Steve Bruce

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, sidcow said:

Booo. England have lost.  BRUCE OUT. 

Well they definitely played the 2nd half like he gave the half time team talk 

[srsmithusa]

You can argue that his interview didn’t hurt prices or Aston Villa.  But I would argue that I’m having a hard time seeing any way his statements could HELP Villa or increase prices, but it did set him up as the victim with ammunition for him to remain “Teflon” in the eyes of many.   

[eholm]

Never been convinced by Bruce, however, I am now pretty nonplussed about our Manager whoever he his as the real issue is TX and his continued damaging ownership of our Club. Circular duscussions about SB all seem very secondary to me at this moment in time....

[Rob182]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

No, we couldn't. The only possible way you could believe this to be true is if you think Daniel Levy and Mauricio Pochettino make up their transfer strategy based on Sky Sports interviews. 

Everybody knows we're a basket case. The only trade-off that matters for Spurs is a] pay a bit more now and Grealish has time to train with the team and get a bit of pre-season in with them, or b] wait and drag the price down, but then he does his pre-season with us. That's for them to decide, but you can be 100% certain that that decision won't be based on a Sky Sports interview. 

No-where else have we officially confirmed that our BEST and most valuable player HAS to be sold. So of course it’s going to effect what they offer. How could it not?

No-one other than Tony and the people privy to our finances know the full extent of our problems. If we go by the media then we can’t pay a £5m tax bill monthly, but what happened with the July one that would have been due last week?

One week the media says we have to make up £40m for FFP, then it was £60m, then £75m, and then another report said that not all was as bad as first feared and that there is hope we could keep our better players.

Fans could be forgiven for thinking that only the people within the club, and those close to them, would know the full extent, and that it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that we might have been able to cope by just selling a handful of fringe players plus Chester and Kodjia.

I’ve been called naive in this thread, but I think is naive for people to believe that all other football clubs magically know the ins and outs of our finances. If they knew, and that information got out to them, then why would the fans also not have this crystal clear picture of our financial situation? Because no-one knows for certain.

It was stupid of Bruce to say what he said. Until that interview, you can guarantee that some fans, clubs and players probably still thought there was a slim chance he could stay. As soon as Bruce says he has to be sold, everyone knows for certain the situation, and his price immediately drops. Maybe Bruce was playing the victim, an unfortunate situation forced upon him, lowering expectations, like he’s done in the past.

[AvfcRigo82]

18 hours ago, bobzy said:

What World do people live in?  No-one is interested in buying Richards, McCormack, Tshibola, De Laet etc. - and certainly not for the amount of money that we need to, apparently, raise.  It's only going to come from our better players and I'd guess that we're basically advertising this fact to get sales done early.  It's clearly a board directive.

No manager in the World wants to get rid of their best players and resign from their position.  Acting like a 2nd coming proclaiming he financially saved us  

We live in the real one pal.

Not sure what one you live in but you would obviously be happy to sell all our sellable assets first and keep the shit we can't get rid of...

Then 4 months into the season you will perhaps be wondering why we are 18th position and moan that we are playing with deadwood we couldn't shift.

[AvfcRigo82]

18 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

But but but on Football Manager you just click a button and you get offers, you mean real life isn't like this?! 

Not anymore.

Sorry your bubble of illusion has been dashed. Shit I know.  

[Vive_La_Villa]

Bruce’s last interview was very Lambertesque yes man style in my opinion. Seems to me he has been told his remit is to keep us in the league whilst getting us black in the black.  

So I can see it going two ways.

1) He some how manages to keep us competitive and as a long shot of top 6. Got no issue with that but seems unlikely scenario.

2) He struggles and we float around the bottom 6 for a lot of the season. Eventually the club react by sacking Bruce and someone else takes over. Probably a manager sacked by another club in the league. 

This manager manages to keep us up by the skin of our teeth. Something Bruce probably would have managed to do anyway but this new guy will get the plaudits as deemed to have saved us after Bruce nearly ruined us. 

We then go again with this new manager and the second scenario above gets repeated.

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 hour ago, Rob182 said:

It was stupid of Bruce to say what he said. Until that interview, you can guarantee that some fans, clubs and players probably still thought there was a slim chance he could stay. As soon as Bruce says he has to be sold, everyone knows for certain the situation, and his price immediately drops. Maybe Bruce was playing the victim, an unfortunate situation forced upon him, lowering expectations, like he’s done in the past.

Listen to the interview again. The naming of players was intentional. I’m convinced the club and agents had him do that to get the bids started.

We need money and need it fast. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Rob182 said:

No-where else have we officially confirmed that our BEST and most valuable player HAS to be sold. So of course it’s going to effect what they offer. How could it not?

No-one other than Tony and the people privy to our finances know the full extent of our problems. If we go by the media then we can’t pay a £5m tax bill monthly, but what happened with the July one that would have been due last week?

One week the media says we have to make up £40m for FFP, then it was £60m, then £75m, and then another report said that not all was as bad as first feared and that there is hope we could keep our better players.

