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Steve Bruce


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2 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

The article says “his unhappy time at cash strapped Villa”, and there’s quote about worries of people not being paid. 

Yes, that happened. It was a terrible time. I am sorry Steve that you had those testing few weeks to endure.

But the article makes it sound like it was like that his entire time here. I would genuinely like to know how Bolton supporters would view that article knowing that paupers Aston Villa were soon able to pay £70/80 grand a week to Bolasie, having already spent several million on Bree and barely played him...we all know the various examples that can be listed.

There are valid points from the more pro Bruce voices, some of them well reasoned, but this is exactly the kind of shit that gets churned out that his detractors point to when they say his media pals come to the rescue.

At the end of the 2017/18 season, our wage bill was £20m more than the 2nd highest Championship team Fulham and £10m more than PL side Huddersfield's. 

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2 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

The financial issues lasted what, all of 3 weeks? He was whining about a lack of money well before summer 2018 anyway.

One thing is for certain, "cash-strapped" is definitely one way you would not describe Aston Villa and our 3 year stay in the Championship.

I don't think there's much disagreeing with your final point. However, the majority of that spend was under RDM and not Bruce, who was almost certainly under sell-to-buy. I think his first window we spent about £5m net, but then the following season made more than £10m, and then made £7m/8m again this summer.

One argument is always that wages were a big outlay, but he sold players signed on Premier League contracts on decent wages. There's absolutely no way the near £15m profit on transfers, plus the wages of all those PL players was outweighed by the wages on Terry + loan signings. 

The final issues regarding potentially being would up only lasted a few weeks, but the FFP constraints covered most of his tenure, due to the RDM/Xia spends. I don't think it was the most financially impossible job in the World that bruce had, plenty of Championship sides have to sell to buy. But if I were a betting man, I would put my money on the transfers/wages of his sales outweighed those of his signings.

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47 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Anyway anyone know how the Newcastle fans have reacted to his appointment?

It's fair to say they haven't taken it well.

 

In fact one could say they are a bit....hysterical.

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5 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

I don't think there's much disagreeing with your final point. However, the majority of that spend was under RDM and not Bruce, who was almost certainly under sell-to-buy. I think his first window we spent about £5m net, but then the following season made more than £10m, and then made £7m/8m again this summer.

One argument is always that wages were a big outlay, but he sold players signed on Premier League contracts on decent wages. There's absolutely no way the near £15m profit on transfers, plus the wages of all those PL players was outweighed by the wages on Terry + loan signings. 

The final issues regarding potentially being would up only lasted a few weeks, but the FFP constraints covered most of his tenure, due to the RDM/Xia spends. I don't think it was the most financially impossible job in the World that bruce had, plenty of Championship sides have to sell to buy. But if I were a betting man, I would put my money on the transfers/wages of his sales outweighed those of his signings.

How do you see the finances and funding available to him versus comparable chanpionship clubs during the same time period?

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4 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

I don't think there's much disagreeing with your final point. However, the majority of that spend was under RDM and not Bruce, who was almost certainly under sell-to-buy. I think his first window we spent about £5m net, but then the following season made more than £10m, and then made £7m/8m again this summer.

One argument is always that wages were a big outlay, but he sold players signed on Premier League contracts on decent wages. There's absolutely no way the near £15m profit on transfers, plus the wages of all those PL players was outweighed by the wages on Terry + loan signings. 

The final issues regarding potentially being would up only lasted a few weeks, but the FFP constraints covered most of his tenure, due to the RDM/Xia spends. I don't think it was the most financially impossible job in the World that bruce had, plenty of Championship sides have to sell to buy. But if I were a betting man, I would put my money on the transfers/wages of his sales outweighed those of his signings.

