So I’m over my massive disappointment after yesterday’s poor showing.
Actually I’m very sanguine, probably because I saw what was coming and wasn’t at all convinced that we’d win the game.
It still annoys me that we did exactly what we shouldn’t have done, but oh well; it’s in the past.
Which leaves me asking the same question everybody has been asking, in do we keep Bruce or sack him?
I haven’t looked around any other Villa sites yet, but it seems the consensus on here is that he should stay.
I believe that’s sensible.
I know that a few of you won’t agree with that, but as much as I believe he cost us the game yesterday, so it’s undeniable that we’re in a much better position than when he first came to the club.
You might well say that “we bloody well ought to be, after the money we’ve spent”, but if we look at it from a wider angle, has Bruce actually spent much?
I’d have to re-trace exactly who he’s bought, to be honest, to answer that one.
The important part here, is that Bruce has called out the players with a bad attitude (think McCormack) or dropped those that needed dropping (Gabby), where it seemed previous managers couldn’t.
There’s one bloke in charge of the team now and that’s quite rightly the manager, himself.
He needs a chance just for that.
The Birmingham Mail has made a point about how Bruce has gone a long way to restoring the unity between the players and the fans.
I think that’s a very valid point. I’d never known such a bad player/fan relationship in all my years.
But that’s not enough in itself.
I still have major issues with how Bruce sets the side up.
He was way too defensive early on in his tenure, with the personnel he had available, but I’m of the opinion that he saw this was needed, if only to help create stability. I can’t argue with that, if that’s how he saw it.
Lately though, I think his defensive approach has cost us.
Certainly I thought so against Boro and thought so yesterday.
Which really makes we wonder if he has what it takes to push us on.
I’m not convinced.
Yet, even with all my doubts, I think Bruce deserves another crack next season.
We’re going to lose some very decent players, like Snodgrass and Hutton.
(Regardless of any speculation, we will NOT lose Grealish. Xia will not let it happen and I’m willing to take bets).
And we’re going to have to introduce some of the kids on a more regular basis.
Who knows these kids better than Bruce?
And while he might have been reluctant to play them this season, so I think with the constraints we’re under, he will give them more of a chance.
So we go with Bruce on another rolling one year contract.
And he gets until somewhere around November to prove that we can seriously challenge for the Championship title.
We will need to be top two though and that’s where I believe we might have a problem.
Look at the sides that have just been relegated from the Prem;
Swansea, Stoke and West Brom.
You may well think they’re all rubbish teams in the Prem
But they probably have way better squads than ours, when it comes to the championship.
And that’s where I struggle to see how we can go up next season, regardless of who the manager is.
But that’s for next season.
Comments
109 responses to “Ok, he messed up, imo, but Bruce stays.”
Here it is Holte66
Aston Villa captain John Terry has left the club after they failed to gain promotion to the Premier League.
Terry, 37, joined the Villans on a one-year deal last summer after leaving Chelsea and scored once in 36 appearances for the club.
However, he could not help them return to the top flight after a two-year absence, as they lost 1-0 to Fulham in Saturday’s Championship play-off final.
Villa thanked defender Terry for “the effort and professionalism he showed”.
The club said in a statement: “John is a true leader and was everything and more that we hoped. Hugely popular and influential in the dressing room, he played a real captain’s role in creating the incredible bond the players shared with our supporters, and vice-versa.
“We hope he looks back on his time with Villa fondly and we wish him the very best as his career moves forward.”
Villa boss Steve Bruce said before the play-off final that he was hopeful that the former England captain, who made 492 league appearances across 19 years for Chelsea, would remain with the club if they secured a return to the Premier League.
Terry’s next move is not clear, although there are no initial indications that he plans to retire from playing.
Before joining Villa last year, he reportedly received an “eye-watering offer” from Turkish club Galatasaray, while there was “definite interest” from China and the United States.
He has also previously stated a desire to move into management, saying it would be “incredible” to manage his former side Chelsea once his playing career ends.
