Let me get this straight from the off.
I’m utterly disgusted at the result today.
The fact that an ex Walsall player put two goals against us, says it all.
But I firmly believe that sacking Steve Bruce is not the solution to our problems.
I know. That’s going to go totally against the grain.
But there’s something badly wrong. There has to be.
Consider Nigel Spink believes there’s an over-hanging cancer at the club.
And now Tony Morley, after saying at half time that we could easily beat Barnsley, now seems to also accept that there’s something seriously wrong down the Villa.
I respect Morley and believe he can read a game.
I also believe Steve Bruce can read a game and is not a manager who has to rely on other so-called tactitians to tell him what to do.
So why are we starting out with the set-ups that we are and not making the subs when it seems they’re required?
Is Bruce really that poor a manager?
I’m not having that as an excuse, personally and think there’s something we’re not seeing from the outside.
That said, on the face of it, it’s simply appalling.
Morley says he can’t understand why we don’t make the changes when it’s blindingly obvious they’re needed.
I’m the same.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce wants the sack.
Which if you seriously think about it, is a frightening thought.
Because if someone of Bruce’s experience in handling players can’t cut it, what chance has any younger manager got?
Am I talking rubbish?
Think about it again.
Look at the managers we’ve had. The players we’ve changed. The hierarchy we’ve changed. The coaches etc we’ve changed. And even the owner.
Whatever has been changed, it simply hasn’t worked.
So is changing the manager again going to work?
I’m afraid I just don’t see it.
That said, I know my arguments aren’t going to cut much ice.
Morley said we could beat Barnsley easy, at half time, but basically described us as a load of jellyfish ten minutes after.
The facts are that if we carry this on, we’re going down; no ifs and buts.
And I know it’s what you’re thinking too.
And it’s why I’m reluctantly putting a poll up.
Sad days.
Well this should be more interesting than the game, I reckon.
badger
do you read what you have wrote
one line says keep bruce next lines its his fault
you also have said something about a reason gabby was been played ?
its a bit like bruce team sheet something different each time
JVillan, have you actually read what i’ve suggested?
I’m not going to get into a major debate about it tonight.
It’s all bound to be far too hormonal and reactionary for my liking tonight.
The poll is there mate and I think I know what the result is going to be, even if I think it’s wrong 🙂
Don’t get me wrong, Bruce is looking like a disaster.
But I firmly believe there’s more to it.
who picks the team bruce or who
who sets formation bruce or who
who uses the subs bruce or who
who signed johnson bruce or who
Wants the sack?
Sounds about right, I’ve posted before we must be top on the football league managers pension portfolio!
BWS, consider he’s only on a 1 year contract.
It isn’t going to be a massive payday.
Two mill is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick mate.
That’s nowt in the scheme of things.
Pulis can do that in a day.
Allegedly.
What £2m a day?
A £730m a year salary?
I think not Badger.
Is Bruce only on a one year deal? So what is the answer Badger. Like you say we’ve changed everything from top to bottom and we are still rubbish. The only thing I can think of is interference from Tony. Something is seriously not right at the club and Tony X has invested decent transfer funds but still not working why?
I’ve hinted at it before Oohah.
I don’t know, but did Bruce really want Calderwood in?
I know the official line was he did, even though it was suggested Phelan was preferred.
And yep, 1 year deal.
He said he wasn’t bothered about the dough and managing us was a privilege.
I believe him, fwiw.
Oh, Oohah.
The answer has to be stick with what we’ve got, as I just don’t see any other solution.
It’s a results game we’ve done a man city of the championship (spent millions) and find ourselves scrapping for our lives it’s only going to get worse
The bottom line is that someone has to take charge on and off the pitch. For a team that is mainly made up of former captains you would think there would be better understanding/direction/fight.
For Bruce, it all started to unravel in December and now it has just become a steady decline with the new players trying to settle into the club whilst trying to put a shift in. How Bruce doesn’t know who his best formation, or starting 11, by now is just crazy. It’s madness the whole thing – Gabby, Johnstone, constant formation changes, failing to make changes during games, and today bringing Grealish right back after suspension. I appreciate him trying to build something, but the reality is things are getting worse, not better. I thought we needed stability under Garde, but after all the changes that came with the new ownership I just don’t know what the club needs to improve. It’s now beyond poor individual performances and now after multiple sackings and transfers the whole club has lost it’s identity.
Mate it lost it’s identity the day Randy started peeling oranges in his pocket, MON walked and AMc took up the reins.
