For those who don’t already know, I hate the fact that we play weakened sides in the cups.
I believe we should play every game to do our utmost to win, simple.
I can hear your thoughts straight away.
“It’s a waste of time and only detracts from our efforts in the league”.
Which is fair comment.
To which I’d reply, we 100% ain’t going to win the Champion’s league, the Premiership title or even the FA cup.
The realist in me says we won’t win the Championship title either.
So why not go for a piece of silverware that we might actually be able to win?
“That’s unrealistic” I hear you cry.
Except it isn’t.
I’m sure we all remember Leicester winning the Prem against the odds.
And even a certain team beating Arsenal in this very cup.
The point is, if you don’t even try, you have no chance. And it annoys me, especially when we supposedly have the best squad in the league by some distance.
Still, the realist in me accepts that I’m in the minority in thinking like that and actually going for it isn’t going to happen. So we’re going to play a bunch of second raters, the likes of McCormack or Gabby etc, who lumped together, probably won’t achieve much.
The plus is that we might see good performances from a couple of the kids, but a lot depends on the side Boro put out.
If it’s fairly strong, I’d expect them to be favourites for this game, hence I’d rather see any kids dripped into the league gradually instead of thrown into a game we probably won’t win.
And then, let’s say we do manage to win and get to the very interesting stages of the cup, we’ll no doubt play the “top eleven” or so, meaning those who got us there get dropped. That’s unfair and has to be demoralising, surely?
I just can’t stand the weakened team approach.
In short, if we play a majorly weakened side, I’ll be reduced to not giving a toss about the game too.
Because if the club doesn’t care about the cup, why should the fans bother?
Which is a shame; because it’s still remotely achievable silverware, imo.
Of course I’ll still be hoping for the win, but well, hopefully you see my point somewhat.
I’ll go for a 2-1 win, purely because I don’t want to predict a loss, just when it seems things might be picking up.
Which reminds me, I didn’t even mention the momentum thing did I?
Oh well.
In good news, Tony Xia has pretty much refuted any rumours that he’s looking to sell up;
Your feeling and instincts are terrible. 😎
— Dr. Tony Xia (@Dr_TonyXia) September 18, 2017
A lack of managerial continuity would be bad enough, but a change of owner would be totally disastrous.
I’d love us to go for this, but it isn’t going to happen 🙁
Time for the likes of Ohare and Clark to be given a shot again. Much rather see them than the likes of gabby and mccormack. Hogan up front. Needs some confidence. Maybe a short run out for Kodjia too.
I do wonder if the managers talk beforehand and agree both will field teams of non-regular starters. Also while you might trust Bruce and McCarthy – could you trust Warnock?
I would expect the likes of O’Hare, Clark and Lyden to get game time tonight. However, our up most priority should be picking up 9 points out of the three league games next week, all of which are absolute must wins.
I would also throw in Mccormack tonight, he deserves a chance in the cups at least as getting him back in the squad only adds to our depth.
Steer; Hutton, Elphick, Samba, De Laet; Lansbury, Doyle-Hayes; O’Hare, Onomah, Bjarnason; Hogan
Subs: Bunn, Bree, Richards, Clark, Lyden, Blackett-Taylor, McCormack
Not impressed with the selection. It should be a winnable tie at home and confidence is important. A weakened side misses the opportunity to build that confidence, and always smacks of “well we needed to give players a run out” excuse being lined up.
Just what I expect from the manager in fact.
We’ll get Nil so if they score it’s them going through.
I guess it depends on your reasoning for a weakened side. Is it genuinely because we don’t give a crap, or is it because we recognise there’s a time when we need to bring fringe players onto the pitch to either develop them, or test them in a low pressure environment and build the trust to use them in key games. Some would argue that’s a strategy we should do in championship games, but when every game is decided over who makes the most mistakes, I think it’s a reasonable strategy to field ‘weakened teams’ in the cups.
Fine. That’s a theory. I’m not sure the players picked would feel that a home cup tie is a no pressure environment.
It is quite possible to play a strong team with a couple or three changes, and to have a mix of experienced/general first team picks and inexperienced players on the bench. That way he gets the chance to progress and give this players another chance to gain experience
Bruce either thinks it’s a waste of time or doesn’t want to risk damaging his first team with defeat in a shoot out.
If he doesn’t give a toss about the competition then neither do I.
My views exactly, DSV.
Elphick sent off for a second yellow.
Bamford scores from the pen
Bamford scores again, 2-0
All a bit predictable really. Poor manager picks understrength side and fails to coach/motivate them to victory at home against an ordinary team fielding a weakened side.
We are screwed until he is bulleted. Anybody who thinks differently needs to get real. There is not a hope in hell that Bruce will get us promoted this season.
