Chop chop! Lets all gawp at Newcastle (again)

[TheStagMan]

48 minutes ago, useless said:

Each club that Bruce has been allowed to perform his dreaded managerial dance upon has been left in a complete mess, either financially or with a squad not fit for purpose, in some cases both, his two most recent teams have even had to sell their ground. Sunderland fans especially, to this day don't forgive him, and lay the blame with him for their current predicament because of the mess he made of their squad whilst there.

 

Yeah, but that's because they never accepted him because he is a Geordie. Nothing to do with his managerial skills. As a manager he was great.

[kurtsimonw]

51 minutes ago, TheStagMan said:

I was supporting the club, and by that, I was supporting the manager until such time that it was clear that he was not going to achieve his objectives. To be precise, taht was after the pathetic displays in the play offs. 

would you like to kindly restate your question and I will answer it. I must have missed it amongst the gibberish in your posts.

So you supported Bruce? What a complete hypocrite.

What was his net spend at Villa? Massive, I imagine, given he only spends his way out of things and puts the club in to a mess?

And given his shit recruitment, do you think it's a mistake the club allowed him to bring in the likes of Taylor, Elmo, McGinn, AEG, Tammy?

[bobzy]

2 hours ago, TheStagMan said:

Where did I mention relegation scraps?

Where did I say that RDMs recruitment was any better? I said that Bruce's recruitment was poor. You and some others decided to argue that it wasn't.

Now you are just making stuff up.

There is also a good case argue that Smith inherited a heck of a mess, just like Bruce did. 

By the way, Brentfords recruitment IS good. They have not been promoted because their retention if players is poor. However that is the model they have chosen and they are very good at it.

Bruces model is to spend his way out of trouble and buy names to get you promoted, and he is not very good at it.

The defense of him at this point is truely laughable.

There isn't any defence of him.  I have no idea why this keeps getting brought up - but the tirade of stuff about being crap at absolutely everything was boring when he was our manager and is boring now.  This was his recruitment whilst at Villa (with my view of how they did, FWIW):

Henri Lansbury (1st season) - poor
James Bree (1st season) - poor
Birkir Bjarnason (1st season) - poor
Conor Hourihane (1st season) - decent
Neil Taylor (1st season) - decent
Scott Hogan (1st season) - poor
John Terry (2nd season) - good
Ahmed Elmohamady (2nd season) - good
Chris Samba (2nd season) - poor
Glenn Whelan (2nd season) - decent
Orjan Nyland (this season) - poor
John McGinn (this season) - good

Sam Johnstone - loan in (1st and 2nd season) - good
Josh Onomah - loan in (2nd season) - poor
Robert Snodgrass - loan in (2nd season) - good
Axel Tuanzebe - loan in (2nd and this season) - good
Lewis Grabban - loan in (2nd season) - good
Andre Moreira - loan in (this season) - poor
Anwar El Ghazi - loan in (this season) - good
Yannick Bolasie - loan in (this season) - poor
Tammy Abraham - loan in (this season) - good

I don't think that's particularly bad recruitment.  His "spending his way out of trouble" resulted in 12 players being purchased over a 2 year period, 2 of which were 1 year deals (Terry and Samba).  There's a real pattern to each season too:
- First season, bought players who were "good in the Championship", steadied the ship.
- Second season, brought in experienced pros to try and gain promotion plus some talented youth on loan.  Failed to win playoffs.
- Third season, brought in cheaper, younger players.  Sacked, Smith did the rest.

The problem was the unbalanced centre back situation and Bruce's ability to set up the team well enough to really push on in the league.  Not much to do with recruitment IMO, just a failing on his part as a manager.

 

Newcastle better hope he does better with less recruitment going on.

Edited July 15, 2019 by bobzy

[LakotaDakota]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Samba, Terry, Snodgrass was just 30, Grabban

Loans....

Resale value isn't an issue

[VillaChris]

More issue is how we played. For all the talent we had available it was generally gritty and negative bar the odd game. Stuff that worked well v Boro wasn't going to work v Fulham and yet we played exactly the same restrictive way and ultimately cost him his job when you think what that defeat did to his standing here.

Anyway people think we never give him a chance....look at some of thse comments!

https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=103091.3175

Quote

Surely, even at Newcastle, he can't get away with this. f*** off a club that have treated you brilliantly to be a lapdog for Ashley, as the lowest paid manager in the league. Your budget is pretty much zero and your objective is to finish 4th bottom. The majority of the north of England now hate you.

Enjoy Steve

Quote

He'll fit in well, the stocking filled with mash potato faced prick.

