TRO Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 2 minutes ago, Zatman said: pretty sure we dont even negotiate. We just offer a blank cheque seemingly. it just smacks of lazy management. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave J Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 22 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said: The last decent manager we had until MO'N. Personally I would have Big Ron and Brian ahead of Springsteen tbh with you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashingqwerty Posted July 19, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 19, 2018 47 minutes ago, TRO said: I agree with all that Mark, But I do have a bit of an Issue, with one element and I am not expecting you to agree with me. I am not really sure what he was expected to do with them, Its up to them to do the business in many ways.....I have my doubts about a few of them....as an example : Albert for one went off form and Green was injured, not sure what he is expected to do about that....Grabban's form slipped and the goals dried up. In a similar parallel.....Sterling had a mixed World Cup for me, I have seen him play a lot better and Harry Kane's final 3 Games never lived up to the huge reputation he has deservedly built.....would you blame Gareth Southgate for that. I wouldn't.......He could have changed it, but he can't change their form. Managers can work with players, but they can't get their form back for them, only they can do that.....They can play other players, but thats another debate. I am not trying to abdicate managers from responsibility, but I do think they get the finger at times, when it should be pointed at the player. unfortunately Tro, poor form didnt cost us anywhere near as many points as fatigue. On more than a few occassions Bruce fielded a nearly unchanged side where we played 3 games in 7 days when he could clearly see (and later openly admitted) the players needed to be rotated. Had he done this only 2 or 3 times i could accept it, but he kept making the same mistakes, repeating the same poor decisions (like throwing 4 strikers onto the pitch at the expense of the midfield - strikers wont score if there is noone on the pitch winnig the ball or creating chances for them). Silly decisions a man of his experience shouldnt be making and certainly shouldnt have been making as often as he did, particularly when he kept admitting he made a mistake. o say 'oh i got that wrong' then to do the same thing over and over again is the reason i want him gone. I dont think he is up to it anymore. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 6 minutes ago, TRO said: seemingly. it just smacks of lazy management. reminds me of that Peter Ridsdale/ Seth Johnson story which summed up Leeds madness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashingqwerty Posted July 19, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 19, 2018 15 minutes ago, TRO said: and notoriously poor negotiators, when it comes to value for money......your second line makes it even more spooky....how that stat could go so unchecked, its reckless. Well it seems to me that our competitors get some frustrating good players (that come to Villa Park and give us a hard time) for low wages.....How do they do it? Perhaps we would do well to seriously examine what strategy we are pursuing. I know under MON he himself negotiated player wages. Not sure if the same is true of Bruce/RDM/etc. If it is then i'd say that's grounds for sacking for gross misconduct, if not then whoever did should be sacked for it - diabolical! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveAV1 Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said: But is that not to be expected? We're the biggest club to have come down in a long time, of course we're going to come down with a huge wage bill, particularly in comparison to the likes of Barnsley or Burton etc, who could only dream of amassing the kind of wage bill we were able to. We couldn't shed it all overnight, I'd be interested to know the sum total of Agbonlahor and Richards' wages during that period, not to mention McCormack, all nightmares SB inherited. To say (and I know you didn't say it) that we tried to Man City our way up is so far wide of the mark as a comparison. Has anyone posted any solid proof of what the wage bill was and broken down into detail from which you can draw context? Genuine question. I think someone came up with a wages paid out by those clubs towards the top of the Championship a few weeks ago. According to their list we were by far the biggest spenders. However I don’t know if it was genuine or he could tell us a source for his figures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weedman Posted July 19, 2018 Share Posted July 19, 2018 52 minutes ago, Zatman said: Yeah he could have took the Hogan, Whelan and Elmo money and got him. Wouldnt have damaged the squad at all Elmo our best right back and one of our better performers last year? I'd say that would have damaged our squad, it would have meant Hutton at RB (not so bad defensively but not going to offer a lot going forward) and Taylor at LB (terrible), it would also have really hindered Snodgrass who linked up really well with Elmo. You're not gonna hear me argue that Neves wouldn't be an improvement on Whelan, or that Hogan was worth what we paid for him but EVERY manager will sign duds, we needed a striker at the time and Hogan was looking good and on form, there aren't a lot of managers that would see the team needing a striker as we only had 1 really, but deciding not to sign the guy who was available, on great form, and relatively young (and who offered one thing we were really lacking - pace) because we may have been able to spend that money on a midfielder 6 months later. Also taking out 3 players for every 1 signed (to improve on quality) would have seriously hit us in the quality of squad depth, and we were lacking in that area as it was. Its also worth pointing out that players like Neves going to the Championship is not the norm, he was signed because he happened to not be getting too much game time and his agent is running Wolves and convinced him to sign to put himself in the shop window, it's a very specific set of circumstances that the vast majority of Championship clubs don't meet Look, there almost certainly were other players available who were better at the same cost, but when you sign an unknown 22 year old for £1m it may turn out well once in every 10 goes (at best), when you are limited to a handful of those AND given the remit to achieve promotion no matter what you sign the players that you know will do a job, even if they are limited in certain areas. He then used the loan market to get a bit of extra quality rather than workmanship. Every manager in world football is trying to find the guaranteed £1m player that will succeed and become a £10m+ player down the line, every single one of them, its why Chelsea are hoovering up every player under the age of 20 and Barcelonas youth academy has about 800 players in it, 95% of those don't work out If you're expecting a new manager to sign