It’s another quick one, where I’m wondering what fans think.
The fantastic news is that after Steve Bruce warned us Kodjia might miss the early months of the upcoming season, so that advice has proved to be wrong and the player is already back in training;
Given that this was supposed to be a broken ankle, the recovery is remarkably quick, seeing as he only had the OP on May the 4th, which is a month and 10 days or so.
Early predictions were 3-4 months, with Bruce saying a possible 6 months.
So either Bruce was guessing or the quacks don’t know what they’re talking about.
God, do we need a clear-out in the medical department too?
I suspect not, as the crew we have are supposedly highly regarded, but I do wonder why there’s such a disparity between the prediction and reality?
Whatever, it’s good news and should relieve us of the need to get another striker in.
Or should it?
We currently have Kodjia, Hogan, McCormack and Gabby, with back up from RHM and Keinan Davies.
Which sounds reasonable until you consider Gabby is finished, RM is still very much up in the air and Hogan has still to prove himself for the Villa.
The young lads seem promising, but we’ve seen it all before, haven’t we?
It strikes me (geddit?) Gabby’s wages are eating far too much of the striker’s part of the squad’s budget and there’s no chance we’ll get another major striker in while he remains with us.
But my opinion says we could definitely do with one.
And we really need to try and get rid of Gabby to any mug that will take him.
Sadly, I don’t see even the Chinese doing so and we’re stuck with him.
In short, thank god Kodjia’s back.
As it stands, if the midfield don’t start doing their bit, he’s about the only one I have serious faith in.
Partly because he can do it for himself. Which is the main reason he gets moaned about, in being too selfish.
It’s a funny old game.
we can continue to flog the dead horse. regrets over the managers and players we had over the years. but all that was overshadowed by the lack of ambition from the clubs owner.which have lead us to the downfall we currently occupy. no ambitious manager would dream to manage aston villa. what dream would they fulfil by doing this. so we have taken gambles on managers that have backfired. players they had to buy all gambles.no decent players would want to play for villa. not because we couldn’t identify them. but because we couldn’t afford them, or couldn’t persuade them to take a 95% pay cut to play for aston villa. who are we kidding. we are not a force in the English game. we haven’t been in many decades.
hopefully we have reach OUR bottom. now we rebuild. we do this by small steps and solid foundations. if we don’t we will become the yoyo clubs. we have a long road ahead just to get back to where we was. so why some keep talking about another manager change. we need stability. that’s massive in a football club. without it you have too many mismatch players thrown together.
Bruce is the man to bring stability the club needs, NOBODY is saying we are back nobody said we will win things under him. nobody said we will play Brazilian style sexy football. but none of this will be possible without stability.
if he is given a little time. he will take villa back into premiership. this season. then if the club wanted to compete with the elite . then another manager could build on the foundations left by bruce. lets look at what the past managers left. garde he was out of his depths. he was everything Andrew wanted foreign young and he was managing nothing. senior players took the piss out of him and fans under him. they all lost discipline. so bruce compared to garde I know who I would have
breathe
The thing is, would Garde have lost the team if he had Xia and Wyness instead of Fox and Lerner? I personally don’t think so, because Fox and Lerner were screwing him themselves, Xia and Wyness would’ve backed everything he wanted.Garde also would’ve changed up the team, much like Bruce has, but he didn’t get the chance. He also didn’t get the January transfer window, and he didn’t even get a transfer window because of Lerner and Fox. I have no doubt Garde would’ve done well under new owners and better management. Because the problem players would’ve been gone.
the facts of his reign doesn’t reflect well. only strengthen my last comments. about the club can only hire decent players or managers under good ambitious ownerships. without that you get garde promised funds that never materialised. you get managers without real experience being recruited. any decent manager would never have been in gardes positon in the first place. if they did they would have quit once the money had been rejected. but he had plenty time to gel the team according to you. he had as much time as bruce had last season. its not easy to sort things out during a season and no window open to change things.
