Steve Bruce

[Mantis]

30 minutes ago, One For The Road said:

But why didn't he take AFCON into consideration and plan for new arrivals to come in at the start of January? And why did we sell a striker when we have lost 2 for a month? 

Maybe Dr Tony is not prepared to splash out in this window?

Something is wrong here. We have scored1 goal in 5 away games!

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? People need to be patient. Better to get the right targets than just get whoever can come soonest.

[One For The Road]

2 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors? People need to be patient. Better to get the right targets than just get whoever can come soonest.

Well whatever IS going on behind closed doors needs to be sorted out because this is appalling.

[TRO]

15 hours ago, Woodytom said:

This manager need's to put out a team of players that look arsed... first and foremost. 

Woody.....I could bang on all night about this.....I was brought up on watching caring Aston Villa players....one was a Lion hearted hero and once a very close friend of mine, I can tell you how they tick....Steve Bruce knows what you are saying and I would wager he 99% agrees with you.

Fixing it is a whole different Ball game......and any new manager, would take another 6 months just identifying it alone ( maybe/we hope)

I have been challenged many times trying to explain what you are alluding to.....but I will not suggest SB is happy with it or dismissing it.

I am sure he will deal with it, but I think the problem is bigger( effecting too many players) to fix it in one season.

Ps do you honestly think they are playing to orders and their contribution is rubber stamped by a SB, not in a million years.

PPS at least he doesn't condone it ,not like the new manager at Wolves did in his after match offerings, when he was with us.

Edited January 15, 2017 by TRO

[TRO]

look, I am not having a pop here, but SB has said ironically he has been linked with 40 odd players such is the frenzy of information the Media indulged in to-day.

I can remember the time, when managers had no/ little distraction with all this speculation and just got on with it......we only knew when they were signed.

.....those halcyon days.

Edited January 15, 2017 by TRO

[John]

Losing away from home has become a habit for us and breaking it with the team Steve Bruce has inherited is not proving to be the quick fix that we had hoped it might be. In my opinion we now have the best available manager to turn things around and to get us back where we belong next season if not this one. He made a great start with us and that raised expectations a couple more away defeats do not make him a bad manager nor does the fact that he once managed Small Heath.

This was another sorry performance and they are coming too often for comfort but this is not a reason to turn on a manager that was regarded as being "the bees knees" only a few games ago if we are to not deserve that "fickle" tag. Steve Bruce needs to be given time to turn things around at our football club once and for all and he has not had enough time yet. Lets back him for the rest of this year at the very least.     

[Kingman]

Give him till the international break at the end of October, So two transfer windows down the line and a Pre-Season. 

If still mid-table come October then bring in the infamous new manager and give him another £50m to piss down the drain in January.

Edited January 15, 2017 by Kingman

[kurtsimonw]

2 minutes ago, Kingman said:

Give him till the international break at the end of October, So two transfer windows down the line and a Pre-Season. 

If still mid-table come October then bring in the infamous new manager and give him another  £50m to piss find the drain in January. 

We have to keep being consistent yeah.

Depends on "midtable". If we're 3 points off the playoffs, then you don't sack him. If he does a RDM, then yeah.

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, Kingman said:

Give him till the international break at the end of October, So two transfer windows down the line and a Pre-Season. 

If still mid-table come October then bring in the infamous new manager and give him another £50m to piss down the drain in January. 

We have to keep being consistent yeah.

And a new owner to boot.....when he loses interest.

[TRO]

I do not believe you can buy your way out of this end of the market.

......at the top yes.

but not where we are.

Having said that.......if a couple of crucial players are identified considering our position....they should be driven over the line with gusto.

Edited January 15, 2017 by TRO

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, Woodytom said:

So I cant have it that both the manager and players are underperforming at the same time.......... ok.

No, you can't. 

[kurtsimonw]

 

20 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

No, you can't. 

Agreed. For someone who recently said this...

On 1/3/2017 at 09:12, Woodytom said:

Thing is tho. You say that but I'm pretty alone when I'm in various player threads questioning ability...... kodjia, adomah, amavi for example. So fans obviously rate those 3. We've then got baker and Chester and jedinak (bar passing) who are undoubtedly playing well. Then the likes of grealish. There is 7 first team players who I'd say across the vast majority of the fan base, are rated. It's not a complete pile of shite.......... well it is imo, but If everyone shared that opinion my posts regarding amavi not being great wouldn't be seen as pfe imo.

So thinks it's a pile of shit, yet expects Bruce to be getting better than his current playoff pace record at Villa? 

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, kurtsimonw said:

 

Agreed. For someone who recently said this...

So thinks it's a pile of shit, yet expects Bruce to be getting better than his current playoff pace record at Villa? 

Thanks for taking the time to go back and look, I knew I hadn't just made up this negative viewpoint about players abilities out of whole cloth. 

[Woodytom]

Nobody said you had made anything up. I think the players are garbage. Massively overated on this site some of them. However, once again I'm watching a villa team not even trying.

Where has the Brighton performance gone? They're garbage but they're not as bad as what I saw last night..... and that's why I'm asking questions of the manager. Not asking for him to be sacked, just that I think he could be doing better despite the crock of shit he's working with. In fact, I know he can... I've seen it with my own eyes v Brighton. 

[Eastie]

Encouraging start but really think he made a huge error bringing gabby back to the fold - will be hard to judge him until he brings in his own players 

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

9 hours ago, Woodytom said:

As it stands... He can't organise 11 players to do the basics and be organised with some purpose. After a promising start his overall purpose is... ok. Hence why we're 13th n miles off the pace.

