brummie

BTW. If I were a betting man - which I am - I am hearing enough about Graham Potter to make me think it is worth a few quid. Which I have done. That’s a “think this may happen” not a “want this to happen” thing. Don’t bet your mortgage on it, but worth beer money.

I'd bet everything I own they have someone ready. Craig Shakespeare, the assistant, has also gone today. If there was nobody lined up, he'd be into the caretaker role. All this is very sad. At the end of the day, he joined us 18th or something in the Championship, won 10 in a row, got us promoted, got us to the LC final, kept us up, got us into a decent mid table slot, is a Villa fan through and through (lost his Dad this year, who was a steward at the club for years). I can't ever remember thinking that a sacking was the right thing to do, but also feeling so sick about it. Brian Little is the only possible comparison for me. I do think, though, that with big money and investment as we have had, comes bigger expectations, and although he effectively played a bit part in saving the club (that's why Villa fans worshipped Graham Taylor. Not because he got us second in the first division, because he literally saved the club), it has been really clear that he is not capable of taking us further at the current time. Compared to that shallow fuck Bruce, it was night and day.

Said he thought the time was right for him to move in a management role somewhere and that if he stayed on, he'd be misleading the club in terms of what he wanted to be doing. I'll be totally honest, before Terry joined us as a player, I hated him, like all non Chelsea fans do. For obvious reasons. But in the time he spent playing with us in the Championship, he was absolutely magnificent - yes, of course he was the best centre half in the league, but he was a leader, and his attitude was absolutely spot on, when a lot of players in his position would have just come for a final pay cheque. You saw from his attitude alone why he had had such an incredible career as a player. He will always be about Chelsea, but he absolutely gave the club nothing but respect, and totally won over a cynical fan base. When he then went into a coaching role, he got the defence playing extremely well, and was clearly a belts-and-braces coach - ie, totally in. No half measures. I am aware of all the arguments to the contrary in terms of his character and the shagging and racism stuff but he showed in a single year playing for us, the difference between the top clubs and the way their players are, and the rest of us.

Rodgers is a good manager, but i can't ever quite get over the fact that he got comprehensively bamboozled by 'Tactics' Tim Sherwood when we beat them in the FAC semi final.

That's alright man, I hate my mother in law but I still love the Mrs.

Turned out it was like 1981/82 for us given who came next.

definitely. The defence has gone to total shit.

We were dog shit all season, arse end of the table. Then he got ill, Gary Macallister took over and we finished ninth. The football under houllier was getting better. It was his constant talking about Liverpool (including tapping the This is Anfield thing on the tunnel when we played there), that was the problem. Nauseating.

There’s zero chance of Nuno. too much local complication. I actually think Terry would be more likely than Gerrard. I think I’d prefer Terry. Two reasons. Firstly, I still get sleepless nights over the last time we appointed a British manager with the “Did really well at Rangers” justification. Secondly, I’ve also only just got over the horrific Liverpool love-fest we had with Houllier. It would be way worse with gerrard.

probably not, on balance.

I agree with that. Won ten games on the bounce after we de-Bruced, got into the play offs, won, kept us up, consolidated, but looks like not the man to take the next step. Am sure he'll get a decent job elsewhere without too much trouble I am just glad, given his long links with the club, it didn't reach cabbage-throwing abuse levels.

Our head of recruitment / DoF is Danish. Could be some truth in it.

Yes and no. Five defeats on the bounce, 18 defeats since start of year, more than any other PL club, things clearly getting worse. Just before the international break. Good timing. I wouldn't be too upset if we ended up getting Howe. What worries me most is some boneheaded appointment like Gerrard or Terry.

Yes, basically, Dean can't do it without Grealish. That's what it boils down to. John Percy in the Telegraph, who is basically Christian Purslow's (CEO) mouthpiece and literally never wrong on Villa stuff has said tonight he's in big trouble. I hope we don't replace him with another 'project' manager, though, a Gerrard style appointment.

Ha ha, very good!

Pretty sure Dean Smith is going to get the bullet. Five defeats on the bounce, 18 defeats in 2021. Unsurvivable.

I saw this elsewhere this morning. It is Stewart Downing talking about Martin O'Neill. Bruce strikes me exactly in this mould, only problem being he's doing it over ten years later and he's not being given a huge amount of money like MON was, and obviously, no sixth place finishes. That shit does not work any more.

This is absolutely correct.

Three years ago tomorrow, Bruce sacked at our place, when the table looked like this. In the team which drew 3-3 at home to Preston (best shot of the night, the one involving someone throwing a cabbage at him): Tammy Abraham, Axel Tuanzebe, Jack Grealish, John McGinn, James Chester - some very solid players at that level. Shocking underachievement.

I think it says something for expectations that for them, missing a penalty or a shit back pass is the rough bit of "taking the rough with the smooth" whereas for us and you, it's more like getting fucking relegated or spending a decade finishing 17th. Like all those fucking Arsenal fans "Boo hoo we haven't won the league for 15 years". Try "Boo hoo we haven't won anything whatsoever for several decades"

"I'll go back to doing my normal fucking irritating, borderline cheating hop skip and jump penalties next time" #prayforbruno

Ah, that's 'the improvement conundrum' at work, whereby a manager gets a side looking so utterly abject that absolutely anything can be taken as a sign of improvement. So the media will say "They're improving" which is true in the literal sense but says nothing about how low the bar had been set by the manager. Like saying "Well, I'm not dead, so things are getting better. True, I've had all my limbs amputated and can only travel by being rolled around, but that's an improvement on being dead"

Ours say same about our trip there.

And when we replaced him with a younger manager who had previously only reached the heights of Brentford, we put in ten wins in a row and went from bottom half of the table to play off winners. Also need to remember Bruce had Grealish, the most expensive British footballer ever a couple years later, Tammy Abraham, John Terry - in the championship. Ultimately though, Bruce's failure saved us. We went to within literally days of going into administration and got sold to two hugely ambitious and supportive billionaires. Had Bruce won that play off final we'd probably still be owned by that crook Xia and back in the championship now.

That is what we used to hear a lot when he was with us. More than anyone, from the media.