Lerner’s gone – its ok, he can’t hurt you anymore.
Oh dear a Lerner movie, Marvin, now how do I put this, right here we go…
Once open a time there was football club, a very successful steeped in history football club that had never been outside the top flight of English football since the formation of the EPL (1992 mate). Then one day there came a knock at the door at Villa Park and standing there was a man with a bag of gold proclaiming he wanted to be the custodian of this historic football club.
The people cheered and rejoiced but little did they know their pleasure would be short lived!
The man painted a pub and a changing room and the people cheered again.
He invested for few seasons and three top six finishes ensued and the people saw it was good .
Then the man had a change of heart, put away his bag of gold and let the club wither on the vine and the rest is (as they say) history.
(Look it Marvin)
Anyone else think Johnstone is the worst keeper we’ve ever had? I cant think of worse. Another Bruce masterstroke and another reason to get him out. We can’t keep pandering to Man Utd playing someone clearly out of his depth
Given after the Euros was pretty bad, although Johnstone should never have been considered and introduced as an improvement to Gollini, who also made mistakes but actually had a good record in comparison.
Bottom of the form guide, our strikers obviously don’t like each other and a manager that looks like every other recent Villa manager… clueless..
We are dropping like a stone, there is something hugely wrong at the club and now I am thinking we will be relegated !!!
My point exactly, Saddened.
And changing managers isn’t going to alter anything.
I’m convinced RM was just a minor issue, that Bruce won’t/can’t expand on.
Marvin, it’s interesting you talk about captains.
Morley said we simply don’t have one.
Which is just another sign of a total lack of confidence.
Maybe we have too many – Gabby, Elphick, Hourihane, Lansbury. Any others?
Changing managers will change things. The players are good enough but they are doing as they are told by a manager and coach who they can probably see is inferior to the ones they are more used to.
i just despair. If changing manager won’t change things then we might as well all shut up and accept the inevitable.
ds
badger has some funny theories about villa
mcleish must carried the blues curse with him
won t accept bruce has been a disaster
jvillan, you can’t accept that everything we’ve done has proved a disaster, including Xia coming and chucking stupid amounts of money in!
It simply is not all down to Bruce and you need to open your eyes, imo.
Of course, if we sack him and somehow miraculously turn it around, feel free to remind me and take the piss 😉
Badger we criticised (rightly) Lerner for not spending. Xia spending is not the problem. The manager choice is.
badger
who is the manager?
if it is bruce he carries the can
if it is someone else do tell
i dont complain about the doc just his support of a muppet spud maybe you need to get off your high horse and admit you are wrong and bruce is the dinosaur that more than me says he is
Talk about being on a high horse JV – pot calling kettle black!
hitchens60
bruce record now worse than sherwoods
sherwood was in pl against man u man c arsenal chelsea pool
bruce in lower reachs of championship against barsnley ipswiwh forest wolves pne and cardiff
and 3/4 of youse think bruce is the man to go forward what a laugh
There you go again JV – only your opinion is correct and anyone who dares to suggest otherwise……! The poll is suggesting the fans are split 50/50 and on here pretty much everyone is questioning SB’s managership at present. The debate is about whether it’s best to change managers again at this point in time or not. Try and keep up.
Too many changes starting with AFCON when the momentum stopped. The team is weaker without Jedi. Johnstone has made errors to lose us games but hasn’t pulled off anything to keep us in games. Gollini made mistakes but also pulled off some smart saves but still one for the future. Bruce has got his formations wrong since AFCON and transfer window; plays 5 at back against Ipswich who don’t score many then goes attacking against Barnsley who have scored a few. Grealish was definitely the wrong player to play with 2 attack minded midfielders, as he doesn’t work hard enough. Give Bruce until last 10 games and if it doesn’t work then new manager in for last 7 games and no more than 3 players in summer, one of which would be goalkeeper
Well well well…That has to be on of the most embarrassing nights I’ve witnessed at Villa Park.
Fair play to Barnsley, they worked their socks off for each other, closed us down, got in our faces and then played some really decent football.
Us? We backed off and backed off and backed off, we made it so easy for them it’s unreal.
If we showed just a small percentage of the passion and commitment that Barnsley showed we may of given them a decent game.
Tactics? Most of the time we had the ball it was Baker and Chester playing between themselves for a couple of passes then one of them punting it long to nobody in particular. Why they play hoof-ball up to Hogan who looks about 4 foot fuckall beggars belief.
