Steve Bruce

[AvfcRigo82]

Defeat tomorrow and he will be gone by Wednesday.

12 points where needed from the first 4 games.. 1 pt from a potential 6 so far and could be 1pt from a potential 9 after tomorrow is relegation form.

Get the Axe sharpened Dr Xia!

[andym]

Another one in the ever lengthening list of excuses from Bruce. I'm fed up of hearing that it doesn't mean enough to the players when they get beat, that players can't deal with the pressure of being at such a big club etc etc. I would say the majority of players don't like getting beat, they don't get to the top of the professional game by accepting losing, and by not being able to handle pressure.

Its the same when i hear some people say because our players are on big wages at a big club they don't care as much as players at these other clubs who keep beating us, that they don't 'fight for the shirt as much'. That imo is bollocks, Cardiff City players for example don't care anymore about that club than our players about ours. It's still just a job to them, and they would jump ship at the slightest opportunity of more money or a bigger stage. 

We keep getting beat because the players are not being put into the best position to win games, not because they are trying less than the opposition. 9 times out of 10 a team better set up and better drilled is going to beat a team who 'have desire' but no game plan. Look at the Cardiff game, we didn't lose because Cardiff 'wanted it more', we lost because Warnock completely did Bruce tactically, exploiting our lack of pace and in particular our weakness down our right.

[terrytini]

Every time he opens his mouth now there are more and more excuses, more and more admissions of failure, more and more blaming of the players, more and more bemoaning his funds, more and more over the top criticism of the Club, and NO indication he thinks he is messing up.

How can they even contemplate him staying with all that verbal garbage to add to the failed playing garbage ?

I don't want him here for his football, his attitude, or his results.

Cant support him any longer REGARDLESS of results.

Gone from 3/10 to 0/10 since the defeat....all from his own mouth.

[peterms]

3 minutes ago, villasteed said:

It seems that my diplomatic opinion is in the minority here. To me it would be crazy to sack our manager after just 2 games - Bruce's first full season. I understand the Cardiff game was totally unacceptable and if there are more performances like this one, I'll be calling for Bruce to go too. But let's see where we are after 10 games. I don't think that's too much to ask. 

I'm certainly not accepting mediocrity, as suggested in other posts, but sacking Bruce doesn't guarantee success. If anything, it could cause even more disharmony and yet another season of mediocrity and transition. In the same way, we don't know that Bruce is going to fail like many are suggesting. We simply don't know what will happen..

And who can we get who will replace Bruce? It's a very serious question that no one has answered. 

Fair points.

On the other hand, our season of transition has turned into a decade of transition.   People are fed up waiting.  This isn't Bruce's fault, he's just the latest figurehead.  But that doesn't get him off.

Sacking him may not be a panacea, but the football is just so dire, any change would come as a relief.  In the season just gone, when I could get a stream, I probably spent half the match playing videogames, it was so boring.

It's not all Bruce's fault.  But he has to go anyway.  Please.

[PaulC]

1 minute ago, terrytini said:

Every time he opens his mouth now there are more and more excuses, more and more admissions of failure, more and more blaming of the players, more and more bemoaning his funds, more and more over the top criticism of the Club, and NO indication he thinks he is messing up.

How can they even contemplate him staying with all that verbal garbage to add to the failed playing garbage ?

I don't want him here for his football, his attitude, or his results.

Cant support him any longer REGARDLESS of results.

Gone from 3/10 to 0/10 since the defeat....all from his own mouth.

I don't think hes very likeable 

[terrytini]

That last lot of comments makes my blood boil.

I hope the owner and players are as annoyed with him as I am, and with any luck he will be sacked before tomorrow's game.

[terrytini]

He's basically claiming to be the only guy at the Club who cares about losing.

Honestly, can't stand reading/hearing him now.

[AvfcRigo82]

If the fans chant "Bruce out" tomorrow night I think that will spell it out loud and clear to Dr Xia, Denver the Dinosaur and Steve Round... as well as fist face himself that time is up!