Fans could be forgiven for thinking that only the people within the club, and those close to them, would know the full extent, and that it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that we might have been able to cope by just selling a handful of fringe players plus Chester and Kodjia.

I’ve been called naive in this thread, but I think is naive for people to believe that all other football clubs magically know the ins and outs of our finances. If they knew, and that information got out to them, then why would the fans also not have this crystal clear picture of our financial situation? Because no-one knows for certain.

It was stupid of Bruce to say what he said. Until that interview, you can guarantee that some fans, clubs and players probably still thought there was a slim chance he could stay. As soon as Bruce says he has to be sold, everyone knows for certain the situation, and his price immediately drops. Maybe Bruce was playing the victim, an unfortunate situation forced upon him, lowering expectations, like he’s done in the past.

Do you honestly believe that 'the full extent of our problems' is a closely guarded secret? Six weeks or so after HMRC issued us with a winding-up order, which was reported on the back pages of every national newspaper? We're not talking about 'magically knowing the ins and outs of our finances'. Clubs don't need to know if we need to make up £40m or £65m for FFP. Less than two months ago we narrowly avoided being wound up, and since then the only source of meaningful income has been an opaque £50m loan from China, to be spread over two years, with unknown conditions attached, which is nowhere near enough to be a game-changer. We are filing documents with Companies House to sell small parcels of land. We have brought forward payments from other clubs at unfavourable rates to get enough ready cash to survive short term. And you think some of those same clubs haven't cottoned on that we're in financial trouble? In an industry which has less than 500 people who really matter, and whose activities are reported in the national media every day?

[VILLAMARV]

57 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

No-where else have we officially confirmed that our BEST and most valuable player HAS to be sold. So of course it’s going to effect what they offer. How could it not?

No-one other than Tony and the people privy to our finances know the full extent of our problems. If we go by the media then we can’t pay a £5m tax bill monthly, but what happened with the July one that would have been due last week?

One week the media says we have to make up £40m for FFP, then it was £60m, then £75m, and then another report said that not all was as bad as first feared and that there is hope we could keep our better players.

Fans could be forgiven for thinking that only the people within the club, and those close to them, would know the full extent, and that it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that we might have been able to cope by just selling a handful of fringe players plus Chester and Kodjia.

I’ve been called naive in this thread, but I think is naive for people to believe that all other football clubs magically know the ins and outs of our finances. If they knew, and that information got out to them, then why would the fans also not have this crystal clear picture of our financial situation? Because no-one knows for certain.

It was stupid of Bruce to say what he said. Until that interview, you can guarantee that some fans, clubs and players probably still thought there was a slim chance he could stay. As soon as Bruce says he has to be sold, everyone knows for certain the situation, and his price immediately drops. Maybe Bruce was playing the victim, an unfortunate situation forced upon him, lowering expectations, like he’s done in the past.

I think the point was more along the lines of Levy doesn't care about any of that. He might be interested in buying a player for his own club though.

Anyone involved in running other clubs or in 'the game' don't need to go watching skysports to keep abreast of what's going on and if they do their contacts must be awful. No they may not know the intimate details or fine print but our financial position will have been discussed 'off the record' on golf courses, in restaurants and bars etc etc by all manner of people. Unfortunately in this case we have all been suckered by this dude selling snake oil - well not all - I remember @TrentVilla getting frustrated at our collective hubris last summer. Seems we owe him an apology if/when he peeps out from behind the sofa.

[HanoiVillan]

6 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Listen to the interview again. The naming of players was intentional. I’m convinced the club and agents had him do that to get the bids started.

We need money and need it fast. 

Bingo. The players are leaving; the alternatives are them leaving at knock-down rates on deadline day, when we have no time or money to replace them, or (however forlornly) hoping to start a minor bidding war, which is the only way we can try to keep prices up. 

[Hoof hearted]

6 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Well they definitely played the 2nd half like he gave the half time team talk 

Slightly off topic, but did anybody else watch the game last night and think it was exactly like watching Villa? I even posted on my Facebook page something along the lines of "this is like watching Villa every week for me, you're welcome!" 

On topic.. Err.. Bruce out? Or in? You decide.

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, Hoof hearted said:

Slightly off topic, but did anybody else watch the game last night and think it was exactly like watching Villa? I even posted on my Facebook page something along the lines of "this is like watching Villa every week for me, you're welcome!" 

On topic.. Err.. Bruce out? Or in? You decide.

 I delighted in the tears of people who don't otherwise follow football, I wanted to lick those tears off their salty part-time faces. 

Bruce In.

