Steve Bruce

[Tomaszk]

12 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

To be fair to the guy, whatever your perspective may be anyone would think we have been in a constant state of crisis with the ongoing crusade to have him sacked.

You can't have 1500 pages of Bruce out and then call him out for referencing it. 

What crusade?! This website? If he's going to get this hysterical about the internet being unhappy with him this really should be his last job. He's a man built for the past.

He's seen nothing yet. Lord knows what he'll think when the fans turn at a home game.

[Keyblade]

9 hours ago, Michael118 said:

Do people actually think Bruce could implement a different 'style'? A manager's 'style' is just a reflection of their personality in a way. It's the quality behind their style and the quality of their ideas and how effectively they can translate that into something practical which determines the success of a manager. Bruce and Allardyce arguably have a similar 'style' but there is an obvious gap in quality there. 

 

 

 

 

Style is not particularly important to me as long as it's effective. Like Allardyce, Bruce has a similar style to Neil Warnock and as he showed last season there is evidently a gap in quality there too. I very much doubt Bruce could get a collection of limited Championship journeymen automatically promoted. Was quite a feat by Warnock in all honesty.

[Keyblade]

lmao if Bruce thinks this is a crusade, I shudder to think what he would have thought about the tenures of Gerard Houllier, Alex McLeish and Paul Lambert.

This has to be the most polite crusade in history

[terrytini]

I’ve just seen his comments.

Ive said he shoukd remain in charge and why, but there’s plenty of merit in the arguments of those who want him gone.

Im utterly fed up up of him referring to  the fans/ crisis stuff. (He said himself he “ understands” it - so shut up then !)

I saw a pile of garbage the other night. Didn’t boo, never do, but don’t blame those who did...and don’t blame people for complaint afterwards.

He pretty much complains about it every time he’s criticised.

Also, he’s on very dodgy ground saying “ judge us on 12 games”..........nobody does that with a Manager that’s had nearly 2 years. 

Also......whilst I don’t agree with saying it’s as simple as “ he failed” last year, he does himself no good referring to making the Play Offs as if it was in itself an achievement.

I’d like to see something more like this.....I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

” We had a decent go but came up short, some good players have left but we’ve had good quality come in, and I hope we are in contention for Automatic promotion. The fans have the right to expect that, and, whilst I hope they will accept it will be a roller coaster at times, I don’t have any issue with them complaining when we perform as poorly as the other night.”

[Eastie]

4 minutes ago, terrytini said:

I’ve just seen his comments.

Ive said he shoukd remain in charge and why, but there’s plenty of merit in the arguments of those who want him gone.

Im utterly fed up up of him referring to  the fans/ crisis stuff. (He said himself he “ understands” it - so shut up then !)

I saw a pile of garbage the other night. Didn’t boo, never do, but don’t blame those who did...and don’t blame people for complaint afterwards.

He pretty much complains about it every time he’s criticised.

Also, he’s on very dodgy ground saying “ judge us on 12 games”..........nobody does that with a Manager that’s had nearly 2 years. 

Also......whilst I don’t agree with saying it’s as simple as “ he failed” last year, he does himself no good referring to making the Play Offs as if it was in itself an achievement.

I’d like to see something more like this.....I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

” We had a decent go but came up short, some good players have left but we’ve had good quality come in, and I hope we are in contention for Automatic promotion. The fans have the right to expect that, and, whilst I hope they will accept it will be a roller coaster at times, I don’t have any issue with them complaining when we perform as poorly as the other night.”

Well said mate .

[Farlz]

More ridiculous comments from Bruce I see. He's a joke. 

[Mantis]

1 hour ago, Tomaszk said:

He's back...

“I think that’s the disappointing thing since I’ve been at the club, we lurch into crisis very quickly.

“Listen, I understand we were woeful and embarrassing the other night and it hurts me to say that. I can understand the criticism, but to say there’s a crisis… We should be looking forward to the future.

“Look, we got to the play-off final and we’ve lost six of that team who got us there. So far we haven’t been able to replace them.

“We’re just in the process, with the new owners. Judge us after 12 or 15 games and that's the most important part. We’re unbeaten. It was only a week ago when people were watching us against Brentford saying, ‘That’s the best Villa performance I’ve seen for a long time’.

“It was a week ago! Now all of a sudden we’re in crisis. That goes with the territory and I can understand it and I can understand the criticism after the other night because, believe me, I was the first to criticise myself.”

---

Crisis? Has he been reading Alex's twitter again?

The fact that he highlights this just sums up the way Bruce thinks. If we had won 4 of our 5 opening games but lost the other yeah we wouldn't be unbeaten but we'd also have 3 more points than we have now. We could go unbeaten until Christmas but if the majority of those games are draws then it still won't be good enough.

[bannedfromHandV]

6 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The fact that he highlights this just sums up the way Bruce thinks. If we had won 4 of our 5 opening games but lost the other yeah we wouldn't be unbeaten but we'd also have 3 more points than we have now. We could go unbeaten until Christmas but if the majority of those games are draws then it still won't be good enough.

Factually? 

Would you rather he lied?

[sheepyvillian]

6 minutes ago, Mantis said:

The fact that he highlights this just sums up the way Bruce thinks. If we had won 4 of our 5 opening games but lost the other yeah we wouldn't be unbeaten but we'd also have 3 more points than we have now. We could go unbeaten until Christmas but if the majority of those games are draws then it still won't be good enough.