[sne]

[DCJonah]

1 hour ago, Villan_of_oz said:

Can I get link to read this DC, sounds like a dead man walking. 

His exact quote was 

“I’d love to be signing 26-year-olds. People are saying we’re Dad’s Army. But players are £15m to sign and fortunes in wages. We have had to be a bit shrewd.”

After signing Terry, Whelan and Samba he's now coming out with this after 2 losses. 

 

[DCJonah]

18 minutes ago, terrytini said:

That last lot of comments makes my blood boil.

I hope the owner and players are as annoyed with him as I am, and with any luck he will be sacked before tomorrow's game.

I'm very worried that Wyness won't want to acknowledge his mistake and Xia gets sucked into the whole stability thing. 

[terrytini]

Just now, DCJonah said:

I'm very worried that Wyness won't want to acknowledge his mistake and Xia gets sucked into the whole stability thing. 

I'm not.

I thought Wynesses comments about needing 70/80 goals or whatever were aimed at Bruce, and additionally I get the feeling the Doc has already put him on notice.

Could be wrong of course but I think they are lining someone up. Having said that win the next two and Xia will come out positively for Bruce.

So I'm not worried for the reasons you are, but I am worried they won't act if he gets a couple of results.

[Villarocker]

I'm not his biggest fan and do think he needs to go but, I don't think he's to blame for the sale of Baker. I read on the OS that he didn't have any thoughts on Baker leaving and was then told Bristol City had made an offer that the club thought was good. He said Baker wanted first team football but he couldn't guarantee him it and so he wanted to go. Pointless keeping a player that wants away.

I also don't agree with the claims the signings weren't his wanting. He said he needed cover for Jedinak so that explains Whelan. Terry was available so that was an obvious one. Elmohamady was also an easy one to point at Bruce. My concern with the Elmohamady signing is that Bruce sees him as the flair player we need to create more chances - I don't see that.

[Tommo_b]

Is it possible we could fine the players if they lose, like the opposite of a win bonus, I'm sure they wouldn't like losing as much then. 

[terrytini]

It's utter rubbish to question the players in the way he does.

One or two might be carefree or flaky but not the 25 or so he's picked so far.

They are just very badly coached and very badly handled.

[vreitti]

Sounds like he's finally thrown the toys out of the pram. The ending is near.

Edited August 14, 2017 by vreitti

[peterms]

16 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

I'm very worried that Wyness won't want to acknowledge his mistake and Xia gets sucked into the whole stability thing. 

Wyness and Xia may be the problem, Bruce the visible symptom.

Do they actually know what they are doing? Don't look like it to me.

[MikeMcKenna]

4 hours ago, AshVilla said:

Bruce doesn't know if Dr Xia is a patient man

Looks like Bruce is playing it smart.

Sounding out to his chums in the media saying he doesn't know if Dr Tony is a patient man or not.

Basically getting in early before he's sacked trying to make our owner look bad should he get the sack.

He's had enough time we are no better than last season and are still a complete and utter shambles please leave.

Tired of all the excuses.

'" **hopefully** we will mount a challenge......"

That tells you everything about Bruce's mentality. 

A manager of AVFC should not be using the word "hopefully" two games into the season. 

GET RID NOW!

 

[TrentVilla]

41 minutes ago, peterms said:

This is quite interesting.  Possibly it's Bruce defending himself - I'm sure that is part of it - but there are insights there as well.

The point about culture is important.  It takes time to build a culture, and our managers haven't been there long enough to do it. 

O'Neill left seven years ago.  Since then we have had Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde, di Matteo, and Bruce.  Alongside the managers, we've had owners who didn't/don't know much about the game.  It's not a recipe for building a culture.  When the players know they will outlive the manager, then the manager will struggle to instill anything much.  That's not a football thing, it's a general point.

I don't think Bruce is the right person for the job.  But he had a task that was possibly harder than it should have been.