Wouldn't waste any time making the conversation about him though, another Pardew-style fall guy is exactly what Ashley wants and exactly what Bruce is happy being. No problem at all with being absolutely despised by the city he pretends he loves. The scabbiest c*** going.

Quote

Slimey, fat, snakey c***. Absolutely no morals and perfectly happy to stitch his employer up. Hope Sheff Wed take the injunction out, I want this f***ing shambles to carry on for a long as possible.

 

[VillaChris]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

Bruce wasn't particularly terrible in the transfer market. He's signed some good players and some not so good ones, like most managers. Nobody has a perfect track record. He's been helped massively by having access to the largest pool of resources in the division. Nobody else could have signed Terry or Snodgrass or Bolasie for example.

So it might be better to look at his record at other clubs. He's been able to unearth some absolute gems like McGinn, Robertson, Maguire etc but on the whole, and this is also true for us, he tends to build bloated and aging squads that eventually need major overhauls. Sunderland was a perfect example of Bruce being backed at a decent sized club and just signing a mish mash of players, many of whom needed replacing after he left.

The fact that he couldn't perform optimally with his own signings and that Dean Smith managed to get a tune out of them that didn't seem possible until that point doesn't reflect too well on him at all.

Did actually annoy me when he said the "waifs and strays" comment making it out we were paupers when as you said teams like Preston or QPR couldn't just go out and get Tammy on loan.

[TheStagMan]

2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

No, I agree 100%.

But the fact it, 99% of football managers will be sacked from their jobs. Not many leave on their own terms in reality. So does that mean we're going to have to make things up about Smith in a few years? No. There's something in being level headed, and not filled with hatred. I don't think Bruce is a good football manager, I think ultimately we were aiming for a promotion that didn't come with him. The quality of football was not good.

Because someone criticises Bruce, and his lack of managerial skills does not mean they are filled with hatred. Because someone comments that he has been poor in the transfer market does not mean that they are full of hatred. Because someone thinks Bruce is a bit of a rocket polisher does not mean they are full of hatred. Prior to the Newcastle stuff, I personally had not thought about Bruce for months. I saw the post in the thread and decided to have a laugh about it with fellow Villa fans.This was instantly jumped on by the usual suspects - by that I mean those that defended him vehemently during his tenure here. Things tend to deteriorate from there.
 

2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

However, just because I believe those things, it doesn't mean I'll blindly ignore the fact his net spend was a transfer profit, 

This was because he was able to sell a number of premier league (admittedly poor) players and bring in money to spend. Given our financial peril the prudent thing to do would have been to balance the books and consolidate and rebuilt, but the approach was to throw it all at promotion one and Bruce was allowed to spend money we later found out that we did not have. In addition he was allowed to bring in free agents and loan signings on damned good salaries. He had resources that the majority of Championship managers would kill for - so despite the fact his net spend was negative (by a small amount) - does NOT mean that he was not backed in the transfer market. 

Jan 2017
Hogan (24) - £10m (must admit, I thought he was older)
Hourihane (25) - £3m
Bree (19) - £3m
Lansbury (26) - £3m
Bjarnason (28) - £1.8m
Bedau (17) - £1m
Johnstone (23) on loan (Wages)
Taylor (27) - Undisclosed
Summer 2018
Whelan (33) - £1.5m
Elmo (29) - £1m
Terry (36) on a free (Wages)
Snodgrass (29) on loan (Wages)
Onomah (20) on loan (Wages)
Samba (33) on a free (Wages)
Jan 2018
Tuanzebe (20) on loan (Wages)
Grabban (30) on loan (Wages)
Summer 2018
McGinn (23) - £3m
Nyland (27) - £2.7m
El Ghazi (23) on loan (Wages + £2m loan fee)
Moreira (22) on loan (Wages)
Tammy (20) on loan (Wages)
Wasterman (29) on loan (Stupid Wages)

 

Saying that his net spend was a transfer profit implies that he was not backed, nor was he allowed to spend money. He was, and by Championship standards of the time, he spent A LOT - approx £34m on 22 players in his time with us. He was backed to provide wages for 10 loan players - a few of which had massive salaries (Terry, Wasterman(C), Snodgrass)

 

As we found out later, it was expenditure that we could not afford. He was backed financially to the detriment of the club

 

2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

, that the signings he made and the people he bought to the club (Terry, included) are all bad, because what's the point? When you see people spout shit and make things up, they should be called on it.

Not all were bad. But of the 22 signings he made, Only 9 of them were in the 17 man squad that won the playoff final. Of those 9, 1 has since been released and a further 3 were loans, of which 2 we have not been able to retain.

