Mark Albrighton Posted March 9 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9 When Villa beat wolves 4-1, we were 4 points off second place Cardiff. Between that game and when we played Cardiff (and won 1-0), we played 5 times, winning once, drawing once and losing three. For comparison, Cardiff had played 4, picking up 7 points (they had lost to Wolves). Looking back, that seems like a real missed opportunity. I remember being incensed about losing to QPR in that mini run, but otherwise my memory is a bit hazy of those games. The teams we dropped points to - QPR, Bolton, Hull and Norwich, none of them finished higher than 14th. It’s quite difficult to gain automatic promotion when you’re bringing one out of twelve points against lower table fodder towards the business end of the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 1 hour ago, Mark Albrighton said: When Villa beat wolves 4-1, we were 4 points off second place Cardiff. Between that game and when we played Cardiff (and won 1-0), we played 5 times, winning once, drawing once and losing three. For comparison, Cardiff had played 4, picking up 7 points (they had lost to Wolves). Looking back, that seems like a real missed opportunity. I remember being incensed about losing to QPR in that mini run, but otherwise my memory is a bit hazy of those games. The teams we dropped points to - QPR, Bolton, Hull and Norwich, none of them finished higher than 14th. It’s quite difficult to gain automatic promotion when you’re bringing one out of twelve points against lower table fodder towards the business end of the season. I always remember at the time Bruce complaining about the budget and saying we were signing "Waifs and Strays" all the time. Just to recap that season we had John Terry playing for us and also Snodgrass on a season long loan who was still a prem standard player at the time. Next season Tammy Abraham turned up... Cardiff beat us to automatic promotion with Warnock getting the likes of Holliett and Mendez-Laing playing regular games, those were players basically taken off the scrapheap. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 Thing with the championship though is we had terrible runs in that league which gets forgotten. In 16/17 we had a bounce for a few months when he took over. However from 1st Jan when we lost away to Cardiff up to middle of March we failed to win any of nine games. Start of 17/18 wasn't great either, just one win in seven games and rumours were he'd have been sacked if we'd lost to Barnsley. Cardiff won their first five games that season so we simply gave them and Wolves too much of a headstart. That's why it's amusing to see people doing their nut in when we win once in five prem games as just seen in December/January of this season. I think signing Hogan showed Bruce's limitations aside from just motivating players. The way we played was totally different to Brentford and he looked completely lost in our system and nothing was done to change it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mark Albrighton said: When Villa beat wolves 4-1, we were 4 points off second place Cardiff. Between that game and when we played Cardiff (and won 1-0), we played 5 times, winning once, drawing once and losing three. For comparison, Cardiff had played 4, picking up 7 points (they had lost to Wolves). Looking back, that seems like a real missed opportunity. I remember being incensed about losing to QPR in that mini run, but otherwise my memory is a bit hazy of those games. The teams we dropped points to - QPR, Bolton, Hull and Norwich, none of them finished higher than 14th. It’s quite difficult to gain automatic promotion when you’re bringing one out of twelve points against lower table fodder towards the business end of the season. The high water mark was match day 31, we went above Cardiff and Derby into 2nd by a point. Then picked up 4 points in the next 4 games which I think was part of that run you mentioned. Edit also looked it up - our last chance really to get back into it was that Bolton game, Cardiff lost to Derby but we lost to Bolton. Then Cardiff drew with Sheffield Utd and lost to wolves, we beat reading but lost to Norwich. If we'd have won the three it would have closed the gap Edited March 9 by VillaJ100 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Albrighton Posted March 9 VT Supporter Share Posted March 9 7 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said: The high water mark was match day 31, we went above Cardiff and Derby into 2nd by a point. Then picked up 4 points in the next 4 games which I think was part of that run you mentioned. It’s difficult for me to look back and not project how we now know the season panned out onto that I thought at the time. I suppose I could look what I posted at the time, but my belief is I was trying to convince myself we were doing alright. I remember being second for a short time but thinking that this novelty probably won’t last. I often wonder why I (infrequently) return to this thread. On the one hand when it comes to Bruce I’m a little petty and having a little dig at his expense I find mildly amusing. Although he’s out of work, my suspicion is he’s still fairly well insulated and protected by the old boys club, if he was given the something like the Palace job, the usual suspects would be on hand to fight his battles. But I think the main reason is that 17/18 was a rather important season in our recent history. Christ knows what would have happened if they actually had their shit together (that’s everyone, Bruce playing his part but not the biggest part in the wider debacle). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 57 minutes ago, VillaChris said: I always remember at the time Bruce complaining about the budget and saying we were signing "Waifs and Strays" all the time. Just to recap that season we had John Terry playing for us and also Snodgrass on a season long loan who was still a prem standard player at the time. Next season Tammy Abraham turned up... Cardiff beat us to automatic promotion with Warnock getting the likes of Holliett and Mendez-Laing playing regular games, those were players basically taken off the scrapheap. think we were paying Bolasie about 60k a week as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 On 11/01/2024 at 18:13, Stevo985 said: Yep I agree. We should have been winning the league, probably. But there’s a lot to be said about seeing us win all the time and scoring loads of goals Most interesting thing for me were people actually preferring to stay down at the time as there was no hope we could ever be a competitive force at prem level every again. What's better than winning lots of games and scoring loads of goals in the championship? Doing it in the premier league which has been the case for the last 18 months. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 50 minutes ago, VillaChris said: Most interesting thing for me were people actually preferring to stay down at the time as there was no hope we could ever be a competitive force at prem level every again. What's better than winning lots of games and scoring loads of goals in the championship? Doing it in the premier league which has been the case for the last 18 months. Yes but was under Bruce/Xia was no lomg term hope under them two and NSWE wouldn't have bought us if we went up Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 27 minutes ago, Zatman said: Yes but was under Bruce/Xia was no lomg term hope under them two and NSWE wouldn't have bought us if we went up Easy now but was disappointing to see at the time the people who were getting shouted down on here for saying Xia was not all he was cracked up to be. I guess after five years of austerity under Lerner people were just getting seduced by us signing players for 10-15m again but hilarious how many would go OTT at his tweets and everything. We could've easily ended up in league one after losing that play off final, thankfully things turned out o.k in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinebro Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 5 hours ago, VillaChris said: I think signing Hogan showed Bruce's limitations aside from just motivating players. The way we played was totally different to Brentford and he looked completely lost in our system and nothing was done to change it. All we needed was some creativity to utilize his world class movement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 29 minutes ago, Pinebro said: All we needed was some creativity to utilize his world class movement. It was more just the endless lumping of balls up to him. He'd totally lost all confidence by the time Grealish got consistent from the start of 2018. DS couldn't do anything with him by the time he got here either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 5 hours ago, VillaChris said: Easy now but was disappointing to see at the time the people who were getting shouted down on here for saying Xia was not all he was cracked up to be. I guess after five years of austerity under Lerner people were just getting seduced by us signing players for 10-15m again but hilarious how many would go OTT at his tweets and everything. We could've easily ended up in league one after losing that play off final, thankfully things turned out o.k in the end. I said it from the start and people just assumed he couldnt be worse than Lerner. People wanting Steve Hollis as chairman for arranging it was even more cringy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted March 9 Share Posted March 9 11 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said: It’s difficult for me to look back and not project how we now know the season panned out onto that I thought at the time. I suppose I could look what I posted at the time, but my belief is I was trying to convince myself we were doing alright. I remember being second for a short time but thinking that this novelty probably won’t last. I often wonder why I (infrequently) return to this thread. On the one hand when it comes to Bruce I’m a little petty and having a little dig at his expense I find mildly amusing. Although he’s out of work, my suspicion is he’s still fairly well insulated and protected by the old boys club, if he was given the something like the Palace job, the usual suspects would be on hand to fight his battles. But I think the main reason is that 17/18 was a rather important