Yes, he struggles with the main problem, and shows no aptitude to solve a different one. He is a disappointment, but there are plenty worse out there which Villa might pick as replacement.
Yes. If we tried hard we could do worse. There are plenty better, but we have hamstrung ourselves by not dealing with the situation in the summer. I don’t trust the club to make a better appointment, but sticking with Bruce will get us nowhere.
The club seems incompetent throughout and i don’t see it getting better.
I’m totally demoralised TBH.
The 11k attendance tonight shows the whole fanbase is demoralised. Waste of time and energy nowadays as you know it’s going to be a let down before you even enter the ground.
after years as a season ticket holder I gave up at the end of the McLeish season. It was just a negative experience.
I kind of want to go back, and feel that maybe I shouldn’t be commenting since I no longer turn up for games.
I need something to restore my enthusiasm and there is nothing there at the moment.
Don’t blame them no one cares about this rubbish competition anymore they should scrap it
Agree he has to go
Wonder if Bruce will be out having a pop at the fans again tonight……..why oh why is the board so naive in delaying this inevitable sacking
Bruce out
Bruce out.
bruce out
what the fuck does he think giving hutton a game at expense of bree
bruce out tomorrow
Bruce admitted that he expected before the game that the team he put out could get the job done. So there’s no excuse for why they didn’t. He didn’t wanna go out of the cup as he said the team despite being a mix of experienced and youth that they should be able to get through.
The largest problem that wasn’t addressed, instead of getting rid of Bruce, was depth in defense. No back up left back, shit back ups at center back and we’re still pretending Hutton is a footballer, yet he’s been shit since we signed him, When Elphick and Samba are your back ups at center back, you know you’re screwed. And Richards being what, 5th choice? I’d rather use the u12s center backs than any of those 3. Yeah he tried addressing elsewhere but we failed to address backups and if Chester or Terry go down, we could be in real trouble if it’s not addressed in January.
At the end of the day it was the mickey mouse cup. The winner gets no credit unless the winner is man united you cant qualify for europe so weve not lost anything. Id rather put our all in to the league. Bruce gave a few the opportunity to show him they should be playing every week and they didnt turn up so it will have just re-assured him theyre not good enough. Which is great because it means he wont play them in the league games which is where the performance matters. We will beat forrest sat night and the table will start looking a bit better
You lot need to wake up and smell the coffee that old codger bruce pulls a win out of the bag every few games to just about save his job 3-0 against possibly the worst team we played this year and so called fans and happy clappers licking Bruces ar sehole face facts we are 18th in the fizzy pop shyte league with the most expensive assembled squads this league has seen and yet again a home and winnable game we manage 1 pathetic shot on target yet again and let boro score 2 when they have struggled to score all season
Lets cut to the chase and face facts Bruce has had time, he had money, he bought in his old guard players that should be retired elhomanady terry samba whelan players with no resale value whatsover, on top of the millions he spent and people get excited to win 1 game 3-0 and when the carabanana cup is played they say ‘oh it dont matter it was only a crap cup anyways’ its absolute bull shyte when will people wake up and face facts The dinosaur bruce should be harpooned now this is not going to get any better than the odd win here and there come christmas this shower of absolute shyte will still be nowhere near the top 6 and Bruce and all his little fanboys will still be ledsling out the excuses about having time
Bruces time has gone the game has moved on, he hasnt its as simple as that we will have another draw or loss at weekend and then we will win again, followed by another few drab draws and losses and then it will repeat and repeat villa was a fortress at once now teams are not scared they know bruce is gonna stick 9 behind the ball and they will have free run of the ball
He needs to be sacked now
Spot on, the old style managers like Redknapp and Bruce are finished now.
As you say, we’ll win the odd game, everyone starts commenting on how we might turn the corner and then the same old garbage just resurfaces.
Bruce’s only response is to criticise the very fans he lets down 99% of weekends, it a sign of a desperate man who knows his days are numbered. He did the same when he failed at Sunderland, got his excuses in before he was sacked.
all behind john doyle agree/disagree
agree
John Doyle AKA JVillan.
I do agree though, he has to go.
Personally I dont see any manager coming in that will have an immediate impact. Then the bruce out brigade will be calling for the next man to be sacked. Its a vicious cirlce that we see time and time again. Why dont we do something different to change that?? I.e. keep a manager for stability and continuity, even when things arent exactly rosie. Whats the worst that can happen..Bruce gets sacked anyway and we start again but at least we will have tried something different.
lambert got 2.5 years look at how that turned out,we need to get smarter at picking manager,too many at wrong time houiller garde,some who never should got the shout mcleish bruce
Stability would be great. However when you’re shit at what you do, you don’t keep a manager just for stability. You just don’t keep managers for the sake of keeping the same manager because you’re tired of sacking managers. That is literally the worst idea one could ever have.