Just like 7 win's on the trot wasn't good enough, in the end, that is.

[Keyblade]

6 minutes ago, Mantis said:

“We’re just in the process, with the new owners. Judge us after 12 or 15 games and that's the most important part. We’re unbeaten. It was only a week ago when people were watching us against Brentford saying, ‘That’s the best Villa performance I’ve seen for a long time’.

It's true it was the best Villa performance we've seen in a while. I watched the game again because I thought we were so good but in retrospect, it was really nothing to write home about which shows how much he's lowered our standards. Brentford played the more incisive football and created the most chances and we needed a last minute goal to earn a draw. Don't know why he's resting on the laurels of one decent performance, like that's supposed to reflect well on him

[sheepyvillian]

59 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Style is not particularly important to me as long as it's effective. Like Allardyce, Bruce has a similar style to Neil Warnock and as he showed last season there is evidently a gap in quality there too. I very much doubt Bruce could get a collection of limited Championship journeymen automatically promoted. Was quite a feat by Warnock in all honesty.

That's the the problems with the football served up by those you mention. It has it's merits, but it will only get you so far. Hence, you could count on one hand the amount of trophies those managers have won between them.

[villabromsgrove]

Christian Purslow is an astute businessman. His forte is attracting investment by selling a concept, a product an advertising opportunity. He will already know that Bruce Ball is not the way forward. A new manager will be a priority in order to establish a "product" that Purslow can sell over the next few months and years.

It's not "if" Bruce goes, it's "when" (in my opinion of course).

 

[Hoof hearted]

12 minutes ago, villabromsgrove said:

Christian Purslow is an astute businessman. His forte is attracting investment by selling a concept, a product an advertising opportunity. He will already know that Bruce Ball is not the way forward. A new manager will be a priority in order to establish a "product" that Purslow can sell over the next few months and years.

It's not "if" Bruce goes, it's "when" (in my opinion of course).

 

Have to agree with this. 

Edit: Purslow is a minority investor as well as CEO now, that's an added incentive to maximize his efforts, he'll want to see a bang for his buck, not the dross being served up by Teflon. 

The axe is swinging methinks.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Hoof hearted

[Mantis]

37 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Factually? 

Would you rather he lied?

Err, what? I'd rather he not go on about the fact that we're unbeaten when the performances have not been up to scratch, and 2 of our last 3 games have been draws against relegation fodder

[sheepyvillian]

His comments before the Burton game, I thought, were a bit unhelpful in regards to getting the team mentally prepared. When he says, it's a game we could do without, instead of, it's a chance for the lad's who've been knocking down my door, to prove their good enough to be playing week in, week out. Surely that would be motivation enough for the players to put in a shift. By saying it's a game we don't need totally defeats the purpose. Now, we face a full of confidence Sheff Utd, devoid of any momentum whatsoever.

[bannedfromHandV]

6 minutes ago, Mantis said:

Err, what? I'd rather he not go on about the fact that we're unbeaten when the performances have not been up to scratch, and 2 of our last 3 games have been draws against relegation fodder

So he's basically just told a truth, or do you dispute that we're unbeaten?

Maybe he should have said we're winless, I'm confused, what do you want to hear?

[AntrimBlack]

44 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Factually? 

Would you rather he lied?

No. But he needs to be more positive when he speaks to the press.

[Mantis]

20 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

So he's basically just told a truth, or do you dispute that we're unbeaten?

Maybe he should have said we're winless, I'm confused, what do you want to hear?

I think you need to go back and re-read my post again. I was taking issue with him highlighting it as some sort of defence.

[Keyblade]

9 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

So he's basically just told a truth, or do you dispute that we're unbeaten?

Maybe he should have said we're winless, I'm confused, what do you want to hear?

I think his point is that while factual, it's not really something to brag about? I'd rather he be more positive and say something like while we're unbeaten which is encouraging, we still have a ways to go. But instead he uses it as a shield.

If we were unbeaten against promotion contenders and/or top half teams, fine...that's actually really good. 2 of teams we faced so far were in a relegation battle last season, 1 was newly promoted, and 1 is currently propping up the table. The best team we faced so far has been Brentford who are a decent side to be fair, but in this unbeaten run we've had more draws than wins. It's not bad by any means, but it's nothing to write home about either.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, Mantis said:

“Look, we got to the play-off final and we’ve lost six of that team who got us there. So far we haven’t been able to replace them.

This line from Bruce is actually really disingenuous. I don't know if he's trying to procure more funds from the owners or if he genuinely thinks we haven't replaced them and we need to sign even more players, but it just isn't true.

The players we lost from last season:

JT, Snodgrass, Grabban, Johnstone, Onomah and I'm guessing the 6th player he means is Chris Samba?

Of the 5, not including Samba who made only 8 appearances last season:

We've replaced Snodgrass with 2 wingers.

We've replaced Johnstone with 2 (!) goalkeepers.

We've replaced Onomah who was a bit-part player with McGinn who has started every league game he has been available for and looked damn impressive while at it.

By all accounts we are close to replacing Grabban with Tammy Abraham. We also have a fit and firing Kodjia who wasn't available last season, but we'll stick purely to transfers.

The only one we haven't replaced yet (criminally) is John Terry, but I wouldn't be surprised if we signed a CB in the next 2 hours...and if not, surely the blame lies with Bruce himself for not signing one? What an utterly bizarre thing to say.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Keyblade