Villa ‘need to change a lot of things’
who knows the wages of the three attackers. kodjia mccormack and hogan what is a good guess of how much these three earn altogether in one year. i have no idea but i would love to know.
terry has been a good signing, he has united the dressing room. but for all his good attributes. it was his lack of pace which hindered villla at times. we were frightened to press high. that allowed teams lots of room in to play their stuff. many were not good enough to capitalise but some were and we paid a heavy price.
still good luck to him i bet he will get a even bigger paid day in the sun he deserves it. good luck JT
Reading Xia’s comments it seems like a goodbye to Bruce. Maybe it’s a translation thing.
Sounded bloody depressing too – big changes ahead and I don’t think positive ones !!
Kodjia, McCormack and Hogan wages?
I’ll go £35k, £50k and £30k, top line.
Now consider that includes appearance money, goals scored money, result money, so it’s probably quite a bit less.
£90k a week?
Or £4.5 mill a year?
I assume our allowable losses over 3 years will be higher than £39m as one of those three we were still a premiership club but then FFP is so illogical in my book – who knows? We get a £35m parachute next season and that’s it.
Turning losses into profit to reduce the allowable rolling debt is going to be one hell of a challenge for Xia / Wryness. I think we can expect to see changes to coaching staff as well as playing staff plus more cutting back across the club.
Steel yourselves lads – this us going to be painful
And just to add a final chapter to this developing horror story – if we don’t get promoted next season then in the following year £35m gets wiped off our income in a single stroke. Look at our turnover and go figure that little bombshell out.
In reality it means we have to start making a profit and now; we cannot afford to gamble next season – hence I’m afraid Grealish will probably get sold – what other option do we have?
We are Doomed doomed Mr Manering, Christ on a bike, we will probably end up getting shafted according to that, we best use our own players from the under 23 and 21s to save our club.Trouble is agent’s don’t give a shit if we go tits up ,but home grown players show loyalty to its maker. Im now despondent to how we end up. Jesus wept.
Can see Grealish going to Leicester – they are about to get 75m for Mahrez so could easily pay 30-40m for Jack and lets face it, as gut wrenching as it is to admit for his career he should go as the size of the rebuilding job given FFP will be years.
We can use the money to offset FFP and try and build a side in 2-3 years to compete again using youth and a modern setup of effective scouting from Europe and the lower leagues, similar to how Brentford operate. All this requires a new management setup and perhaps more involvement from Steve Round in recruiting. This may well be the change in strategy Dr Tony is hinting at, either way we’re now in the process of long term rebuilding. Promotion next season IMO is off the cards, its about stabilising financially and building for around 2020-2021 to go again. By then however, the league will be saturated with more teams with PL parachute money who won’t be anywhere near as naive as us.
Its basically a nightmare situation and I think we’ll look back at 26th May 2018 as a day that defined our next decade.
So with all this doom and gloom and the 26th being a defining day when will people finally admit that SB was mostly to blame….all the time he has been here he has done well to sort out the mess from the Prem years but time and again has fell short when it mattered.
O.K. we lost to QPR after the Wolves result but surely the Bolton one should have been a win…..it never happened.
He and his staff had a week and a half to sort out the tactics for the final and duly coked it up….everyone knew how Fulham would play so it’s hot to be their collective blame…..if we are now starting again on a 2-3 year plan get rid and get Smith in please.
TEST…
how the hell do we post on here nowadays. ….
We took a gamble with a big spend on experience. It very nearly worked so for that I am not angry.
In the end the Fulham scorer was unmarked by any left back as he had time to pick his spot and score. No Villa forward ever had as much time in the whole game. Who was the left back? I am not sure if it was supposed to be Elmo or Hutton, but as the move began it is Hutton nearest to the scorer who fails to track back. If that was the richest game in football – then that moment was the most expensive error in football.
More of the same is no longer an option, the camera caught Dr T after the goal and the expression on his face said everything. I would be very surprised if Bruce, whose gamble it was, is still the manager come August. Do we sell Grealish or everybody else? Actually I expect the latter. All the older players were part of plan B – to go with experience. We could not afford that again if we wanted to. So they are all now surplus to requirements. Grealish could be the centre of a young team working for a new manager. A chance to prove Hansen wrong again.
Absolutely no argument from me OLL and would love your scenario to become fact. We could on that basis hold onto Grealish for another season and probably manage FFP but it means if we fail to get promotion we are facing a big black hole (Bruce or no Bruce) – will Dr T back another gamble?
