before and there's nothing really changed on that - I wouldn't have appointed him, but once he's here, give him to the end of this season, don't bother fretting game by game, and at the end of the season as he's said himself, then he'll either be potted for failure, or he'll have got us up and all's good. The things that made me wary of him are still present, he's done well in some areas I didn't see and credit to him for that, he's by no means a bad manager - his record shows that he's done well at various clubs, and had periods of doing less well, too.