Re: The Steve Bruce thread

by AstonThriller Mon Feb 20, 2017 8:16 am

I firmly believe another defeat tonight will see the whispers begin about "how many games Bruce has to save himself". Then Derby because massive for him.

Xia has already sacked a higher profile manager, who had a better overall record than Bruce and had only lost once in six...so I don't see how he could now contrive to keep a man who could potentially lose six in a row!!.

He's never gonna go on Twitter and put pressure on the manager!!..he didn't with RDM and he won't now. But you can bet your bottom dollar Round, Wyness and him have discussed the situation. You can't be a run like this and not at least acknowledge that we're in a crisis right now.

My view is if we lose heavily tonight then it's only a matter of time until Bruce is shown the door. They'll then get in an interim, someone like a Hasslebaink maybe? Then make a decision in the summer. Or, if they're brave they take a chance on someone like Clarence Seedorf who is available as I type.

Either way I don't see any middle ground here. Bruce either begins the the turn around tonight or more likely against Derby, or he crashes and burns. I can't see any other scenario transpiring.

by deadbuzzardalive Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:02 am

Bruce says he's been assured his job is safe Telegraph

by Boldfinger Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:04 am

deadbuzzardalive wrote:Bruce says he's been assured his job is safe Telegraph

thats him fucked then

by AstonThriller Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:31 am

Tony came out in support of RDM at one stage too HERE, so I wouldn't pay that too much attention. Especially as they wouldn't have to pay massive compo to get rid of him aswell.

My thinking remains the same..lose the next two and he's toast.

by achilles Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:46 am

AstonThriller wrote:Tony came out in support of RDM at one stage too HERE, so I wouldn't pay that too much attention. Especially as they wouldn't have to pay massive compo to get rid of him aswell.

My thinking remains the same..lose the next two and he's toast.

I think he may be given longer than that as we are 'expected' to lose against Newcastle & Derby as they are 'bigger' clubs now! (said with a large dollop of sarcasm)!

by **NARLA24** Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:11 am

To be closer to the relegation zone than the play offs would not have been Xias plan at all. Lose tonight and against Derby, you just know that Bent will score against us, and i think his cards will be marked and he will be gone. Compensation payments will not bother Xia at all.
Infact i would not be surprised if Rowett will be watching these next two games with a smile on his face. Just a feeling.
The reason i say Rowett is purely based on the collapse of our inbred neighbours since Rowetts departure. The job that bloke was doing for Blues was nothing short of remarkable. Even more remarkable than their decline since he was sacked.
Do not be surprised if contact with a few candidates has already been made. Modern football is mad but it is purely based on results and Bruce seems to have crawled into a shell at the moment. The Villa curse has grabbed him right around the throat and me for one cannot see him surviving much longer, barring at least 1 win in the next 2 games.
Should Newcastle tear us a new arsehole tonight i would be watching SSN tomorrow expecting an announcement that Bruce has gone.
Would it be bad for the club ? I just do not know anymore. But, surely there has to be a manager who can come in and get these lads doing the job they are more than capable of doing, surely.
Bruce going now would be a bit of a shock but do we want to be looking over our shoulder for much longer? Not as far as i am concerned.
Not saying i think he should be sacked, just yet, but rot seems to have set in. Is it Bruce or is it Calderwood who is to blame? Who the fuck knows. Maybe Calderwood should go first, just to see if anything changes. We have not won since Boxing Day. Now, if i were the Chairman then i would be putting pressure on the Manager right now.

by achilles Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:19 am

NARLA24 wrote:To be closer to the relegation zone than the play offs would not have been Xias plan at all. Lose tonight and against Derby, you just know that Bent will score against us, and i think his cards will be marked and he will be gone. Compensation payments will not bother Xia at all.
Infact i would not be surprised if Rowett will be watching these next two games with a smile on his face. Just a feeling.
The reason i say Rowett is purely based on the collapse of our inbred neighbours since Rowetts departure. The job that bloke was doing for Blues was nothing short of remarkable. Even more remarkable than their decline since he was sacked.

I know it is utterly ridiculous and definitely won't happen but I wouldn't mind sacking Bruce and giving Rowett the job till the summer, to see what he could do with our prima donnas, it would be interesting!

by **NARLA24** Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:28 am

Good balanced discussion on SSN with Alan Smith and George Boeteng at the moment about the pressure on Managers and players coming into Villa. Well worth a look.

by deadbuzzardalive Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:33 am

If people think Bruce is overly defensive without much emphasis on possession of the football, then wait until they see a Rowett team, he's a young manager but his style is very much old fashioned hoof ball. Which is fine in some situations. I just feel, this club needs a radical shift in it's direction, in order to move on from the last five or six years.

I don't think he's what we need and it would smack of 'jobs for the boys' but I just wonder if they've got one eye on Moye's situation at Sunderland. Wyness, Round and Atkins, have all worked with him in the past.

by The Utterer Mon Feb 20, 2017 12:28 pm

We really are between a rock and a hard place.

The thing the club desperately needs is stability. The Villa Park revolving door has never spun so fast as these last few years and it's no wonder results have suffered.

Obviously RDM was not a good appointment and from Xia's comments recently we clearly don't know all the ins and outs of that scenario.

Then in comes Bruce and he steadied things for a while with even a Playoff level points haul for a while. But them we had a bit of a downturn in results. Gate gate and Gabby's last ditch leap at sorting himself out and that was that! Back came the substandard performances and the poor results followed not far behind. New manager bounce was over and back to square one!

