Steve Bruce

[blandy]

7 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Thing is though, would you therefore sack him and plunge the club back into uncertainty (not that anything is certain in football) in the summer should we fail to get promoted? Assuming now we at least make the playoffs. 

I understand all the criticsm, it's not as though I was thoroughly happy with tonight, particularly first half, pulling what little hair I have left out for most of it. 

I just think that all the things we do universally applaud him for, stability, unity and team spirit could disappear quickly if he left, it's a double edged sword. 

Fair comment. To answer your question honestly - would I sack him? Yes. But my reasons are those of a fan, with different ideals to those of the owner and board, maybe. I find Villa tedious to watch, I don’t massively mind being in the Championship etc. Etc. Whereas the owner has a different outlook and will need to weigh up the risks you rightly list, against whether an alternative manager could do better. Money will come into it, too.

[Vive_La_Villa]

7 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Thing is though, would you therefore sack him and plunge the club back into uncertainty (not that anything is certain in football) in the summer should we fail to get promoted? Assuming now we at least make the playoffs. 

I understand all the criticsm, it's not as though I was thoroughly happy with tonight, particularly first half, pulling what little hair I have left out for most of it. 

I just think that all the things we do universally applaud him for, stability, unity and team spirit could disappear quickly if he left, it's a double edged sword. 

It's a tough one but I think a decision to sack him would be risk worth taking 

[Eastie]

9 hours ago, terrytini said:

I don’t really agree with the view that our recent slip ups are what gave cost us.

It’s extremely rare for a Championship Side to keep winning.

The real damage done was our woeful start. 7 Points from 7 games.

If, as an example, you take the season from September 16th, we have 69 Points from 35 games - pretty much spot on the 2 Points per game many of us thought was needed. In the same time period Cardiff have played 1 game less, and have accrued 64 Points.

The damage was done early on and the players and Bruce have actually done s good job since, In my view.

 

Can’t agree the damage was done in the first  7 games - we managed to recover from a poor start as also did fulham , we even got to 2nd place but the points dropped in the last  11 games have been the difference between us Cardiff and Fulham .

Before that we were above both teams and in the driving seat once we had got into 2nd place.

Yes the poor start didn’t help but we recovered the ground we had lost from that and had everything in our hands going into the Preston home and Fulham away games - since then we have dropped 16 points in 11 games .

For  Fulham to take 52 points out of the last 60 is also quite incredible and they fully deserve to go up in my opinion 

[Eastie]

55 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It's a tough one but I think a decision to sack him would be risk worth taking 

It’s a rollercoaster of highs and lows under Bruce and it’s refreshing to have some highs after years of lows - however to get promotion takes a level of consistency we haven’t quite reached - you can afford a bad spell but not 3 bad spells in a season .

[Demitri_C]

It seems we play better when the pressure is off, like Norwich we were under pressure to win we bottled it seemingly making this game not as important and we won.  

[Eastie]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

It seems we play better when the pressure is off, like Norwich we were under pressure to win we bottled it seemingly making this game not as important and we won.  

We are a far better team at home than away from home - away we’ve been poor against the top 4 teams conceding 7  and scoring 0 in losing to all 3 of them .

At home we’ve scored 7 and conceded one in beating all 3 of them .

i worry about the away leg kin the play offs - get through  that level and we have a great chance of going up .

[Demitri_C]

14 minutes ago, Eastie said:

We are a far better team at home than away from home - away we’ve been poor against the top 4 teams conceding 7  and scoring 0 in losing to all 3 of them .

At home we’ve scored 7 and conceded one in beating all 3 of them .

i worry about the away leg kin the play offs - get through  that level and we have a great chance of going up .

Yes we struggle away that is true. I think if we went in away leg first and lost 2-1 for example i fancy us to win the second leg at home. Hopefully the experience of our players like terry chester and co will see us through play offs 

[Demitri_C]

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, Eastie said:

Can’t agree the damage was done in the first  7 games - we managed to recover from a poor start as also did fulham , we even got to 2nd place but the points dropped in the last  11 games have been the difference between us Cardiff and Fulham .

Before that we were above both teams and in the driving seat once we had got into 2nd place.

Yes the poor start didn’t help but we recovered the ground we had lost from that and had everything in our hands going into the Preston home and Fulham away games - since then we have dropped 16 points in 11 games .

For  Fulham to take 52 points out of the last 60 is also quite incredible and they fully deserve to go up in my opinion 

Well ultimately it’s any game where we didn’t get the points we’d need to be second so you are literally correct as am I . My point about the opening 7 games is that in a consecutive period SINCE then we’ve matched our rivals.

Yes we’ve lost some but that’s normal.

As for Fulham they have indeed done exceptionally well, the have had a run the like of which is rare...nothing anyone can do about that.

[sne]

And still, every season you'll always find some plonker claiming that "the season doesn't start til' October anyway"  when trying to excuse our bad start.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 minutes ago, sne said:

And still, every season you'll always find some plonker claiming that "the season doesn't start til' October anyway"  when trying to excuse our bad start.