no duds, spend next to nothing on transfers, reduce the wage bill, have us challenging for promotion AND playing free flowing attacking football I think you are going to be very disappointed no matter who is in charge of us 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VILLAMARV Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 3 hours ago, weedman said: If you're expecting a new manager to sign no duds, spend next to nothing on transfers, reduce the wage bill, have us challenging for promotion AND playing free flowing attacking football I think you are going to be very disappointed no matter who is in charge of us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 20, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 20, 2018 10 hours ago, weedman said: If you're expecting a new manager to sign no duds, spend next to nothing on transfers, reduce the wage bill, have us challenging for promotion AND playing free flowing attacking football I think you are going to be very disappointed no matter who is in charge of us This appears to be exactly what people are expecting this season. I'm honestly glad Bruce seems to be staying so we don't have to find out first hand how unrealistic that expectation is next season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheStagMan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 1 hour ago, Stevo985 said: This appears to be exactly what people are expecting this season. I'm honestly glad Bruce seems to be staying so we don't have to find out first hand how unrealistic that expectation is next season. I don't believe anyone has expressed that sentiment for this season. All I have seen is people worrying whether we can field a team at all. Links please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 20, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 20, 2018 9 minutes ago, TheStagMan said: I don't believe anyone has expressed that sentiment for this season. All I have seen is people worrying whether we can field a team at all. Links please? I'm not trawling back through hundreds of pages to find posts. but there are plenty of people who want Bruce gone because they don't think he can get us promoted this season. My point is I don't think anyone is getting us promoted this season. With our finances, this season will be about surviving with a decimated squad. IN THAT SCENARIO, Bruce isn't a bad option to have, and I think if bruce left we wouldn't be appointing the next David Wagner, we'd likely be scraping the managerial barrel and appointing Gary Megson to try and keep us in the league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 I want him gone as he didnt achieve promotion last season with resources at his disposal. This season with lower expectations and smaller budget i still struggle to see him achieving his goal whatever that maybe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntrimBlack Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 40 minutes ago, Zatman said: I want him gone as he didnt achieve promotion last season with resources at his disposal. This season with lower expectations and smaller budget i still struggle to see him achieving his goal whatever that maybe His goal this season is only to keep us up. He should be able to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Surely the goal must be to start rebuilding the squad in a way so it can be competitive in the coming seasons (while obviously not getting relegated in the process) Hopefully Bruce can see a way of doing this without bringing in more players in the twilight of their careers, even if they are on loan or free. Need to sign players we can develop and sell. Much rather finish 16th with a squad developing than 9th with a bunch of loanees, short term contracts and seniors on their final contracts before retiring. As I said numerous times I don't see Bruce as the man for that job, but here we are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted July 20, 2018 VT Supporter Share Posted July 20, 2018 36 minutes ago, sne said: Surely the goal must be to start rebuilding the squad in a way so it can be competitive in the coming seasons (while obviously not getting relegated in the process) Hopefully Bruce can see a way of doing this without bringing in more players in the twilight of their careers, even if they are on loan or free. Need to sign players we can develop and sell. Much rather finish 16th with a squad developing than 9th with a bunch of loanees, short term contracts and seniors on their final contracts before retiring. As I said numerous times I don't see Bruce as the man for that job, but here we are. I honestly think it depends on how bad our finances are. If the squad is being decimated then risking a new face to rebuild at this stage could be risky. In your scenario above I totally agree, it's better to finish lower if we're setting ourselves up better for the future. But for me the risks of dropping into that relegation zone is far higher. Really depends how bad the situation is. I still think Bruce is the "safe" option. That doesn't necessarily mean he's the best option. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave J Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 On 19/07/2018 at 11:04, kiltorken said: Third highest win rate in Villa's history, obviously the win % doesnt mean as much as agasint the top flight maangers but still not as bad as some people make out. Start Date Finish Date Games Win% 1 George Ramsay[5] August 1884 01/05/1926 1327 49.59 2 W. J. Smith[5] 01/08/1926 01/05/1934 364 48.08 3 Steve Bruce 01/10/2016 Present 89 47.19 4 Jimmy Hogan Summer 1936 01/09/1939 124 45.97 5 Graham Taylor 01/05/1987 01/07/1990 142 45.77 6 Tony Barton 01/02/1982 01/06/1984 130 44.62 7 Ron Saunders 01/06/1974 01/02/1982 353 44.48 8 Vic Crowe 01/01/1970 01/05/1974 199 44.22 9 Ron Atkinson 01/07/1991 01/11/1994 178 43.26 10 John Gregory 01/02/1998 01/01/2002 190 43.16 11 Joe Mercer 01/12/1958 01/07/1964 282 42.55 12 Martin O'Neill 01/08/2006 01/08/2010 190 42.11 13 Brian Little 01/11/1994 01/02/1998 164 41.46 14 Alex Massie 01/08/1945 01/08/1950 189 40.21 15 George Martin 01/12/1950 01/08/1953 119 39.50 Any list that can put Bruce above the likes of Saunders, Atkinson & Taylor is in my humble view not worth the paper it is written upon 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 17 minutes ago, Dave J said: Any list that can put Bruce above the likes of Saunders, Atkinson & Taylor is in my humble view not worth the paper it is written upon "any evidence to the contrary to my belief, will be dismissed" reasonable, and predictable. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Time to make way for Thierry? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 Let's hope our new overlords realise he's shite and sack him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshVilla Posted July 20, 2018 Share Posted July 20, 2018 (edited) Will completely take the gloss off the new takeover for me if he is still here as manager. Edited July 20, 2018 by AshVilla Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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