Reading between the lines of his recent comments I suspect not and therefore I believe we will sell our most valuable asset to help great a sound financial base for the future. At the same time this would help us write off the losses of McCormack and Richards by getting rid at the same time thus putting us on a sound financial footing.
Yes but we can’t shift the older players. The likes of Jedinak, Whelan, Neil Taylor and so on aren’t going to get anywhere near what we’re paying them. Ironically Bjarnasson might raise some funds if he has a good world cup. but we need him to stay instead of tired old Glenn Whelan. Again awful management from Bruce.
We need to offset around 35-40m – without selling Grealish I just cant see it being feasible. I guess the board will take the view that they sell now while he’s got 2 years left for big money.
Much like the Swiss Ramble coverage of the clubs FFP issues this past weekend there was also a pretty good rough breakdown on 7500toHolte website. Might be a good read for anyone looking to understand what the hell this might mean or what it’s all about.
In summary, the club has already cut a large sum of the reported 40-45m FFP debt and there may be ways for the club to hold on to Grealish, but selling is by far the easiest.
what is going on with you guys lol you tarts lol sorry
i learned about this FFP bullshit. they can punish us by dropping us from automatic promotion into playoffs or if we finished playoffs they can drop us completely out. if we are still on the wrong side of the rules this season. thats if we finished into the top 6. so its not just a fine for punishment
i would love grealish to stay i had hoped we build a solid team around him. give him a solid platform to open up the oppositions. which he can do for fun.
but we gambled everything on promotion last season. it looks really bad that our great club has resorted to this reckless behaviour. we don’t want to fall foul like portsmouth.
we should aim to get our house in order once and for all. sell everybody over 25k if that means selling chester sobeit. problem is we won’t be able to sell them all. some just are not desired for other clubs. we will be stuck with them. i wouldnt give hutton a contract he was on 30k minimum. bree should be good enough for the right back. under 23’s players will have to be fast tracked. we have some good players. they just need to knuckle down like omamah did last season. its a massive step up to championship from youth soccer. where tackling is a sin
the three strikers i asked badger about he says 4.5 mill for their wages i read somewhere wage bill should not exceed 18 mill i think i saw somewhere.so them 3 strikers are over 1/4 of our budgie
i reckon grealish will end up at spuds. they have been monitoring onomah, so without us knowling they will have been watching grealish for sure. they will know its not a gamble and they will try to get him on the cheap. hopefully other clubs will drive up the price
Every sympathy and empathy with SB following the sad passing of his parents just months apart.
That said he is totally to blame for Villa’s plight. The writing was on the wall with his negative tactics and game plan!
I hope I’m wrong, but I fear Villa will be in the doldrums for years to come after the debacle that was the play-off final; it’s disastrous for the club, and I think SB should do the right thing and step down.
Grealish and Chester are the only players I would fight tooth and nail to keep. Everyone else is dispensable IMO. It depends whether they get good offers from premier league clubs and also if players want to go. Any player who wants to go should be allowed to leave. After restoring harmony within club it’s important to have players who aren’t disruptive. We have already saved by Gabby, Hutton and Terry going. Add to that returning loan players, I don’t think we have to see much more cost cutting. Nath is right that last seasons U23s have to step up, and Bruce if he stays needs to trust in them more than he has done until now. It’s a shame that our better loan performers like Johnstone, Snodgrass and Grabban almost certainly won’t return, but we have players like Steer, Green and Kodja who should be able to come in their place. Hepburn Murphy if he stays fit could be the star next season like Sessegnon was. We need at least one central defender and probably a left back but we have plenty of competition elsewhere. Time for players like Hogan, Lansbury and Bree to get game time or offload them. I hope the McCormack and Richards contracts can get shredded, that would be ideal. Who would keep Taylor and Adomah next season? Surely either Whelan or Jedinak needs to go although I think Bjarnasson is most likely to go. It’s fun to speculate until we know for certain. Keep the faith. UTV
Holte66 you and I think alike, your right Chester, Grealish, and Snodgrass, are the only player’s I’d worry over, Bruce paid the price by not having trust in home grown players , now he’s forced into useing them, to be honest they would most likely pay dividends , I just hope that they don’t off load to keep our head above water. Start now talking to the young guns and tell them how important Villa means to them .God save the Villa.