Every team bar maybe a handful in world football has some sort of financial restriction. Nobody is saying he had a blank cheque to go out and sign every player he could possibly think of. It's all relative. We were a Championship club. FFP has been something that every EFL side has had to work around. We had no disadvantage to any Championship team in that regard. In fact, like I highlighted above, when it comes to wages, we had significantly more leeway and breathing space than any other team. At the end of his second season, 14/28 players on the book were signed by Bruce and our wage bill completely dwarfed the rest of the league.

When it comes to net spend, we are third in the Championship table for net spend over the last 5 years. We were only in the league for 3 of those 5 years, yet are only 5 million per season and 20 million as a whole off leaders Stoke and West Brom who were relegated after the gigantic TV deal. At the end of 2017/18 we were also top of the squad cost table.

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26 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

I don't think there's much disagreeing with your final point. However, the majority of that spend was under RDM and not Bruce, who was almost certainly under sell-to-buy. I think his first window we spent about £5m net, but then the following season made more than £10m, and then made £7m/8m again this summer.

One argument is always that wages were a big outlay, but he sold players signed on Premier League contracts on decent wages. There's absolutely no way the near £15m profit on transfers, plus the wages of all those PL players was outweighed by the wages on Terry + loan signings. 

The final issues regarding potentially being would up only lasted a few weeks, but the FFP constraints covered most of his tenure, due to the RDM/Xia spends. I don't think it was the most financially impossible job in the World that bruce had, plenty of Championship sides have to sell to buy. But if I were a betting man, I would put my money on the transfers/wages of his sales outweighed those of his signings.

But this is where you're spinning things like his media pals. 

What players that we sold were a loss? Which players were ones Bruce was desperate to keep but had to sell?

We moved players on but Bruce was able to keep all our best players and was able to bring in plenty of big wages. He had a massive advantage in terms of money and ability to attract talent than nearly every other team. 

And yet yourself and others are portraying it as some sort of struggle. 

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Bruce had more resources  with us than pretty much any other championship club, that's why we were a laughing stock amongst fans of other championship clubs whilst he was in charge, because we'd spent so much money, either on transfers, loans fees, or wages, and still couldn't get promoted, and never looked anywhere close to challenging for top two. If anything it's Bruce himself who played a big part in our financial difficulties, especially those of last summer, partly because of his transfer policy, but mostly because he wasn't good enough to get the best squad in the division promoted.

Edited by useless
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"No need for mass hysteria" potato-head said 5/6 weeks into the 17/18 season when we weren't performing on the pitch.

There wasn't any at games Steve, it was all support. It took almost two full years off disgusting performances on the pitch for lives crowds to turn.

If online comments upset you so much I'm looking forward to you addressing the Newcastle fans' thoughts on you ASAP.

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Listening to Sky she they're already playing the Sunderland card lol. Then they play a clip of a Newcastle fan saying quite plainly that he's angry that they've gone from Rafa Benitez to a, and I quote, "midtable championship manager". Reminds me of when McLeish joined us. We weren't against him because he came from SHA, but because he literally just got **** relegated.

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1 hour ago, kurtsimonw said:

I don't think there's much disagreeing with your final point. However, the majority of that spend was under RDM and not Bruce, who was almost certainly under sell-to-buy. I think his first window we spent about £5m net, but then the following season made more than £10m, and then made £7m/8m again this summer.

One argument is always that wages were a big outlay, but he sold players signed on Premier League contracts on decent wages. There's absolutely no way the near £15m profit on transfers, plus the wages of all those PL players was outweighed by the wages on Terry + loan signings. 

The final issues regarding potentially being would up only lasted a few weeks, but the FFP constraints covered most of his tenure, due to the RDM/Xia spends. I don't think it was the most financially impossible job in the World that bruce had, plenty of Championship sides have to sell to buy. But if I were a betting man, I would put my money on the transfers/wages of his sales outweighed those of his signings.

While in fairness, he/the club may have brought in some money through player sales, how many were from players that he actually used? Players that he would have genuinely liked to have kept?

