Let’s get this straight from the off.
This is purely a thought in my head and there is absolutely no reason to suggest that what I’m suggesting is true.
In other words, low-life media; do one!
But it’s an interesting thought, as Gary Monk has had lots of plaudits for trying to play an attacking game and being a pretty shrewd tactician.
You’d assume he’s a pretty decent man-manager too, but I don’t know.
All good, you’d think, except he’s decided to resign from Leeds, because the new owners apparently wouldn’t commit to a long term contract.
And probably because he knows what the new owners are all about, in purely trying to make a profit from a short term ownership.
I actually feel quite sorry for Leeds, as they’re being used, but whatever.
So as an up and coming English manager, maybe Monk might be a decent solution for the Villa, if indeed Steve Bruce doesn’t get off to the start that we all want?
I know there seems to be a fairly big clamour for some up and coming foreign manager at any club these days and it’s hard to disagree, especially if you consider 5 of the top 6 championship clubs were apparently managed by foreigners.
But then, I think about how long these managers tend to last and it really isn’t long.
So while I know there are some of us that think we should go foreign, I can’t say I’m convinced.
We have a bad enough record, but would we want to do a Watford, who seem to change their manager every 5 minutes?
And while I don’t think Mr Monk will be out of work for long, maybe a bit of a background chat, leading to him not rushing into anything, might be worthwhile?
As I’ve said, Bruce needs to get the team firing from the off, or he’s a goner, in my opinion.
It’s just a thought.
I’ve posted that with a totally open mind.
I’m just thinking that as one of the first clubs to get a foreigner in, in Venglos, it hasn’t worked for us, has it?
Maybe we should be looking to a foreigner (In that, I’m assuming that Bruce will not have us firing from the off and will be sacked around late October)?
finally you guys hit the nail totally firmly on the head. managers we had too many, they in turn bring in their players and coaches. too many times we have changed them, leading us to our current position.
monk did a great job at leeds, granted his team slipped up big time. but before this season i didn’t rate leeds as a threat. at swansea he was hard to judge as he just kept them ticking over.
but i am firmly behind bruce and he will have this team firing totally. i have no doubts at all. i would guarantee that. last season he assessed the club made small changes, but now realizes the size of job it really is. unlike the previous managers he is welll up for it.
last season was just about stopping the slide. momentum is everything. we were lucky to stay in the division. another bad choice for manager last summer. rdm totally out of his depths. as most predicted. had no idea how to stop the slide. lucky the owners realized this before it got worse. bringing bruce in saved us and not this season he will put villa back on the map and into the bigtime. then maybe you look to replace him, which would be cruel but maybe needed to move on another lvl to were we belong
Agreed Nath – same as Zola going to Blues. There is a massive risk in changing managers whether English or Foreign. It seems those fixated on ‘young foreign managers’ seem to think they will all succeed?
My question is,when we was in dire trouble and almost ready to drop again, who out of Bruce, Monk, would you have picked then.? Me although Bruce stopped the rot, i would have gone for Monk, and that might have been the wrong call.
Today’s game needs attacking footballers, i cannot get my head around side to side and back passing, its becoming like cricket was 20 years ago, boring.
By the time Bruce gets his marching orders should we be doing that badly, Monk will be in another job.
The club IMO should act now rather than in 3-4 months, when I fear their hand will be forced. Its harsh but in modern day football the clubs that are successful are ruthless and not scared to make big decisions or changes. This isn’t necessarily about Monk or any specific manager, but its far better to make a change at this point in time than scraping around mid season.
Unfortunately my instinct is that the board are blinded by outdated championship experience. You can’t win promotion trying to scrape a 1-0 every week and being too scared to attack, especially when you are the biggest club in the division with some of the biggest resources in 2nd tier history. This caution at all costs approach has to go and the only way to ditch it is to ditch Steve Bruce.
I know let’s change the manager after all Bruce has had more than half a season to put right everything at Villa Park – we can always make another change if the new manager is getting results and playing brilliant attacking football after 12 games – we can be the new Leeds 😉
*isn’t not is – duh!
I disagree I believe SB will be given time once he can mould a squad of his own making. Just because we did not challenge last season was purely down to too many changes, including almost 3 mangers in 6 months all with their own way style of play. Before Bruce came in we where going one way and he steadied the ship. What happens if we get rid and the new manager comes in, has a few bad results and we are back to square one, what do we do then get rid and start again. This is not the answer keep chopping and changing, we have to have some stability from the top down, the foundations are being laid, but it will take time.
We may be Aston Villa but we do not have the god forsaken right to roll everyone over because of who we are. We will have to compete for the right to go up. Me personally yes the PL is the place to be but, who wants to be a team who just makes up the numbers week in week out as we will never compete for the top 4. If we did it will be a good few years yet, more than likely longer than it has taken to be where we are now with the demise under RL over the years he was here.