Moyes took over Sunderland knowing he had no funds. We probably could’ve enticed Bruce last season before we signed Garde, or Allardyce or whoever other experienced British manager. The thing for Villa too attract managers is we’ve always been one of the highest paying clubs for a manager. Even McLeish was on near 3m a year. Only ones topping that were Wenger, Ferguson, whoever was at Chelsea, Liverpool and possibly Moyes at Everton. Maybe Redknapp at Spurs. Experienced managers take over teams at any time they can get them like the ones mentioned, Bruce, Allardyce, etc and they’re always going to be mid-table or lower, or even a Championship side.
Problem is, you go back to Houllier, who wanted the likes of Agbonlahor out and he replaced O’Neill. He and his assistant also turned us around in the January window after having no pre-season and went from a relegation battle to 9th. In the Premier League no-less. And they did that by signing what, 3 players? And yet here still sits the likes of Agbonlahor, so clearly one has been screwing up the mentality of the team unless he’s favored, and he wasn’t favored under Houllier and he wasn’t favored under Garde. Bruce has done nothing but talk him up and the team somewhat seems behind him.
Don’t really think my comment helps yours because we could’ve attracted Premier League experience who go for poor sides at any time. In fact after Houllier and “no money because Lerner was stingy” we still attracted McLeish, Lambert, and Sherwood. And they were all crap managers from the get go, bar Lambert’s first season which I keep going back to as the way we should play. The one season where we actually scouted players and a few of them stuck until his second season where he decided the likes of Senderos were the way to go. So we’ve had multiple experienced British failing and 1 young inexperienced manager who had no backing from the players, was screwed over by management and the owner. Add in Di Matteo who’s experienced in the English game, while foreign he’s not actually “foreign” as he’s always been in the English game and that’s 4. I’ll give Bruce a half so far so 4 1/2 since O’Neill left to 1 with huge reasons to fail. I’m gonna go with lets try more foreign young managers.
I look at the squad now and back in premiership under garde. the current villa side would have beaten gardes villa. which doesn’t mean much as gardes villa were a joke. but this means RDM and now bruce had a massive task to change things in just one season. I reckon had bruce been employed instead of RDM we might have been in premiership now.
its time to draw a line in the sands and continue to look forward not back. we are progressing and this season will see us back in the premiership, but that means more work needed to stay in premiership. but as long as we keep improving as a club. means better quality of players and managers will want to represent villa or we can attract
Sorry guys but I really don’t get the relevance of a hypothetical debate over Garde or any previous manager for that matter. Frankly it’s the same as saying if my uncle was a woman he’d be my aunt 🙂
Time to draw a line under the horrors of the last few years and look to the future.
i have drawn a line under it. but every time i visit the debate is on the same subject. villa have had to pay big salaries to his last post. because they know they are on a mission to no where. the last word i will say is repeating myself.
but for what it is worth, villa as a club can not attract the best players or managers. even when we was mid table in premiership. because long before the fans got a wind of the owners lack of ambitions. the footballing community all knew. so nobody at the top of their game. manager or player would come to our great club. so paying top wages to a manager just meant you got experience but without a decent player budgets we were fooked = relegation and where we are today.
i could have rhymed of the players or rats jumping ships not just for far better wages but to win stuff. villa have been in a rut for so long it will take a decent manager in bruce more than one window and half a season to correct. is what i believe the discussion was on before we ventured down memory lane
I tell you what Andrew, Nath, pleasure to read your take on the Issues of our great club, i just don’t know how you remember it all, to pick up on what other clubs do or say or even what managers have said and done beats me, keep it coming. I just hope this is our year to come good and our team realises us fans are starving of being great again.
Nath, whilst I was frustrated by our lack of flowing football under Bruce, I also recognised the need to reverse the decline of so many years. For that reason I believe Bruce deserves a chance to turn our fortunes around. A pre season and how many games? That’s the question.
i don’t know the answer to that question. but your right he needs the preseason. i expect he will get more done in preseason than all of last season. so such was wrong last year. but i believe he has ridden out the worst and the january signings will be far better now settled. i can’t see him lasting a bad start. he really needs to hit the ground running. i expect will start fast. and last the distance.