 

Tell me what, about any of the above is "shit"??

 

 

2 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

It doesn't change the fact I like Smith as a person more. That I think his recruitment is better and that he's a better, more forward thinking manager.

On this - we agree completely 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2019 by TheStagMan

[TheStagMan]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

But it was public knowledge that the shite down the road offered Terry more than we did.

So how does that fit the narrative that no one else could have signed him when you don't have to look further than 3 miles away to be proved wrong?

I believe that they we unable to sign him. So that does indeed fit the narrative. 

 

Happy to help.

[Keyblade]

2 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Did actually annoy me when he said the "waifs and strays" comment making it out we were paupers when as you said teams like Preston or QPR couldn't just go out and get Tammy on loan.

It's one of the things that really rubbed me the wrong way about him. He had to brazenly lie like that to cover his ass over the fact that he was failing at his job. The complete lack of responsibility was kind of jarring, because I also was part of team #NiceGuy. He made damn sure in his last year or so here to erode that reputation.

[LakotaDakota]

47 minutes ago, TheStagMan said:

And the sell on value of Bruce's signings being?

Well apparently McGinn is worth 50 million...

Ok so players we actually bought (going on transfermarkt fees rounded to nearest half million)

Hogan 10 mil - Current Value 4-5 mil

Bree £3 mil - Current Value £3 mil

Hourihane £3 mil - Current Value £10-15 mil

Lansbury £3 mil - Current Value £3-5 mil

McGinn £3 mil - Current Value £20-30 mil

Nyland £3 mil - Current Value £2-3 mil

Bjarnason £2 mil - Current Value £1-2 mil

Whelan £1.5 mil - Current Value £0

Elmohamady £1 mil - Current Value £3-5 mil

 

Looks ok to me

Edited July 15, 2019 by LakotaDakota

[TheStagMan]

58 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

So you supported Bruce? What a complete hypocrite.

What was his net spend at Villa? Massive, I imagine, given he only spends his way out of things and puts the club in to a mess?

And given his shit recruitment, do you think it's a mistake the club allowed him to bring in the likes of Taylor, Elmo, McGinn, AEG, Tammy?

What is hypocritical about supporting a manager until such time as he proves (to me at least, and many others) that he is not good enough to get us where we needed to be?  Cut the personal insults. 

As to your last two sentences,  I have answered that in my post above if you would like to peruse and get back to me.

Edited July 15, 2019 by TheStagMan

[TheStagMan]

37 minutes ago, bobzy said:

There isn't any defence of him.  I have no idea why this keeps getting brought up - but the tirade of stuff about being crap at absolutely everything was boring when he was our manager and is boring now.  This was his recruitment whilst at Villa (with my view of how they did, FWIW):

Henri Lansbury (1st season) - poor
James Bree (1st season) - poor
Birkir Bjarnason (1st season) - poor
Conor Hourihane (1st season) - decent
Neil Taylor (1st season) - decent
Scott Hogan (1st season) - poor
John Terry (2nd season) - good
Ahmed Elmohamady (2nd season) - good
Chris Samba (2nd season) - poor
Glenn Whelan (2nd season) - decent
Orjan Nyland (this season) - poor
John McGinn (this season) - good

Sam Johnstone - loan in (1st and 2nd season) - good
Josh Onomah - loan in (2nd season) - poor
Robert Snodgrass - loan in (2nd season) - good
Axel Tuanzebe - loan in (2nd and this season) - good
Lewis Grabban - loan in (2nd season) - good
Andre Moreira - loan in (this season) - poor
Anwar El Ghazi - loan in (this season) - good
Yannick Bolasie - loan in (this season) - poor
Tammy Abraham - loan in (this season) - good

I don't think that's particularly bad recruitment.  His "spending his way out of trouble" resulted in 12 players being purchased over a 2 year period, 2 of which were 1 year deals (Terry and Samba).  There's a real pattern to each season too:
- First season, bought players who were "good in the Championship", steadied the ship.
- Second season, brought in experienced pros to try and gain promotion plus some talented youth on loan.  Failed to win playoffs.
- Third season, brought in cheaper, younger players.  Sacked, Smith did the rest.

The problem was the unbalanced centre back situation and Bruce's ability to set up the team well enough to really push on in the league.  Not much to do with recruitment IMO, just a failing on his part as a manager.

 

Newcastle better hope he does better with less recruitment going on.

There is an awful lot of "poor" in your own list. 