It got to the point where Grealish was cheered for being taken off and every save that Johnstone made was greeted with a cheer.
Just clueless, no desire, no passion, no commitment, no game plan, no leaders, no midfield.
Think I’ll leave it another few years before I step foot in there again.
One more thing….we can’t keep sacking managers, we desperately need stability. In my opinion we should give Bruce at least 18 months, I believe he will turn it around.Now that’s going to go down well I feel.
IN BRUCE I TRUST.
UTV
Ooh, now that sums it up quite nicely, I think.
A poor goalkeeper affects the whole team. You can’t start bedding in a lot of newcomers if your keeper is totally sub-standard, Johnstone is: he started brightly but is getting worse by the game. I don’t know why we spent so much money on other positions, but nothing on a keeper. We accepted a Manure loan – OK it might have worked, but we clearly don’t rate Bunn better than a stop gap so why weren’t we buying a proven stopper?
OLL – we can only surmise but it seems pretty clear that Gollini wanted out hence Bunn playing as, although he did make mistakes, his all round keeping was pretty good. With Steer injured we needed a replacement and took what we could get (needs dropping but I suspect we are being forced to play him) rather than who we wanted. New GK will be top of summer priorities as long as we can survive this season.
I wish I could believe you Hitch but there seem to be a lot of managers who are blind to the shortcomings of their keepers. I said, right from the time Guzan was voted PoY, that he was so bad he would take us down. He did. RDM was the first manager to see that and get a replacement. Bruce has put up with dud keepers before, they got him sacked. He is not the only one, Eddie Howe can’t see that Boruc is his ticket back to the Championship.
A keeper?
To stop us being out played, fought and thought, lacking any organisation desire or drive?
I think our problems may run a little deeper than that.
Most good teams and plenty of not so good teams press the opposition. We don’t. We let them play. Why? It gives other teams easy possession, and time to move the ball forwards without pressure. That must be tactics. Will that change? Give Bruce 18 months? He could take us down 2 divisions in that time. Put those players under a good manager and coach and they would storm up this league.
There is a team there that could play good football. I can’t accept this taking time to gel argument. Rank bad manager and coaching staff for me.
Another game where we’re “over run” in midfield
When will Brucie get it??
You can’t fill a full midfield with attack minded players….and you can’t play wing backs with 2 out and out defensive minded players….
Desperately need Jedi back. At least slot Gardner in there to break down oppo midfield
He’s become embarrassing, like he has no idea what to do next.
Get shot before it’s too late
Bruce seems to have no idea what he is doing! Switching from 5-3-2 to 4-4-2. Dropping players then putting them back, not seeming to know who really should be playing or where.
We were stronger under Di Matteo. We may have been more prone to conceding late goals, but we were winning most games we played. Under Bruce, we struggle every game.
Iagree with tekkers i think were fookin cursed and as for the goalie situation i would bring shay given out of retirement got to be better than the shite we have now.
There again id bring jimmy rimmer out of retirement now theres one man utd reserve that did rather well for us.
I totally agree with you Badger, we do have a cancer in the club, a good manager would root it out though, is Bruce the man? , we’ve had two descent manager’s but not with this team and got rid, we lack a hard nut in the team , players like a Shellby type hit you hard ,a player that runs your team and others respect, we have individual pussy foot players, I cannot believe Birmingham can be way above us and that shower just taking the money and saying ho well never mind hey.disgusting club management in my opinion.
my rant has to wait, iam both angry and late.
one quick thought,it wasn’t the formation then why we lost to ipswich, as against barnsley we played the fantastic 4 at back instead of the 10. so where do we go from here .. i havent the foggiest but i do know we are in the shite….
with wigan starting to knit after they employed a real good coach, i can see us being sucked into another relegation. which we are again not-prepared for.
sack bruce ??? will it make a difference… hes is about the most experienced guy you could have.. another manager is going to be a step down. unless you think we could attract bigger. like i said we are in the shit. look at the squad its brimming with so called talent the question is not about formations tactics i think the question has to be why we as a club can not get 11 players to play football for the fans and club. teams like ip[swich and barnsley i am meaning no disrespect to them, they both more than deserved their wins. but we should not only be beating these teams , but playing um off the park. teams like these used to fear us i doubt a non league team fears us now.