[bobzy]

18 hours ago, Rob182 said:

And @bobzy no-one is expecting us to get £40m+ for a few fringe players, but it's not unrealistic to aim to get £500k-£2m for each of Elmo, Taylor, Tish, De Laet, McCormack, Whelan or Gardner, if there were any takers. Or maybe a few extra million for Jedinak, Adomah, Lansbury, Hourihane or Hogan. Wages are an issue, but if we offer to top-up the additional wages for the new club, then we'll still be saving and making money. This could all be considered before we get to the prospect of selling Grealish, Kodjia, Chester & Green. Say we managed to scrape together £12m by selling Lansbury, Gardner, Taylor, McCormack (for a huge loss) Tish, De Laet and Elmo. Would you prefer to lose all of those and be able to keep Grealish, or would you prefer to lose Grealish for £15m and keep all the fringe players? I think this is the point that was being made, and I agree with it. Even if there's a 10% chance of other clubs wanting some of these players, with us paying a small portion of their new wages, it's still something worth considering before a manager simply tells the world "We have to sell Jack". (...and before someone posts the next childish remark, I'm not insinuating that we sell ALL of those aforementioned players. I'm saying that if we transfer list a number of them, or make enquiries to interested parties, then we could potentially sell 5,6,7 of them). If we truly believe that Jack's value is £30-40m then should we not try to get the club on an even keel, keep him here and sell him when we can actually command his true value?

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that taking losses on purchased players (and even topping up wages) is actually harmful with regards to FFP.  Could be wrong here, though.

In any case, no-one is buying those players.  One Jack Grealish is worth more than all of McCormack, Tshibola, Gardner, Whelan, De Laet and Richards unbelievably comfortably.  I would be amazed if we got anywhere near £10m for the lot of them.  Also, there is literally no point in selling first team squad players like El Mohammady, Taylor, Hourihane or Lansbury - we wouldn't get much for them and we'd need to replace them afterwards.

We're obviously short on cash and need to sell our best players to help cover the losses.  There is literally no chance, no chance that we're offloading a load of crap on relatively high wages that we don't want.  We've been trying that for years and failing.

 

FWIW, I'd try and sell our other better players before Grealish to see if it would be possible to keep him - certainly Kodjia.  Whilst he'd be a loss, we have cover in that position.

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

We live in the real one pal.

Not sure what one you live in but you would obviously be happy to sell all our sellable assets first and keep the shit we can't get rid of...

Then 4 months into the season you will perhaps be wondering why we are 18th position and moan that we are playing with deadwood we couldn't shift.

You've answered my problem with your suggestion right here - "the shit we can't get rid of".  We're not magically selling those players now.  You're living in a dreamworld if you think we are.

[TRO]

20 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Surely we need to clear out the dead wood first. Richards, Gil, De Leat, Taylor, McCormack, Tshibola etc. first before selling off our good stock?

Wouldn't suprise me to see him **** this up too selling our assets, leave us with high earning deadwood wage thiefs, and resign a week before the season starts and self proclaiming that he financially saved us by selling Grealish and the like and acting like a 2nd coming. I can see it all now.

"Clear out the deadwood"....do you think other clubs are idiots....we couldn't give them away the wages they are on.

we can only sell players that are desired by other clubs.

its a drag, isn't it.

[AvfcRigo82]

7 minutes ago, bobzy said:

You've answered my problem with your suggestion right here - "the shit we can't get rid of".  We're not magically selling those players now.  You're living in a dreamworld if you think we are.

So that said, if not one is willing to purchase - fine.

But would it not be better to release them early than keep them here doing nothing anyway?

The fact is that the basis of my original comment was to focus on the deadwood before selling the gems. Wether that be sell them/loan them/release etc.

Sorry if my post got under your skin or caused you offence. 

[TRO]

56 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I think the point was more along the lines of Levy doesn't care about any of that. He might be interested in buying a player for his own club though.

Anyone involved in running other clubs or in 'the game' don't need to go watching skysports to keep abreast of what's going on and if they do their contacts must be awful. No they may not know the intimate details or fine print but our financial position will have been discussed 'off the record' on golf courses, in restaurants and bars etc etc by all manner of people. Unfortunately in this case we have all been suckered by this dude selling snake oil - well not all - I remember @TrentVilla getting frustrated at our collective hubris last summer. Seems we owe him an apology if/when he peeps out from behind the sofa.

Yes.....Trent was right on Xia.

[bobzy]

1 minute ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

So that said, if not one is willing to purchase - fine.

But would it not be better to release them early than keep them here doing nothing anyway?

The fact is that the basis of my original comment was to focus on the deadwood before selling the gems. Wether that be sell them/loan them/release etc.

Sorry if my post got under your skin or caused you offence. 

1.  Apparently not, no.  It somehow makes FFP worse for us (something to do with spreading players costs over a length of time rather than one lump).

2.  There is not any team/manager/player/owner/fan in the World who would want to keep all the crap players before selling the good ones.  You can't seriously think that's our plan?

[TRO]

4 hours ago, srsmithusa said:

You can argue that his interview didn’t hurt prices or Aston Villa.  But I would argue that I’m having a hard time seeing any way his statements could HELP Villa or increase prices, but it did set him up as the victim with ammunition for him to remain “Teflon” in the eyes of many.   

Or an explanation to aid the repositioning of the expectation level.