Four promotions says he most definitely can organise players to do the basics. It's clearly difficult to get some of these players to do the basics, which is why we're looking to bring others in, and why I believe the squad will look very different after he's had two windows.

A lot of our players are ex-Premier League players, so you will see a performance such as Brighton from time to time. We also know, though, that they can be **** useless and so you're definitely going to see performances like yesterday too.

 

Edited January 15, 2017 by Morley_crosses_to_Withe

[Stevo985]

WHen we play, especially when we play 4-4-2, we have a huge gaping hole in our attacking midfield. It's been like this for years to be fair, but it was especially noticeable yesterday again.

We have two deep playing midfielders on the halfway line, two wide players on the touchlines and two strikers in the opposing box.

We have absolutely nothing between the lines. You could draw a huge circle that goes through our players and there's this massive gaping 40 yard hole in the opposing half that nobody ever occupies. Ever.

When we play 4-3-3 or 4-5-1 then it's not so bad because we inevitably have someone designated to play in there. Grealish for example.

But 4-4-2 we're relying on a forward to drop back and fill it and it doesn't happen nearly enough. And when it did yesterday it was McCormack and the only person he had to aim at was Gabby, which is basically nobody.

 

We continue to lack anyone who can link our midfield with attack. Yesterday our midfield was Bacuna, Jedinak, Tshibola and Adomah.
Of those four I'd consider Adomah the only one capable of effectively feeding our attackers.

Tshibola is just another Westwood/Gardner, Jedinak does a job defensively but is inept at passing it forward and Bacuna is just generally terrible at everything. He's awful.

 

We've all known it for months, but until we get players in who can plug those wholes and actually get the ball moving forward effectively then we'll continue to struggle.

 

In the meantime I would have hope that Bruce would have realised that 4-4-2 doesn't work for us. Our central midfield is poor and the only way it's ever half decent is with three central midfielders.

For the next game I'd like to see that 3 re-introduced and bacuna fired out of a cannon into the sun.

[TRO]

9 hours ago, Kingman said:

Give him till the international break at the end of October, So two transfer windows down the line and a Pre-Season. 

If still mid-table come October then bring in the infamous new manager and give him another £50m to piss down the drain in January.

I don't think you can put a time limit on it.....its kind of a series of events that usually determine time up.

c70% of a managers success is derived from his transfer dealings, get that right and you are possibly in for a fair run.

Its important SB does not panic buy, despite the tricky situation we are in.....I also guess with the backroom changes that we have had over the last 6 years, not much is in place there either for him to capitalise on....The scouting system is being overhauled as I understand it ( Everton have more scouts around Brum that us) ridiculous state of affairs.

At present, he does'nt seem to have much help from anywhere.....I think it is worse than when GT arrived and he said it was a "shambles"

I am honestly convinced this guy is the right one.....despite the shambles on the pitch, I am also convinced he knows and feels all the things we feel and see.I was never so sure of that with some of the previous managers.....mainly because, they never really said....He does, but has to stop short a little in fear of making it worse....if that is possible at times.

None of us would have a clue what to do if we were given the task.....naturally I hear you say, we are not football managers.....but I feel sure he sees what we see, and none of us are wrong.

Fixing it is another task entirely. He will have to have cooperation from Steve around, Tony Xia and Keith Wyness.

Clubs like :

• Sunderland
• Crystal Palace
• Swansea
• Hull

are experiencing similar things to us, but changing managers every five minutes is not the answer either....it just stalls the day of the inevitable,of hitting on a period of stability.

We will get there, we have been in this position before.....and we will get out for sure.

I am not going to say to fans be patient, because it has an air of being patronising.

but I will say, give it enough time for a capable manager to work his experience and let's enjoy the increments of improvement as they happen......and they will.

[Grasshopper]

12 hours ago, TRO said:

I never seen Steve Bruce as a messiah.....but a good honest manager.

one type, I think we need.

a man with similar values to Graham Taylor.

I am not going to lay blame, its too many contributors......but this business of buying and more importantly playing for long periods players that are not up to it, has cost us dearly.

SB has now got the dilemma that He brings a player in from the squad and solves one problem and creates another such is the imbalance of this sorry outfit....you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear......I have watched week in week out, month in month out, year in year out.....flaws in the squad that have just, been allowed to fester and be ignored.

There is a fundamental problem with us, we all know certain things like midfield and let's be fair, you cannot simply keep entering games and sweep that major problem under the carpet....however at present it has and is manifesting issues in other departments, to point the whole team is being effected.

we will not get well keep changing managers.....He has to hang around until he fixes it....He can do it and he must be allowed the time to do it.

I would rather he take time and get the right characters in, rather than panic buy and buy just who is available in the first window.

as much as we need to buy there is a desperate need to breed too.

we used to be doubtful as a first team and formidable in the academy, we seem to be not even that anymore.

i do not really know what our problem really is.....keep blaming managers seems too easy to me.

Its an enigma.

@TRO

I think we're beyond the "patience" point.

We need to act

We have 16 days to sell/loan out/payoff the shit and to buy/loan replacements so that we Cleanse the club (better players prefered - but anyone - we really are that far gone)

You cant plug holes in a titanic once its hit the Iceberg

You need a new ship

 

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

People are so impatient these days when it comes to managers. 

Doug would never have gotten his 'Deadly' moniker if he was still in football today because he'd just be getting through managers at a pretty normal rate. 

[Grasshopper]

3 minutes ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

People are so impatient these days when it comes to managers. 

Doug would never have gotten his 'Deadly' moniker if he was still in football today because he'd just be getting through managers at a pretty normal rate. 

Doug can F**** **f