 

Thanks for posting, I'd not seen that.

I'm aware I've already been quite critical of recent comments/interviews with Bruce so I'm aware some will see it as me just jumping on anything he says but once again I take issue with this.

The comments re spending millions frankly annoy me, I'd be interested to know how much Warnock has spent in the job at Cardiff.

But leaving that aside, the main point of the article is the culture thing.

Now I actually agree with him, there is an issue with this and its been there for far too long but I think he is on dangerous ground trying to use it as an excuse, which I think he is doing, for a number of reasons.

First, despite his claims re 6 months he has been here for 10 months, that might not be enough to change a clubs culture but it should be enough to make some sort of impact upon it. He has been afforded the opportunity, despite his recent bleating about financial restrictions, to bring in what 12 or 13 new players. Given that number of new arrivals, isn't it justified to think that we should be seeing some evidence of an improvement in this cultural issue?

Yet here we have Bruce saying that the basics still aren't there. Well hang on a moment Bruce, I'm looking at you here fella.

Here he is saying to paraphrase 'the players aren't bothered enough when we lose', well hang on a moment if this is such an issue how does his stance with Gabby make sense? Now I've not got a massive issue with what he has done with Gabby but if one player really hasn't been bothered enough over the last couple of years its Gabby. So what message is Bruce giving out to the dressing room by bring Gabby back? It is a bit contradictory to this notion of a cultural problem is it not.

Bruce is a manager who by his own admission doesn't place a great deal of store in tactics, so given that and his admission that he can't get the culture / attitude right (despite bringing in 12 / 13 players) then what exactly does he have left to offer?

He is right the team are fragile, there is no confidence at all in them as individuals or as units or a team. That in part is because the results are poor, its in part because we never retain the bloody ball which is in part a reason for the poor results. To quote Bruce out of context, the basics simply aren't there. It doesn't help that 10 months in the players like the fans probably haven't a clue what formation Bruce wants to play.

How we are playing has been picked apart many times so I won't do so again but Bruce needs to look at himself a little more.

Part of the reason we don't come back in games is that so frequently we aren't in them in the first place. We have little possession, we don't retain the ball, we don't put sides under sustained pressure, we don't create chances because we've no attacking threat unless Kodjia is on one. We try to pinch games 1-0 but we are pretty poor at doing it.

When we go behind we don't have enough in our game to fight back, that to me is more to do with tactics and management than it is heart, even if I concede heart is at times an issue. Last season he told us the players weren't fit enough, this season its heart.

The players aren't above blame, far from it but I once again come back to Bruce. He says it doesn't mean enough when we lose, well I'm sorry he is the manager and that is on him.

If this is an issue, he needs to set expectations yet instead he down plays them. He offers excuses about Grealish, about FFP and talks about hoping to be in the mix. If you give players a whiff of an excuse, some will take it especially those with poor motivation which he seems to be saying he has, so what the hell are you playing at Bruce with the saying this stuff.

Think back to O'Neill, we had issues when he arrived not dissimilar to those Bruce is alluding to, well O'Neill set the tone. He set the standards and people met them or they bloody knew it, he didn't offer excuses to anyone. It didn't take him 10 months before seeing 'gimpses' of improvement. Martin O'Neill had tactics, limited though they were, he had a way he wanted to play and it was effective (to a point) because everyone knew what it was and were signed to fit it. But Bruce isn't really into tactics.

I see what he is trying to do with these comments, he is trying to buy more time or defend his performance should more time not be forthcoming. What I suspect he is actually doing is alienating some of the players in the dressing room or may in some cases have questionable attitudes but are also I'd imagine seriously questioning Bruce's own contribution.

Personally when I start seeing this sort of stuff I always think a parting of the ways is both inevitable and imminent, right now sadly, I really hope this is the case.

 

 

[Czechlad]

We are kind of a joke run club if we sack our manager only 3 matches into a season