Alright, so no more Garde talk. I don’t think we really need to go back to the Pro Bruce v Anti-Bruce argument as that went around in circles itself. Not really a whole lot left bar maybe arguing over who we should sign.
under garde i never thought we would win a game. that is really as low as i have ever been supporting villa. i never villa bash but i was really close to that under him. under bruce i don’t just have hope i have expectations again. ok not gonna play great football like under big ron Atkinson. many fans didnt like him but his villa team played good stuff. bruce will get us promoted and you can all record this with your smart phones and if iam wrong i will accept a public lashings but i aint gonna be wrong. sit back and enjoy
Neither did I honestly, but I also realize one of it was Garde’s fault. I’ll have no problem remembering this argument over Bruce. Now the question is, is this automatic promotion you’re claiming we’ll get or through the playoff?
Andrew are you an insomniac???
Why yes I am, actually. I also don’t live in England so the time difference helps. But it being 4:30 in the morning still here, I am in fact an insomniac.
I’m a confest whisky drinker Andrew, sorry to say the Villa drove me to drink.
Nowt wrong with that Andrew I’m a piss head & bill my ex wife drove me to that.
Gettin there Giddy, had to have my loverly bath taken out for a wet room, ooh how I love my bath, still the girl next door said i can use hers, when her old man goes to work. Hey BWS get your arse back on here mate, miss your take on things.
Ooh, that’s a bold statement Nath.
I’m pro Bruce, as I think he’s pragmatic and can get us up with the footy that’s required to do the job.
But I can’t say I’m massively confident.
I have concerns over who’s actually got the shout over signing the players.
If you want to talk facts, they are that all the winter signings have been pretty poor.
Lansbury and Hourihane in particular have produced nothing and seem like momentum signings to me.
Hence it’s why I don’t believe Bruce will get much of a chance: because he isn’t really running the show.
12-15 games and if we aren’t in the top 3, he’ll be gone, imo.
That said, I hope you’re right.
i never say anything i cant back up lol i am not disrespecting the other teams i am a good judge usually. i can as many as seven clubs all capable of wining the league. so why am i so positive. i just believe in bruce and the players, we need the good start as already said as a bad start will get the fans and owner getting twitchy. we need to stop pulling in different directions and make vp a fortress. i recall under taylor when we struggled at home in this division, only the best away record got us promoted behing millwall. with a last game nil nil at swindon. so its not gonna be easy its a tough long season in championship
“its not gonna be easy its a tough long season in championship”
Amen brother.
And it’s why I’m taking nothing for granted, the same as the club shouldn’t.
thats bruces strength, man management. he wont allow the players to drop their standards. he really is the right man for the immediate problem,nothingwill be taken for granted. villa fans have got used to losing will be a culture shock being at the business end of the league and just hope we enjoy and support us to the last second of the final game.
Anyone with vertigo – look away now 🙂
Hope you’re right Nath but like Badger wish I was more confident but then again after years of losing its natural to feel concerned.
‘Man management Bruce’s strength?’ Is that so? Managers who think they are good at man mangement tend to see no case as hopeless. So they would look at Gabby, Richards and Lescott and see a footballer lurking inside the piss-taking idiot and try to reform him. Managers who really are good at man management would recognise the rotten apples, and throw them out before any others went bad. In this case contracts would have been torn up for cash and the players numbers recycled.
I am not convinced by Bruce. I hoped that at least the players he bought would maintain the performance level they had at their previous club and preferably improve on it. To go backwards as some seemed to do is disturbing.
gabby and richards were decent players in days gone by. but bruce KNOWS the ppl running the show arent in business to throw away money. richards and gabby have contracts and i am not bruce’s pr machine. but i am guessing he has to keep them because the club arent willing to pay them millions to rip up the contract they signed long before bruces came. has bruces played either. not really apart from playing gabby when all the strike force was walking injured suggests he wouldnt give them the time of the day if he didnt have too. but for the peace that gives around the dressing room. while they remain
all above b/s is nothing to do with bruce manager of aston villa but a poster called nath and they are opinions not FACTS
Some good debate there, which leads me on nicely to the next question, in the next post.