 

To me, a signing is also "poor" if the manager that signs them fails to get them to deliver (regardless of whether someone else gets a tune out of them). So Tuanzebe is poor under Bruce's management, as is AEG, Whelan under Bruce is debatable so will go with Decent

 

As for there not being  a defense of him - I agree but people are still trying, and by that I mean having a go at people who criticise him (I would count that as a defence).

[bobzy]

2 minutes ago, TheStagMan said:

To me, a signing is also "poor" if the manager that signs them fails to get them to deliver (regardless of whether someone else gets a tune out of them). So Tuanzebe is poor under Bruce's management, as is AEG, Whelan under Bruce is debatable so will go with Decent

See? Just completely blinded by your hatred of the man. I think we’re done here   

[TheStagMan]

8 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

Well apparently McGinn is worth 50 million...

Ok so players we actually bought (going on transfermarkt fees rounded to nearest half million)

Hogan 10 mil - Current Value 4-5 mil

Bree £3 mil - Current Value £3 mil

Hourihane £3 mil - Current Value £10-12 mil

Lansbury £3 mil - Current Value £3-5 mil

McGinn £3 mil - Current Value £20-30 mil

Nyland £3 mil - Current Value £2-3 mil

Bjarnason £2 mil - Current Value £1-2 mil

Whelan £1.5 mil - Current Value £0

Elmohamady £1 mil - Current Value £3-5 mil

 

Looks ok to me

OK, who is going to pay £5m for Hogan? £12m for Hourihane? Much as I like the guy, No. 

What about the others he signed during his time? 1 year contracts by definition no sell on fee. 10 loans!!!!

[TheStagMan]

5 minutes ago, bobzy said:

See? Just completely blinded by your hatred of the man. I think we’re done here   

WOW!

How is that blinded? WTF are you talking about? 

You buy a player that you are unable to get decent performances out of. Please tell me how that is a good signing?

Edited July 15, 2019 by TheStagMan

[bobzy]

Just now, TheStagMan said:

How is that blinded? WTF are you talking about? 

You buy a player that you are unable to get decent performances out of. Please tell me how that is a good signing?

El Ghazi is a bad signing then?

[Keyblade]

51 minutes ago, bobzy said:

There isn't any defence of him.  I have no idea why this keeps getting brought up - but the tirade of stuff about being crap at absolutely everything was boring when he was our manager and is boring now.  This was his recruitment whilst at Villa (with my view of how they did, FWIW):

Henri Lansbury (1st season) - poor
James Bree (1st season) - poor
Birkir Bjarnason (1st season) - poor
Conor Hourihane (1st season) - decent
Neil Taylor (1st season) - decent
Scott Hogan (1st season) - poor
John Terry (2nd season) - good
Ahmed Elmohamady (2nd season) - good
Chris Samba (2nd season) - poor
Glenn Whelan (2nd season) - decent
Orjan Nyland (this season) - poor
John McGinn (this season) - good

Sam Johnstone - loan in (1st and 2nd season) - good
Josh Onomah - loan in (2nd season) - poor
Robert Snodgrass - loan in (2nd season) - good
Axel Tuanzebe - loan in (2nd and this season) - good
Lewis Grabban - loan in (2nd season) - good
Andre Moreira - loan in (this season) - poor
Anwar El Ghazi - loan in (this season) - good
Yannick Bolasie - loan in (this season) - poor
Tammy Abraham - loan in (this season) - good

I don't think that's particularly bad recruitment.  His "spending his way out of trouble" resulted in 12 players being purchased over a 2 year period, 2 of which were 1 year deals (Terry and Samba).  There's a real pattern to each season too:
- First season, bought players who were "good in the Championship", steadied the ship.
- Second season, brought in experienced pros to try and gain promotion plus some talented youth on loan.  Failed to win playoffs.
- Third season, brought in cheaper, younger players.  Sacked, Smith did the rest.

The problem was the unbalanced centre back situation and Bruce's ability to set up the team well enough to really push on in the league.  Not much to do with recruitment IMO, just a failing on his part as a manager.

 

Newcastle better hope he does better with less recruitment going on.

I agree with pretty much all of your assessments on the signings but that just makes me realize that it was actually worse than I originally thought. In my head, I thought he signed a lot more good than bad but it's looking pretty much 50/50.

When you think about it, many of his most important players were players that were already at the club before he came like Kodjia, Chester, Jedinak, Adomah, Grealish, Hutton. Those players were stalwarts in our team during our 3 year stay in the Championship, and kinda shows that a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to transfers in/out was done by Di Matteo. Bruce made quite a few bad signings but it didn't really negatively impact us too much because we already had a solid core.