Keep the faith UTV
Boro will more than likely be his destination, big things are expected of bruce next season see if he delivers.
bruce will deliver next season. count the number of years of disappointing seasons. we have had no breaks from sinking to our current position. bruce has had no preseason to work his style. he couldnt change too much when he came into the club. the squad was in a right mess. confidence was just as bad as the season we were relegated. what was our form in first 10 games how many wins lol in second tier.
their are no guarantees if monk came, he would turn us into a classy team. playing one touch football. i would prefer to stick with bruce than tear up another backroom staffs and player. we havent the time to keep restarting building it takes time. we fans havent the patience lets give him 90 minutes and if he fails string him uplmao
No way will we be top 4 in the top division in my lifetime …….mid table like WBA but playing football will do me…and doing well in cups is good enough.
That’s quite depressing, Villaaway, but probably true.
Nath, I pretty much agree with your thoughts.
Bruce got us stability and he’s probably earned his pay on that alone.
But even if he gets us promoted, I’m not sure he’s the answer overall.
That said, if he gets us promotion, it’s job done, imo.
Sorry, how has he stabilized the club? If it wasn’t for Kodjia, we’d have been in a relegation fight. He’s far from stabilized us.
i recall preseason last year. we lost to middlesbro. you claimed that was not bad as they were a good side, i disagreed. i claimed bro would be coming straight back down, anyways in that game bro ripped rdm team to shreds, countering villa loads and they took pity on villa in the end.
so what does this have to do with things. answer villa under rdm was alot worse than bruce. so stop talking shit.how many games did we win under rdm. apart from the rotherham game. who were by far the worse team in championship. i cant remember another win. this was against 2nd tier teams. bruce started his rein playing catchup and if he didnt stabilize the club we would be in the division 1 next season.
under rdm villa had no midfield no defense no discipline no backbone and no chance. under bruce they have a backbone they have discipline. they will get the rest in this offseason. who said it was going to be easy. no manager comes into a crisis club and waves a wand and all is good again. lets walk before we run and give the guy a fighting chance. instead of writing them off even before a ball is kicked
Nath, I was literally one of the biggest anti RDM people on this forum when he came. Arguing against everyone who claimed they wanted him because he was a CL winner.
The problem is, is you’re right, we were arguably more disciplined. But we had no midfield still, at all. The game went from defense to forwards and that’s because of Bruce’s tactics. The guy had 35 games too correct this. Clearly I’m not writing us off for absolutely no reason, I watched about 25-30 of those games under Bruce, and that’s why I’m writing us off, because under him, just under him, not compared to RDM, there was no progress. We were shit, we then got lucky in a lot of wins where Kodjia scored and we sat back and defended for our lives, and then we went shit again when Kodjia got injured. You honestly can’t be happy with how we played under Bruce. That shit was more boring too watch than McLeish’s football, or Mourinho’s, and just as defensive. Sorry but in 35 games he should’ve at least progressed a bit and brought in the midfield he bought into the game every game, yet we still couldn’t pass for crap.I’m not even talking about RDM anymore, I could’ve told you he was a disaster, in fact I told everyone on here he was going too be, I also said so was Bruce, and in those 35 games (yes I keep mentioning how many he has had because it wasn’t half the season, or a quarter, it was 3/4’s of a bloody season) and he did nothing.
Spot on Andrew we have not progressed at all under Bruce he is a safe pair of hands but that’s about it. We won’t go up next season with the way Bruce plays. We are not good enough to go 1.0 up early and defend lead for rest of the game. Especially away from home where we have been woeful all season
Absolutely incorrect this statement. “We’ve had a bad enough record” like Lambert, Sherwood, McLeish and now Bruce? Garde was screwed from the get go and Houllier was better than any we’ve had in the last decade. Foreign is literally the only way too go. We’ve had a farrrrrrrrrrrrrr worse record with garbage British managers than we’ve had foreign.
championship playoff final shows us. you don’t have to be the best team or close to being the best team. how hudderfields made the final is beyond me. next season is about promotion. then and only then will we prepare for staying up. top four finishing or mid table finishes are luxuries miles away from villas achievements. why not dream this and don’t share with the rest of us.
Foreign. Homegrown. I don’t really think it matters really as long as someone gets the job done. The old school English game doesn’t really exist anymore in the top flight, apart from the wonderful Leicester last year. Poch at Spuds reminds me of a ‘Young English Up and Coming’ Manger just like Monk, but he’s simply achieving and getting it right. Success is more like a ‘marketing mix’, and here’s my Saturday morning contribution :
The owner, decent human being.