My question is a really simple one – if we sack Bruce now who is actually available as his replacement – and please don’t quote managers in ‘safe’ positions with better teams. As far as I can see only those out of a job would be interested and there are three – Rowett, Pearson and Pardew. Perhaps you should run a parallel poll Badger – although none of those names will satisfy those who want a young foreign manager. Any other nominees from those with a better knowledge than me?
Caretaker til summer and hope Huddersfield don’t go up via play offs so we can try for David Wagner. He was the outstanding choice last time and would be again.
Would take Mark Warburton as an alternative though.
Problem is V1 that the caretaker will be Calderwood – need I say more?
Doesn’t have to be, I’d bin Calderwood as well. I don’t think the total to stay up will be very high as Rotherham, Blackburn, Wigan and Burton are all very poor (albeit so are we!) but at least we have a 7 point headstart on them til end of the season (I feel sick just typing that)
cardiff are 6 points ahead of us when we beat them ,bruce average before xmas we miles ahead of them
bruce average 2 points a game at start now its below half a point a game 21 games 63 points to play for 26 points won clear relegation form
The thing is JV no one is arguing with you over current form – statement of the obvious. The debate is about whether are there are issues outside it simply being down to Bruce and whether or not changing the manager now is the right course of action and what the risks / consequences might be in either event.
You really don’t need to keep repeating the same litany over and over again.
well if it is not bruce who is at fault ,badger wont answer same question either
bruce has had half a season now 21 games and where have we improved
brentford manager on last night didnt slaughter his keeper for mistake like bruce has done regularly
hull and swansea changed managers swansea 2ndd time this season neither complaining we need time to gel
i didnt want bruce to fail, all for me he was short term appointment to get promotion which is not happening so do like newcastle get the man in that has this season to get to know players so we start august settled
JV – I don’t think that anyone is disputing that Bruce is currently failing but the question being asked is why have so many managers failed since MON walked? Look at the range we’ve employed young and gutsy, young and successful, overseas with good credentials (which Garde indisputably had), experienced and all with pretty good track records ’till they arrived at VP. We’ve had new owners, new coaches and new board and two new teams at vast expense – Little (the choice of many fans) is advising the Board and yet the malaise persists – turning the good into the bad and ugly. So the question is WHY? – and would changing the manager again solve whatever the underlying issues are. Perhaps you have the answer because I f****ing don’t
Yea in the EPL H60 and then gave them f**k all to spend.
Losing 3-0 at Brentford or 3-1 at home to Barnsley is far worse than a lot of the diabolical results over the past few year. Getting thrashed by a quality Chelsea or Liverpool side happens from time to time but to be losing to mediocre clubs whom we have supposedly bought the best players from heavily is an embarrassment.
As for Bruce, its completely different managing teams like Hull. There is no expectation level and little pressure. The only time Bruce managed a so called bigger club in Sunderland, he failed miserably and was sacked after a winless run of around 12 games. The same is repeating itself here. The problem with managers like Bruce is that they have a lot of friends in the media who will stop at nothing to promote him. Thats why i’m concerned about the board and Dr Tony being influenced by this.
I was for Bruce & not the ones who wanted him to fail from the off(JV) , he had a good record before calderwoods joined us maybe there lies the problem. When Bruce joined us we started to get results a new manager might not & you can fuck this give him time he’ll get it right bullshit it’ll be too late. It doesn’t mean I’m happy atm with the team or management
Nor am I Giddy and I was in favour if Bruce’s appointment. I would hate to be on the Board of Villa at the moment – another managerial change would just increase our music hall status. Shades of Tommy Trinder and Fulham 🙂
Or was that Chelsea?
No I was right – Fulham!
@H60
You couldn’t increase our music hall status at the moment 🙁
Hi Pat – good point 🙂 if I recall correctly Trinder was chairman of Fulham and always made Chelsea the butt of his music hall gags Funny old world ‘init!
Thing is, i want to run away and hide about the Villa and what’s going on, i hope Dr Tony calling a meeting with that so call coaching and manager we have, every team know our game they read us like a book, why the hell don’t Bruce see that, his he stupid or what? If I was him I’d kick Calderwood into touch today, reason your costing me my job, give all them players an altermatem get the lead out of your boots and win for your club or your gone.i cannot take anymore of this crap that’s going on, i really thought we was on the rise, its sickening to a club I love.
Problem is Bill, the mercenery players we have, probably wouldnt give a @£$% if they were booted out – Would you train with the kids in the bomb squad for £40k a week, I know I would.
We are in the proper brown stuff, new owner, new manager, new players, new investment and we are still getting worse.