The season doesn't start till next season anyway...

[terrytini]

7 minutes ago, sne said:

And still, every season you'll always find some plonker claiming that "the season doesn't start til' October anyway"  when trying to excuse our bad start.

Yes just to take this and last season.

Under RDM in the pre season friendly against Boro I thought we looked mentally fragile but played some decent stuff.

I posted that the fragile character of the squad looked unchanged and recall several,people saying you can’t go on pre season..........look what happened over the next 11 games...

This season having watched them all I said we still looked shapeless, cautious, and unsophisticated....several people said you can’t go on pre season......look what happened over - particularly - the next 7 games.

Every game matters, and ( although the actual results don’t matter ) the season starts with pre season, not in September or October.

Edited April 11, 2018 by terrytini

[holteend1982]

I don't get how people can say individual brilliance saved him again when the past 3 games individuals have missed absolute sitters and pretty much cost us the points but yet that was all Bruce's fault. I think some people just don't like him and will find any excuse to have a dig at him. 

[Eastie]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

Well ultimately it’s any game where we didn’t get the points we’d need to be second so you are literally correct as am I . My point about the opening 7 games is that in a consecutive period SINCE then we’ve matched our rivals.

Yes we’ve lost some but that’s normal.

As for Fulham they have indeed done exceptionally well, the have had a run the like of which is rare...nothing anyone can do about that.

We’ve matched Cardiff - we haven’t matched Fulham - they’ve taken 71 points  from the last 34 games despite having only 10 points from their first 8 games .

[bannedfromHandV]

3 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

It's great that we can attract royalty like that.

Pretty cool that William was there too.

[DCJonah]

3 hours ago, terrytini said:

Yes just to take this and last season.

Under RDM in the pre season friendly against Boro I thought we looked mentally fragile but played some decent stuff.

I posted that the fragile character of the squad looked unchanged and recall several,people saying you can’t go on pre season..........look what happened over the next 11 games...

This season having watched them all I said we still looked shapeless, cautious, and unsophisticated....several people said you can’t go on pre season......look what happened over - particularly - the next 7 games.

Every game matters, and ( although the actual results don’t matter ) the season starts with pre season, not in September or October.

Yep, anyone who expresses concerns during pre season are mocked. And yet we see those same concerns as soon as the season starts. 

[TRO]

3 hours ago, terrytini said:

Yes just to take this and last season.

Under RDM in the pre season friendly against Boro I thought we looked mentally fragile but played some decent stuff.

I posted that the fragile character of the squad looked unchanged and recall several,people saying you can’t go on pre season..........look what happened over the next 11 games...

This season having watched them all I said we still looked shapeless, cautious, and unsophisticated....several people said you can’t go on pre season......look what happened over - particularly - the next 7 games.

Every game matters, and ( although the actual results don’t matter ) the season starts with pre season, not in September or October.

It does Terry.....but the season before it took us many games to try to eradicate this mental straight jacket that we had found ourselves in from previous years.

I know some fans will not accept the degree of repair/ rectification.....I think we was still not right when we entered the season proper.

The tricky bit for me, in these situations, is.......How long does it take, How long should it take.

its simply anyones call.

Edited April 11, 2018 by TRO

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, holteend1982 said:

I don't get how people can say individual brilliance saved him again when the past 3 games individuals have missed absolute sitters and pretty much cost us the points but yet that was all Bruce's fault. I think some people just don't like him and will find any excuse to have a dig at him. 

As usual the reality is somewhere in the middle.

You win your fair share of games and then games where you're not performing you rely on your big players to step up and win games for you. It winds me up when it's described as being "bailed out". That's why you sign/play players like Kodjia, Grealish, Adomah, Snodgrass etc. Because they can produce game winning moments when you most need them.

But then on the other hand you can't excuse the manager completely when you lose a game in which your big players have let you down. 

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Yep, anyone who expresses concerns during pre season are mocked. And yet we see those same concerns as soon as the season starts. 

Imo......whatever the work required to fix us, had not manifested itself when the season had started.

I would imagine this summer, despite the possible changes in personnel, we will be going back to work, with less major repair from demise as last season, so it is more reasonable to expect a more solid pre season.

but yes i agree pre-season is important.

[terrytini]

59 minutes ago, TRO said:

It does Terry.....but the season before it took us many games to try to eradicate this mental straight jacket that we had found ourselves in from previous years.

I know some fans will not accept the degree of repair/ rectification.....I think we was still not right when we entered the season proper.

The tricky bit for me, in these situations, is.......How long does it take, How long should it take.

its simply anyones call.

Well yes that’s a matter of opinion, some teams recover rapidly, others don’t, maybe another Manager would’ve done better, maybe not....just like despite the certainty of some nobody knows if another Manager would have got a larger points total than Bruce has.

But my point was that what was wrong was evident, both seasons ( and has been in others), in pre- season, yet anyone making observations based on those games was shot down as “ they are meaningless”.