Proportionate investment .
Personnel infrastructure.
Club infrastructure.
A Manger who is respected, whether young or old.
A long term plan that is stuck to.
A decent wage structure.
Respect for fans.
Respect FROM fans.
Players who want to play for AVFC.
A decent international scouting network.
The ability to be flexible and realistic in the changing game.
Accept that ALL clubs are feeder clubs and we may occasionally lose our best players.
Don’t sell ALL our best players at once!
A good mix of players with youth and experience.
No stupid long term contracts.
And finally, a rational hatred of The Scum! 🙂
Is the above that difficult?
A very good list. One of the incompatibilities is accepting we may lose our best players and no stupid long term contracts. You need a crystal ball to be sure which of the players you buy, thinking they will be a star (or why buy?) is going to be a dud after one season that you want off the payroll. How good are we at recognising what we have? Albrighton one year and now Scott Sinclair, MVP in treble winning undefeated Celtic team.
You can’t gauge sinclairs achievements in Scottish football as celtic are the only team in Scottish football. They would struggle in the English championship, I’m glad we got rid of him next you’ll be saying look what Brandon Rodgers has achieved since joining celtic remember mcluless was a successful manager at rangers say no more.
*Brendon
Exactly. In fairness Brendon was actually good in the EPL, Sinclair was trash.
we all want to see great football, but the squad under rdm were as dire as bruce. but worst as they had no discipline, midfield had no tracking back and defenders were caught out of position. bruce came in and had to came so much as so much was wrong. doing all this remodeling during a season is impossible.so thats why i am stressing hanging needs to wait until giving bruce a chance to change things. i understand you point of how many games he has had. but no preseason thats where shit like that gets worked on. the midfield is brand spanking new will take time to bed in. next season you will see a different side than last season. all because they will work on shit preseason. last pre season was a fooking waste looking back i recall that bro friendly and i saw them rip us to shreds on the break. i knew then we were in the shit.
Good points on both sides, imo.
Andrew, we were massively in the proverbial, there’s no doubt about it and many thought a second relegation was highly possble; remember?
And I agree with Nath, where you really can’t expect miracles in just a few months, given the state we were in.
Our squad is total garbage (just a few months after me saying I thought it would be fine for the Championship, fwiw!) and needs improving.
Then again, the footy has been crap and seemingly getting worse, which is not good enough.
That can’t continue, unless it keeps us in the playoff positions as a minimum.
As I keep saying, results are everything and it’ll be interesting to see how far Bruce can take us.
most importantly badger to add to the points for bruce. was before he arrived the squad and team playing was not balanced. it was something like a football manager game 4 main (strikers 2 midfielders. bruce might never be a expansive manager like a wenger (brilliant results for him yesterday) but bruce will get the squad organized. they will be focused on the big game in hand thats promotion. if he doesnt cut the mustard. like rdm didnt with results. then i would bet my life on bruce leaving BUT he will have built a squad and team with all the attributes to win the league. point made and over.
i would like to say alittle on wenger. i think the way he has been treated lately is nothing short of a scandal. the guy has been brilliant foe arsenal. becuase one season in 20 he failed to reach top 4 hes a failure and needs to go is total rubbish and is whats wrong with english supporters. no team or club have divine right. he has giving 20 years of service and provided good football winning football in every year. arsenal fans really need a doze of realism. their are more top teams aiming for top 4 than in past. so that mini league is more competitive. man utd finishing 6th proves this. .
Nath, totally agree with your comment on Arsenal game yesterday, brilliant football and yes some two faced comments on camera as well, some of them players before that game was playing him out of his job. 20 years that man has put into Arsenal with players that played and now finished in the game, he deserves to carry on till he feels its the right time to go.Nath Arsenal team yesterday along with Chelsea put the FA cup back on the shelf, what a match that was.
your comment on players playing him out of his job is spot on. on arsenal looking in as a football fan. some of their top players havent performed. why who knows. but this is always results with the manager getting the chop. i feel arsenal fans owe something to wenger. respect is minimal they owe, they owe him so much more. do they really think they would have had the success they had over last 20 years with another top manager. their is hardly no loyalty left in the game. fans bitch when a manager fooks off after wining a few cups or they are offered better deals elsewhere of more transfer kitties.
arsenal players really played yesterday. i don’t watch arsenal every game last season. so i am not best placed to say what went wrong. chelsea were not ready to hit top form as they were on their hols, a game too far. but that is taking away from a good arsenal performance.
wenger has not only improved arsenal football club. ground & fan base. style of play. i remember the days before him and they were not so good. boring boring arsenal they were good back then, in getting results. but they were not always at the top like under wenger 20 years.
would we be happy with wenger for 20 years ???? i would say off course……
some would still complain and say hes past his best lmao
I agree that the players gave up on Wenger (not just the fans), seems a few years ago. Good match tho. And I hope Bruce instills more pride in the players. That’s what I saw after taking over for RDM. Pride begets Confidence. Confidence begets a winning trajectory, imo.