Baker, yep I know he was reluctant to let him go. So fair do’s that was perhaps a bit of a hardship, possibly the biggest.

Gollini, however it happened, his days here were numbered from early on. I don’t think he played many games under Bruce. I don’t believe letting him go was much of an issue.

Gil/Veretout, I don’t believe either played for us in the championship. So again, I don’t think he would have been too downbeat about bringing in cash for those.

Amavi, he played a bit, I know you didn’t rate him. I can believe Bruce may have wanted to keep him.

Bacuna, a few million there was it? Fair enough, but if Bruce was unhappy about losing him, he would have been one of the few.

Did we receive any money for Sanchez? If we did, then ok but again not someone who Bruce would have built the team around.

Unless I’ve missed someone, I think these transfers out account for the majority of money being brought in.

So does Bruce deserve a bit of credit for his role in some of these departures bringing in the cash? Yes, but by and large these were not players that were used by Bruce or had any real future at the club, so I don’t think Bruce would feel too hard done by for bringing in money for them in order to bring in his own players.

Basically I’d be more sympathetic to the “sell to buy” notion if he had been forced to sell the likes of Chester, Grealish, Kodjia etc.

Edit - forgot Westwood. Brought in a few quid for him too, and he did play him a bit. So maybe Bruce was reluctant to sell him. 

Edited by Shropshire Lad
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@Shropshire Lad I don't think whether Bruce would use players or not is relevant. For example, Newcastle didn't use Sissoko and made £30m from him. A £30m that is factored in to lower Newcastles net spend, which in turn is used to criticise Bruce. 

You have to deal with what you inherit. It seems like a Bruce is both being held accountable for RDMs spend, then not being given the benefit that he had to sell players in order to sign players. A number of these players didn't want to play in the Championship. Some that did, like Amavi, put in completely unprofessional performances. 

People are also ignoring expectation. Saying he had a much higher budget than most clubs. Well, yes, and he finished 4th.

 Ultimately there are facts.HHis net spend was a profit. He didn't get promoted. He's no longer here. Anything in between is completely subjective, and I don't think many of us will completely agree on those grey areas. 

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37 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

While in fairness, he/the club may have brought in some money through player sales, how many were from players that he actually used? Players that he would have genuinely liked to have kept?

Baker, yep I know he was reluctant to let him go. So fair do’s that was perhaps a bit of a hardship, possibly the biggest.

Gollini, however it happened, his days here were numbered from early on. I don’t think he played many games under Bruce. I don’t believe letting him go was much of an issue.

Gil/Veretout, I don’t believe either played for us in the championship. So again, I don’t think he would have been too downbeat about bringing in cash for those.

Amavi, he played a bit, I know you didn’t rate him. I can believe Bruce may have wanted to keep him.

Bacuna, a few million there was it? Fair enough, but if Bruce was unhappy about losing him, he would have been one of the few.

Did we receive any money for Sanchez? If we did, then ok but again not someone who Bruce would have built the team around.

 

He also sold Westwood, Ayew, Gestede and Cissokho.

I don't think there is any argument that he had to wheel and deal and let quite a few players go to allow him the funds to bring others in. Bottom line is though that whilst he turned a very decent profit in terms of transfer ins/out he had a huge advantage over others in the Championship in that we could pay extortionate wages for that level and that, alongside the stature of the club, helped him sign players that managers of other clubs could only dream of. Terry on 70k a week, Snodgrass 50k, Whlelan 40k, Bolasie 80k and being able to attract some excellent young players in Axel, Tammy and Anwar.

I actually think he put a very good squad together in 2017/18 and one that was good enough for promotion. The fact he failed to get the best out of them though pretty much rendered praising him for putting it together pointless.

Again even taking into account the defensive deficiencies the 2018/19 squad was way better than what he was getting out of it from the dozen games he managed. Certainly attacking wise were were capable of way better than the crap being served up.

