TRO Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, TheStagMan said: I didn't ask if he was culpable for AVFC failing to pay the May tax bill on time. I asked if you thought he shared no part in the culpability for the apparently precarious financial situation the club is now in. It seems your answer is no, and that he is completely blameless? Is this a correct interpretation of your stance? As for what you have posted - you are correct - he didn't succeed in the objective that he was set. He should have been aware, no, *must* have been aware that the one season squad he built was an all or nothing approach to getting promoted, and that we would be in financial jeopardy if we did not get promoted. If he didn't realize that then he is an idiot and should not be a football manager. He failed in his one objective after assembling an expensive, short term team. Please do not give me any bollox about him not having money to spend as it simply isn't true (have a read back through here for various articles debunking this myth). Therefore please show me your evidence that he did not collude in the finances of this club. He seems to enjoy taking the credit for saving us money so must have known the situation so your argument holds no water at all. You are making Bruce out to be some poor innocent in all of this. There is no way on earth a competent manager could sit there thinking, i'll just sign all these players on massive salaries, it's OK, there is a magic money tree that will fund it all. Xia did not pick the players. Bruce did. Bruce would also have known how much they would be offered. There is no way a senior and experienced manager of Bruce's so called caliber would not have *some* involvement in these negotiations. If what you are saying is true, and Bruce had no knowledge of the finances and just sat there picking players he wanted like a fat kid in a sweet shop, turning a blind eye to the financial side of things then he has been extremely negligent in his duty to this club, which makes him just as culpable as various others who have already gone. I think its naive to say that any senior member of the management team would be deemed as innocent, they all play a part, they have meetings, opinions are voiced, listened to and actions passed.....yes inevitably the top man carries the can, but they all have an input. Steve Bruce for his part was concerned with the expectation the club attracted and in his opinion required tried and tested experienced players to deal with it.....The teams that got promoted never had that level of expectation we had at the start of the season, it progressively grew as their results grew. Don't misconstrue my point Expectation in isolation is not holding this club back, but i think it is a burden we can do without and plays its part....The stadium alone is imposing and contributes to that expectation......young players will have to learn to live with it and gain their own experience. We set up in a manner with the best intentions, but it didn't work.....I guess we all have our own opinions why that was, some say manager alone.....I say both, players and manager have responsibilities that didn't deliver on the season, but to be fair to both, they come close. This season, will be different......changes will be forced on us and some Imo could be for the better......but that in my eyes depends on whether the manager is able to make the changes i am looking for.......I wager not......having said that i am looking for players to play a role and not necessarily expensive ones.....just competent in the job....a balance, square pegs in square holes etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 17 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: How when he has one of our highest win ratios? Because he had probably highest budget in 2nd tier history and failed his objective badly 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 minute ago, TRO said: I think its naive to say that any senior member of the management team would be deemed as innocent, they all play a part, they have meetings, opinions are voiced, listened to and actions passed.....yes inevitably the top man carries the can, but they all have an input. Steve Bruce for his part was concerned with the expectation the club attracted and in his opinion required tried and tested experienced players to deal with it.....The teams that got promoted never had that level of expectation we had at the start of the season, it progressively grew as their results grew. Don't misconstrue my point Expectation in isolation is not holding this club back, but i think it is a burden we can do without and plays its part....The stadium alone is imposing and contributes to that expectation......young players will have to learn to live with it and gain their own experience. We set up in a manner with the best intentions, but it didn't work.....I guess we all have our own opinions why that was, some say manager alone.....I say both, players and manager have responsibilities that didn't deliver on the season, but to be fair to both, they come close. This season, will be different......changes will be forced on us and some Imo could be for the better......but that in my eyes depends on whether the manager is able to make the changes i am looking for.......I wager not......having said that i am looking for players to play a role and not necessarily expensive ones.....just competent in the job....a balance, square pegs in square holes etc. Wolves would have been as royally screwed as us had they not gotten promoted, the pressure there was massive as well. Pretty much every club in the Championship have an unhealthy income to salaries ratio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted July 19, 2018 Visiting Supporter Share Posted July 19, 2018 Bruce isn't culpable imo for the financial straights Villa find themselves in at the moment. Like any other manager he asked the board to sign the players he wanted and they financed the transfers. The owner and board could have said no. What Bruce is culpable for is having the best squad of players in the Championship last season yet setting the team up on many occasions in a way which handed the initiative to inferior opposition. On his own admittance not freshing the team when it became obvious to all that the experienced players were tiring and indeed placing his transfer policy on experienced players with high wages when he could have given more younger players already at the club a chance. You also have to consider what other managers achieved in the Championship with much less resources and that is the most damning aspect of Bruce's reign at the Villa. He is still currently manager of Villa by default because I am in no doubt that if Xia had been the multi millionaire we all thought him to be Bruce would still be on a beach or tending to his garden. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, Zatman said: It must be bad when Bruce on that list of good managers You can win as many games as you want, but if you don't win the game's that matter, who cares ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 (edited) Well i dont think he should get a free pass on this regarding our issues Was times last season only Jack and Hourihane under 28 outfield in the team Edited July 19, 2018 by Zatman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post weedman Posted July 19, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted July 19, 2018 The thing is, I'm no Bruce fan boy or anything but you really can't deny that he's done a decent job. Obviously could be better and promotion was the aim but he's not the one responsible for our sky high wage bill, I'm sure I read that the wage bill is something like £20m lower than when he arrived and his net spend on transfers is about £2m or something relatively minor, AND he got us 4th and a playoff final. Sure, we've offered some high wages, but the overall trend of the wage bill is dramatically downwards, and apart from overpaying for Hogan, the majority transfer fees in have been low (do people really expect that instead of signing, say, Whelan for £1m we could have signed an equivalent player for the same price that was 10 years younger and that may be worth £10m today? There aren't a lot of those players around, and when the remit is promotion, can a manager really take that chance on an unknown - remember we tried the young and unknown under Lambert, aside from 1 or 2 success stories it rarely ends well) It seems to me his remit was reduce the wage bill, don't spend much on transfers and challenge for promotion, all of which he achieved. The mess we're in is mostly down to what happened before Bruce rather than after, his main fault was failing to gain promotion, but hey so did the title favourites Middlesbrough who spent a good £50m on players in the summer as well. I'm not the hugest fan of his football (although it's nowhere near as bad as some on here make out) and I'm all for changing if we can attract a better replacement, but I'm not convinced that we will, and at least the "devil we know" knows how to get a good team spirit going and a bit of fight from the players, which if our team is going to be left gutted will be priceless for us 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 33 minutes ago, Zatman said: Because he had probably highest budget in 2nd tier history and failed his objective badly He did or did di matteo? Was grealish and kodjia not out for alot of the season too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 5 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: He did or did di matteo? Was grealish and kodjia not out for alot of the season too? Rdm is not the promotion expert. Not like grealish and kodjia backup where low budget pick-ups Bruce failed simple as Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 12 minutes ago, Zatman said: Rdm is not the promotion expert. Not like grealish and kodjia backup where low budget pick-ups Bruce failed simple as I know this game. Bruce did not fail simple as. Back to you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 46 minutes ago, weedman said: The thing is, I'm no Bruce fan boy or anything but you really can't deny that he's done a decent job. Obviously could be better and promotion was the aim but he's not the one responsible for our sky high wage bill, I'm sure I read that the wage bill is something like £20m lower than when he arrived and his net spend on transfers is about £2m or something relatively minor, AND he got us 4th and a playoff final. Don't be so silly. Currently, he's partly to blame for our financial crisis - can we just stick to that and stop being reasonable? Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted July 19, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 19, 2018 I don't blame Bruce at all for the situation we find ourselves in. Should he have done better? Of course on paper. But he's just a human doing a job in sports where there's no guarantee of anything. The people to blame are the people above, basic accounting on incomings and outgoings and planning for all eventualities are much much easier than getting a squad of players promoted. For the record, I don't like Bruce at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 55 minutes ago, Zatman said: Rdm is not the promotion expert. Not like grealish and kodjia backup where low budget pick-ups Bruce failed simple as Didn't he just ? What a shame it is, that others can't see that simple fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 43 minutes ago, PieFacE said: I don't blame Bruce at all for the situation we find ourselves in. Should he have done better? Of course on paper. But he's just a human doing a job in sports where there's no guarantee of anything. The people to blame are the people above, basic accounting on incomings and outgoings and planning for all eventualities are much much easier than getting a squad of players promoted. For the record, I don't like Bruce at all. I dont blame him for finances but Baker for Terry/Samba. Elmo and not starting Bree. Whelan and not a younger replacement. Same with Snoddy. Nothing wrong with players. Was too much short termism and promotion was a major gamble without thinking of future 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A'Villan Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 33 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said: But can you do this! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted July 19, 2018 Author Share Posted July 19, 2018 4 hours ago, Zatman said: Rdm is not the promotion expert. Not like grealish and kodjia backup where low budget pick-ups Bruce failed simple as Rdm had the big budget bruce had a reasonable budget lets clear that up. RDM had both to start the season with bruce didn't. Had we had both the season could have started so different. Bruce win ratio is up there with our best so for me he justifies my point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Rdm had the big budget bruce had a reasonable budget lets clear that up. RDM had both to start the season with bruce didn't. Had we had both the season could have started so different. Bruce win ratio is up there with our best so for me he justifies my point. his budget was huge. Grabban, Snodgrass, Samba, Onomah, Johnstone, and Terry might have not had transfer fees but werent playing for free. Whelan, Elmo, Lansbury be on big salaries too 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 20 minutes ago, Zatman said: his budget was huge. Grabban, Snodgrass, Samba, Onomah, Johnstone, and Terry might have not had transfer fees but werent playing for free. Whelan, Elmo, Lansbury be on big salaries too And it's not as he wasn't allowed to use the players already here when he took over. Chester, Kodija, Adomah, Grealish, Jedi... have been integral parts of the team. Managing to sell players for about what we signed them for who are now going for twice as much or more (Amavi, Veretout) might make the net spend look a bit lower, but it's hardly a coup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 6 hours ago, Zatman said: Because he had probably highest budget in 2nd tier history and failed his objective badly 1 hour ago, Zatman said: his budget was huge. Grabban, Snodgrass, Samba, Onomah, Johnstone, and Terry might have not had transfer fees but werent playing for free. Whelan, Elmo, Lansbury be on big salaries too What was his budget Zatman? Was it "probably" the highest budget in all time ever or was it definitely, because those two are not the same you know. Or, have assumptions been made, latched on to and ran with because it's the popular opinion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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