Then that crazy January! In came an entire new Midfield and out went some stalwarts of averagness from the Lambert and RDM era..Westwood, Ayew, Gollini, Tshibola & Others left along with McCormack who was supposed to be THE player who lifted us.

Now we are basically in a pre season again but in Mid season. Playing our toughest run of fixtures thus far against many promotion hopefuls and well established Championship teams by en large. Most of whom have a point to prove as we have poached their best player or players! Add to that they are playing against Aston Villa which surely adds 10% on to their normal performance level anyway and you start to see why results are so shockingly bad.

Now we have Newcastle, again bad blood has been spilled and one of our former charges Cieran Clark will be out to prove a point as he was pretty much ousted by fan disenchantment which is a surefire way to fire someone up and burn bridges.

I remember times when Villa players were reluctant to leave this club. Not any more! The likes of Clark, Westwood, Ayew and many others all left stating their relief to escape and with no kind words whatsoever. No surprise as we go from witch hunt after witch hunt out of desperation to see results improve.

So there we are back at the beginning of this post, between a rock and a hard place! Results are poor, the fans get on the players backs, the players confidence and desire to play here are eroded and we get more poor results.... those players leave as a result and then the new lot come in ...REPEAT!!

At some point we HAVE to somehow find a way to stop the circle. Get behind the lads and give it time. The problem is with such large support and social media in the equation how on Earth do you make that happen?

by deadbuzzardalive Mon Feb 20, 2017 12:42 pm

The answer to stopping the cycle of constantly having to change managers is quite simple. Appoint a decent one in the first place. Instead of keeping going for managers who are pretty much very similar in style and approach to our prevous managers who've already failed, and don't actually improve things and in some cases just make things worse.

I feel with our next appointment we're either going to have to find a relative unknown like Wagner or Pochettino, or we're going just have to say enough's enough time to stop messing about, and go all out for a big name, someone who'll give the place a lift, like when O'Neill got the job. But obviously in our situation that's easier said than done.

by achilles Mon Feb 20, 2017 12:47 pm

@The Utterer understand what you are saying but I feel the players have to accept some responsibility here.
They have to embrace the chance of playing for Aston Villa and accept the challenges that present.
Isn't this part of the 'job' interview to see if you are suited to play for Aston Villa unfortunately these sort of things don't show up on these pro stats, so much for technology where did common sense and talking to people go too?

by **NARLA24** Mon Feb 20, 2017 1:18 pm

Todays presser.

by **Trotters** Mon Feb 20, 2017 3:23 pm

Hahahaha

by big ming Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:11 pm

If Bruce were to go, I am leaning towards Dean Smith because he is a Villa fan and is bound to have empathy with the fans in an "all in it together" way......
but mostly because I want us to play the attractive way Brentford did against a clueless Villa couple of weeks back.

by **De Kuip** Mon Feb 20, 2017 7:35 pm

Four changes tonight. Four ffs. See my previous post about the turmoil of constant team changes. It cannot help. Having said that the debacle that was Ipswich probably ensures change occurring. But four!

by big ming Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:24 pm

I suppose a new manager "bounce" might just keep us up, but this is looking like last seasons death spiral to me. Better start checking out routes to some of the more exotic Division One grounds. Think I can find my way to Walsall though.

by Guest Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:26 pm

Keep him. We're plain unlucky tonight

by VTID85 Mon Feb 20, 2017 9:44 pm

Joppe84 wrote:Keep him. We're plain unlucky tonight

First half unlucky, second half dogshit.

by Guest Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:00 pm

VTID85 wrote:
Joppe84 wrote:Keep him. We're plain unlucky tonight

First half unlucky, second half dogshit.

Agreed.

by deadbuzzardalive Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:09 pm

Absolute rubbish from start to finish. First half was only made to look a bit better because Newcastle were in first gear.

We need an interim manager until the end of the season.

by achilles Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:10 pm

Joppe84 wrote:Keep him. We're plain unlucky tonight

Nothing has changed in a game that nobody expected us to win and we didn't so we carry on.
Nothing is unlucky you create your own luck!

by deadbuzzardalive Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:23 pm

It always seems to be 'if we don't do anything in the next game'. But action needs to taken now, otherwise we're sleepwalking into another relegation, and this is Bruce's fault he's been a disaster, nothing to do with the team needing time to gel.

by **Trotters** Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:58 pm

achilles wrote:
Joppe84 wrote:Keep him. We're plain unlucky tonight

Nothing has changed in a game that nobody expected us to win and we didn't so we carry on.
Nothing is unlucky you create your own luck!

Exactly. The first goal was poor and the 2nd just a pisser but there was absolutely nothing unlucky about the result. We've absolutely nothing up front, we're disorganised at the back, the lineups and formation again changes so the midfield just looks lost and confused. That's all on Bruce.

When I saw Shelvey get a yellow and then their captain, I thought we'd target them to get them sent off. But no. And frankly, they could have been down to 9 men and it'd not have made one blind bit of difference.

by The Utterer Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:27 pm

Our attack is shocking i have to say. Unbelievable really considering we had Gestede, McCormack & Kodija 3 of the top scorers in this division for years at the start of the year.

McCormack is obviously history, we sold Gestede (How we could do with him now) and Kodija has gone off the boil. Is it our coaching or what?!

I never rated Ayew so no gripes there but now we have (Had before injury) Hogan and yet again he looks poor! What on Earth is going on at this club?!

I actually think Hogans injury might be a blessing in disguise as he's done jack since he came here. Maybe blood one or two of the kids as they surely can't do any worse.

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