Arsenal played as good yesterday as they did against us in the final…..only bad luck stopped another 4-0 scorline…….it was like watching the VILLA…………not the way we played but I was shouting at their players to bloody cross instead of doubling back….as soon as Giroud crossed 1st time Chelsea lost it and the winner went in……Note to Villa players …step up the pace and get the ball in the danger area.
“step up the pace and get the ball in the danger area.”
Which apparently Bruce keeps shouting to the players.
It’s his biggest problem to overcome, imo.
We’ve got the weaponry, but it isn’t happening.
thats spot on badger. you would have to be deaf or watch without sound. not to hear bruce barking. why would he be doing that unless the players where not following his instructions,
just the brighton game alone, villa got into good field positions only to turn back and retreat back to halfway or further.i think it was hitchens that commented on this being a confident thing i would tend to agree. they are scared of hitting the telling ball incase of looking stupid. so instead of crossing it they play it save
but is this what bruce wanted or demanded not on your life. can he sort this out i think he can. brighton was the best team last season. villa match them with 11 and 10 men. they just need to find some balls to risk a pass or cross
Agree Bruce is too cautious there’s not one team in that division we should be fearing tbh. We are the biggest team now and should always be on the front foot home and away
Totally agree about Wenger.
He is the one that’s made Arsenal what they are today; one of the biggest clubs in the world.
To think we were very much on a par with them not so long ago 🙁
There’s a man who’s won the cup as many times as the Villa, on his own (taking George Ramsay’s record too).
He should be manager until he decides to leave, imo.
Which, after his hinting of his disgust at how some of the fans have treated him, might be sooner rather than later.
Problem with Arsenal, and I completely agree with their fans, is there’s no progress with them. Winning the FA Cup is great and all, but they’re never contending, they’re basically just there. The fans want a team too contend and Wenger should’ve built a team to do so already, but he hasn’t. And his failings to do so would rightfully anger any big club, no matter how long he’s been there. Kinda like how O’Neill was angering a lot of our fans. Crap football + no progression = angry fans. And while Arsenal’s display for the final was good (not sure I’d say it was all that great, Chelsea were just crap), that was a few and far between performance.
I’m minded to agree that Wenger could have built a better side on the face of things, with reports that they’ve had a £70-100 mill warchest for a few years now that’s gone unused.
As an outsider, it seems to me that Arsenal have a few players who think they’re bigger than the club and I don’t understand why Wenger doesn’t sell them and move on.
But after the buyout offer that has been refused, I suspect there’s a lot going on in the background that we don’t know about.
The board seems as divided as the fans.
As for not contending, well, they won the cup and even your Chelseas etc would have loved that.
It’s still major silverware after all.
And not qualifying for Europe for the first time in 20 years is hardly “not contending”, but I know what you’re saying.
I’d just love to see us win the cup, which shows it’s all about expectations, I suppose.
i think the position arsenal find themselves in is a tough one. they have been the top four best team in the country for 20 years. other clubs have spent hell of a lot of money. then arsenal over them years. wenger has built the squad with youth mostly and a few key signings. so spending power hasnt built arsenal wenger did. last season they were simply too many top teams fighting for 4 positions, its maths that some missed out. does this mean hes a bad manager ???? man city and man utd with all their spending struggled. utd need the micky mouse cup to sneak in the champions league next year,.
oh and i forgot he has helped built their stadium with the money saved from not spending loads on transfers. increased their revenues with the success hes built he deserves at least the fans gratitudes not the noises the fans are making time to go lol thats a insult
i wonder how many villa fans would be happy with being top 4 for twenty years forget the doubles or going through a season unbeaten or record fa cup wins. quarter finals of the champions league how many times. i would vote for this failure
If your a regular top 4 team you have to get that extra 2-3 players to take you to prem title and further in CL imo
There is no progress. That is because Arsenal are at the top of where they can get to. The only way for them is down, as they will find out when Wenger goes.
In order for Arsenal to win the EPL they would have to swap their entire playing squad for Chelsea’s or Citeh’s. By the same argument they would need to swap teams with Real Madrid etc. How would that happen? only if the next Griesmann would turn down Citeh United PSG Bayern or Real and go to Arsenal instead. It won’t happen in the present day.
Arsenal board have sold them out. Since the new stadium all they want is fourth and CL that’s it. Wenger has done s brilliant job when you think he’s had nowhere near the money Mourinho etc gets.