What could go wrong? Oh I don’t know. Not going up? Getting killed on FFP because we spent so much money under Di Matteo and Bruce (the latter especially on ridiculous wages). That would be a start on what could happen. You never, ever, ever, ever keep a manager for stability when they can’t do their job correctly. That’s exactly what causes the job to be unstable.
Ok, Andrew, so what, without 20-20 hindsight, is the way to go?
This is the part I and no doubt loads of other fans are not understanding.
You make it sound so easy, yet still I’m simply not seeing it.
From what I’ve been hearing (not just what can be read on the usual sites), we’re implementing a set-up where the club plays the same sort of system, from top to bottom.
That’s good, but I can’t say I’m seeing it with the way Bruce plays the game.
But the word is, that’s how we’re going.
So if we have a system, what difference does the manager make?
It strikes me, the biggest requirement now becomes a motivator; someone who makes players play above themselves.
A Clough, Paisley, Ferguson or whoever you like to call, who has been there and done it.
How does that fit with your views, where the technical side is seemingly all that counts?
My opinion says a technical coach/manager is all well and good, but they have to have a lot more about them than that, if they’re to be successful.
That’s the enigma of the British game and probably the appeal of it, imo.
Or maybe it doesn’t matter who the manager is, as long as the system’s right?
In which case I’d look at Southampton.
They’ll make money and survive, but never win anything, as they don’t have that extra something, in the manager who can inspire.
Never once claimed it was easy, however the system we have now, and the system we’ve used for the last what, 20 odd years? Clearly hasn’t been working. All I want is change. Yes it is that easy, change. The success clearly isn’t easy, but change is. We haven’t changed in years.
You make it sound like technical managers just that, only technical. Clearly that’s not the case at all. That’s why they, unlike British managers, are successful. Because they’re not just technical managers. They know how to work a system, they know how to buy into that system, they know their best players, they know how to build a squad, and I mean a squad, not the O’Neill or currently Bruce style of building a starting 11 and overspending on mediocre back up that don’t fit. There’s a reason Ranieri won. He’s technical, he’s tactical, and he also knows how to push players to be a lot better than they are. He also knows how to scout. I’ve never said the technical side is all that matters. But it’s a large part of it. Tactics, a system, two words Bruce has clearly never heard of. Or any of the recent McLeish’s, Lambert’s, Sherwood’s, etc. In fact one of the manager’s I’ve talked up most on this site is Dyche. He has a system, he knows what he’s doing. He buys exactly for that system and he makes it work incredibly well for a team without the money who sold their best center back and the most overrated striker in the league for big money and got a much better striker for around the same price.
Southampton will never win because they don’t put the money back into the club as much as they should. They’ll put it back into their academy and such so they can continue their sales but they won’t correctly spend it on their 1st team.
Never will I ever claim Managing is easy, nor is building a successful squad/team, nor is anything in football. However we’ve tried, we’ve pushed, we’ve gone the British way for so long and it’s gotten us relegated. We’ve spent so much and we’re still a shit mid-table side by buying crap Championship players and aging Premier League players clearly their teams don’t care about letting them go.
If we’re going the way you claim. That we’re going to build it like City who top to bottom play the same style, then yes a manager does matter. And we clearly need that type of manager in which the way the kids are learning to play. For years we’ve had an attack minded academy and crap defensive minded first team managers. That doesn’t work. If we’re going to build a system like that of a City who plays attacking football from the u12;s to the first team like they do, then we need a manager who does the same. Obviously we won’t get a Pep or anyone remotely close, but the Championship equivalent would be needed, and that’s the furthest thing from what Bruce is.
All I want is change from our usual model because it’s not working, it got us relegated and it got us to become a mid-table Championship side who doesn’t look like getting better and could be screwed by FFP next summer, in which we will see our best players leaving because we can’t afford to keep them on anymore. Do you not see that the same old British manager isn’t working, because they’re consistently the same. Name a difference between O’Neill, McLeish, Lambert and Bruce. Same style, same types of buys, difference is O’Neill and Bruce got to buy whoever they wanted and had to sell nobody. I want a change from what’s not working and keeping it the same, in the name of stability, isn’t causing stability, because we’re clearly an unstable club that’s been unstable for 10 years now. Because we keep going the same way over and over and over, sacking the same manager over and over, paying out big money to the same manager over and over, they simply had different names and different bodies, but the same mind, same thinking and aren’t in the 21st century of where football is moving.