I think he served a purpose for us in that when he arrived we were still going backwards and he steadied the ship and at least set us in the right direction. Despite under achieving with what he had at his disposal he did almost achieve promotion. In hindsight though thank God he never as who knows what would have happened under Xia and Wyness. 

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7 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

@Shropshire Lad I don't think whether Bruce would use players or not is relevant. For example, Newcastle didn't use Sissoko and made £30m from him. A £30m that is factored in to lower Newcastles net spend, which in turn is used to criticise Bruce. 

You have to deal with what you inherit. It seems like a Bruce is both being held accountable for RDMs spend, then not being given the benefit that he had to sell players in order to sign players. A number of these players didn't want to play in the Championship. Some that did, like Amavi, put in completely unprofessional performances. 

People are also ignoring expectation. Saying he had a much higher budget than most clubs. Well, yes, and he finished 4th.

 Ultimately there are facts.HHis net spend was a profit. He didn't get promoted. He's no longer here. Anything in between is completely subjective, and I don't think many of us will completely agree on those grey areas. 

What changed between RDM's short reign and Bruce's? The remit never changed, he just had less work to do because RDM oversaw most of the rebuild post-relegation.

He had the biggest or at least top 2 budget in the league and finished 4th and failed to get promoted. Didn't even threaten the top 2. That's been the crux of the argument against him from day 1.

But that's not the issue here. The point is, he was not "cash-strapped", nor did he have his hands tied during his time here. Relative to the rest of the league, he was eating very good as we say.

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13 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

@Shropshire Lad I don't think whether Bruce would use players or not is relevant. For example, Newcastle didn't use Sissoko and made £30m from him. A £30m that is factored in to lower Newcastles net spend, which in turn is used to criticise Bruce. 

You have to deal with what you inherit. It seems like a Bruce is both being held accountable for RDMs spend, then not being given the benefit that he had to sell players in order to sign players. A number of these players didn't want to play in the Championship. Some that did, like Amavi, put in completely unprofessional performances. 

People are also ignoring expectation. Saying he had a much higher budget than most clubs. Well, yes, and he finished 4th.

 Ultimately there are facts.HHis net spend was a profit. He didn't get promoted. He's no longer here. Anything in between is completely subjective, and I don't think many of us will completely agree on those grey areas. 

I think it does factor in.

If the argument is “oh he had to sell to buy” I think it’s relevant to look at who he actually had to sell.

Veretout for instance was always going to leave, I don’t believe Bruce or the club were pinning their hopes on a season with Veretout in midfield, having not played a single competitive game for us since we were relegated. However, the money from his sale goes towards the final net spend figure. Essentially we brought in £10m for a player we weren’t going to use again. Great. But it was basically a free hit. A saleable commodity we weren’t ever going to use.

When people say “he had to sell to buy” it’s suggestive that there was some reluctance in letting the players sold go, like they were integral to the team. It provokes a sympathetic response. It feeds into this idea that his whole tenure was similar to those few terrible weeks last summer.

I don’t think that is the case for a fair few of the player sold. Ergo it shouldn’t provoke such a response.

@markavfc40

Yes, fair enough I had completely forgotten Ayew, Gestede and Cissokho (I added Westwood in my edit shortly afterwards). I will concede that those three were probably closer to Baker in terms of Bruce reluctantly letting them go, just about. They’re closer to Baker in terms of whether Bruce relied on them than say, Carlos Sanchez.

As I say, my main point is Bruce/we bring in £10m for Veretout or £2m for Gil or £3m for Gollini. Great. But I don’t think it’s particularly praiseworthy, what else were we realistically going to do with them? Let them rot with McCormack? They didn’t want to be here, I don’t think we really wanted them here, so they were sold and those significant funds were used accordingly. 

And without wanting to ignite the “what managers actually do in terms of transfer fees” debate, I assume Bruce had as much say in how much cash was brought in for Veretout as he did for how much went out for the Hogan deal.

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