season in our recent history. Christ knows what would have happened if they actually had their shit together (that’s everyone, Bruce playing his part but not the biggest part in the wider debacle). I remember being incensed after the QPR and Bolton losses. We just threw it. Bolton were absolute crap that year, and while the crazy conditions didn't help that day we should have saw them off. QPR just completely played us off the park and a young Eberechi Eze completely ran the show that day. At VP. Felt like I was back in the Lambert days. That's when I knew I was done with Bruce. We were going nowhere with him, it was so obvious. I remember this board being infuriating because there were people who were just happy to be in the top 6 of the Championship and not make it out of the league. Part of it was because Bruce was this old school "no nonsense" manager that still seemed to carry some weight in those days. I'm glad Dean Smith and now Unai Emery have completely shattered that myth and those dinosaurs seem to largely be going extinct. Hopefully next on the chopping block, Sean Dyche. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fightoffyour Posted March 10 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10 Eeny, meeny, miny, moe who’s a bigger cock nose I don’t know if it’s Gareth, hands you’ll show, but I bet Brucey here will glow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Albrighton Posted March 10 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10 1 hour ago, Keyblade said: I remember being incensed after the QPR and Bolton losses. We just threw it. Bolton were absolute crap that year, and while the crazy conditions didn't help that day we should have saw them off. QPR just completely played us off the park and a young Eberechi Eze completely ran the show that day. At VP. Felt like I was back in the Lambert days. That's when I knew I was done with Bruce. We were going nowhere with him, it was so obvious. I remember this board being infuriating because there were people who were just happy to be in the top 6 of the Championship and not make it out of the league. Part of it was because Bruce was this old school "no nonsense" manager that still seemed to carry some weight in those days. I'm glad Dean Smith and now Unai Emery have completely shattered that myth and those dinosaurs seem to largely be going extinct. Hopefully next on the chopping block, Sean Dyche. QPR was a difficult one to take. One, because I was there for it. Two, because it followed on from the Wolves triumph so crashing back to down to reality. Three, because it had been rearranged to a Tuesday night when it was originally due to be played on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks prior - the beast from the east snow put paid to that. I’m still of the opinion we would have won had the game been played on the original planned date. I think you’re correct, they probably thought we’d stodge our way to promotion. But what you say about knowing Bruce was done, really those back to back home games against Wolves and QPR are almost emblematic of Bruce with us, but just an extreme version. “Ah, we’ve turned the corner, he’s got us rolling now and things are looking up…oh no, they’ve literally turned to shit instantly.” In reality it was often less extreme and far more humdrum on a regular basis. But you get the idea. Incredibly patchy runs. One or two really good runs, some absolutely dire bouts of form. I’ve droned on about that first January with Bruce before, but bloody hell. People would go on about Smith sans Grealish in the promotion season. They have forgotten about Bruce at the start of 2017. Christ almighty. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 10 Moderator Share Posted March 10 22 hours ago, rodders0223 said: He was barely at work when he managed us. I’m far from a Steve Bruce fan, but that’s unfair in the extreme. He tried hard, tried his best, including working when he had bereavements. He just wasn’t up to the job, unfortunately. I never thought he would be and was miffed we appointed him, but he worked extremely hard (and was well paid for that). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted March 10 VT Supporter Share Posted March 10 16 hours ago, VillaChris said: Most interesting thing for me were people actually preferring to stay down at the time as there was no hope we could ever be a competitive force at prem level every again. What's better than winning lots of games and scoring loads of goals in the championship? Doing it in the premier league which has been the case for the last 18 months. To be fair we’d had years of utter utter dross in the prem, and the progress we’ve made now is beyond what all of us could have realistically hoped for. It’s no surprise people were enjoying winning games for once 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted March 10 Share Posted March 10 8 hours ago, fightoffyour said: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe who’s a bigger cock nose I don’t know if it’s Gareth, hands you’ll show, but I bet Brucey here will glow. Id replace Brucey with Stevie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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