[TheStagMan]

8 minutes ago, bobzy said:

El Ghazi is a bad signing then?

Under Bruce he was, yes. Go and look at his thread during that period. He did not play well at all. 

 

I'll try again - My point is that if a manager buys (or loans) a player, and cannot get performances out of them, then it has been a bad signing for that manager. If you do not have a plan of how to use the player or understand their skills then it is a bad signing.

 

The fact that Smith has since got good performances out of him does not change that and make him a good signing for Bruce. 

 

Snodgrass, Terry, Johnstone, Grabban were good signings for Bruce. AEG was not, nor was Tuanzebe.

 

But let's forget that for a minute. Lets say I accept all of your assessments in your posts (as above, I don't but let's say I did). You said yourself that only 9 of his signings were good - out of 22 that is pretty damning.

 

Edited July 15, 2019 by TheStagMan

[Zatman]

Dont see Bruce lasting the season, will be like McLaren there but he had a better squad

[kurtsimonw]

15 minutes ago, TheStagMan said:

Because someone criticises Bruce, and his lack of managerial skills does not mean they are filled with hatred. Because someone comments that he has been poor in the transfer market does not mean that they are full of hatred. Because someone thinks Bruce is a bit of a rocket polisher does not mean they are full of hatred. Prior to the Newcastle stuff, I personally had not thought about Bruce for months. I saw the post in the thread and decided to have a laugh about it with fellow Villa fans.This was instantly jumped on by the usual suspects - by that I mean those that defended him vehemently during his tenure here. Things tend to deteriorate from there.
 

This was because he was able to sell a number of premier league (admittedly poor) players and bring in money to spend. Given our financial peril the prudent thing to do would have been to balance the books and consolidate and rebuilt, but the approach was to throw it all at promotion one and Bruce was allowed to spend money we later found out that we did not have. In addition he was allowed to bring in free agents and loan signings on damned good salaries. He had resources that the majority of Championship managers would kill for - so despite the fact his net spend was negative (by a small amount) - does NOT mean that he was not backed in the transfer market. 

Jan 2017
Hogan (24) - £10m (must admit, I thought he was older)
Hourihane (25) - £3m
Bree (19) - £3m
Lansbury (26) - £3m
Bjarnason (28) - £1.8m
Bedau (17) - £1m
Johnstone (23) on loan (Wages)
Taylor (27) - Undisclosed
Summer 2018
Whelan (33) - £1.5m
Elmo (29) - £1m
Terry (36) on loan (Wages)
Snodgrass (29) on loan (Wages)
Onomah (20) on loan (Wages)
Samba (33) on a free (Wages)
Jan 2018
Tuanzebe (20) on loan (Wages)
Grabban (30) on loan (Wages)
Summer 2018
McGinn (23) - £3m
Nyland (27) - £2.7m
El Ghazi (23) on loan (Wages + £2m loan fee)
Moreira (22) on loan (Wages)
Tammy (20) on loan (Wages)
Wasterman (29) on loan (Stupid Wages)

 

Saying that his net spend was a transfer profit implies that he was not backed, nor was he allowed to spend money. He was, and by Championship standards of the time, he spent A LOT - approx £34m on 22 players in his time with us. He was backed to provide wages for 10 loan players - a few of which had massive salaries (Terry, Wasterman(C), Snodgrass)

 

As we found out later, it was expenditure that we could not afford. He was backed financially to the detriment of the club

 

Not all were bad. But of the 22 signings he made, Only 9 of them were in the 17 man squad that won the playoff final. Of those 9, 1 has since been released and a further 3 were loans, of which 2 we have not been able to retain.

 

Tell me what, about any of the above is "shit"??

 

 

On this - we agree completely 

 

 

13 of those 22 players are 26 or under, so this idea that he only signs 30+ players is a myth, in my opinion. Of the 3 players signed who were over 30, Whelan played a big part towards the end of the season and I don't believe we'd have gone up without Terry on the coaching team, I also believe he wouldn't be here in the first place if it wasn't for Bruce.

In terms of the playoff final squad, of course a number of those won't be there because the Championship is a loan heavy market, it's what you have to do to fill a squad out. So yes, no Grabban - but he's replaced with Tammy. Yes, no Snoddy - but he's replaced with AEG.

I don't think not being able to retain players should be used against him. Tuanzebe and Tammy are £25m+ players in this market, surely it's a positive thing that he was able to bring in these young and talented players? Players were always going to move on upon promotion, that's just the nature of football.

I think there's far too much of an emphasis on the negative that things get blown out of proportion. Whether I like, rate or think positively of Bruce is irrelevant. Because I don't in any way.