brummie

How far have we sunk when Villa fans feel sorry for us? I generally can’t stand Villa fans but thought this comment was funny: ‘ Only Potato Face could think the dromedary in high heels that is Carroll is still a top flight striker.’’ I certainly didn't think this at the time but looking back now, losing the play off final to Fulham under Bruce and that fucking chancer Tony Xia, then coming within days of administration shortly after was the best thing that could have happened to us. New owners - who have put loads of money in, are absolutely minted and (unlike Lerner, say) actually have a plan and some nous - and Bruce having to deliver from day 1 of the next season, and failing to do so and getting the heave-ho. My point in all this is don't underestimate how very quickly things can turn around in football. I honestly think 3 or 4 more performances like Saturday and his departure becomes scientifically, factually real. We had to hit absolute rock bottom to start to come back, and I think you're pretty close to it yourselves now.

Bruce only really does well in places with really low expectations - Hull, Blues, Wigan. Anywhere with bigger expectations (us, you, Sunderland) and he fails. One reason for that is he isn't the biggest personality in the club, the back-slapping geeing up the lads and hoping for the best will not work. The knock on effect of that is he very quickly becomes defensive - it's the fans' fault. We had that loads - easily the biggest budget and wage bill in the championship, easily the best squad, playing grindingly awful football that got shown up by any team who pass it a bit - it's just that there aren't many teams who play that way in the championship so he gets away with it. Under him in the championship, I remember Brentford (under Smith) coming to our place and absolutely playing us off the park, it was like they were from a different planet in terms of playing style, we looked like an absolute anachronism. I remember thinking - stay with me on this - we were a bit like the French army in 1940. Totally ready and equipped to fight the war - the first world war. We had just stood still and although he ground out enough results to keep us there or thereabouts, you saw in the play off final against Fulham, we were no match for a footballing side. It is absolutely nothing to do with the demands of the fans at your place, the result would be the same at pretty much any club in the top flight.

Quite like the way yous pop it off with the one touch passing though. Massive contrast to us where we have no idea what to do with the ball when we get it and end up going backwards. That has to be down to coaching. Craig Shakespeare is the addition to the coaching team that has made a lot of difference since the latter part of last season, for sure.

I know you don't want to hear this, and I am in no way gloating, but this is us barely out of second gear, we're not even playing that well. Grealish is having a quiet one. To me, you look like a dressing room that has been well and truly lost.

Danny Murphy is what I believe people in the north east refer to as 'a kernt'

Neil Taylor, Hourihane. Surprisingly the vast amounts of shite he bought didn’t work out. Taylor hardly ever plays. Hourihane has just gone on loan to Swansea. TBF, he did buy John McGinn.

Liverpool dreary as fuck. I am now not so surprised our U12s held them for an hour and the adults put 7 past them.

Scott Parker has the air of an apprentice on the English Manager Merry-Go-Round trainee scheme. Express your intelligence by saying "the football club" instead of "the club", look serious a bit, have a fleeting period of relative success, be mates with the commentators and the wider football community and bob's yer uncle. A career of £3m a year jobs for delivering fuck all, and the endless support of lots of other people who earn £3m a year for doing fuck all. See also: Phil Neville.

We're getting better, we have some up and down results (7 past Liverpool, lose 3-0 at home to Leeds), there will be inconsistency, but the general direction of travel is absolutely in the right direction, and we are pretty entertaining to watch. After 10 almost uninterrupted years of absolute fucking dog shit injected directly into the eye balls, I'll take that.

Don't know if this has been covered already, but saw this earlier today, attributed to Grealish talking about Bruce at Villa. It's actually Richie de Laet talking about him.

Exactly the fucking same. No doubt there'll be identical quotes you could dig up from Sunderland etc. Worth remembering, Dean Smith, a manager who had only managed Walsall and Brentford took over from him, with the squad he had in that league, won 11 matches in a row, and took us from the arse end of the table to play off victory (including a semi final against Albion, a fixture Bruce would have bottled) and promotion I remember the match against Preston, which we drew 3-3, and Glen Whelan missed a 94th minute penalty - genuinely not joking, pretty much every one of us was hoping Whelan would miss because it would have finished Bruce off, and it did. An entirely unremarkable player who is remembered with utter fondness by our fans because he was the person who knocked the last nail into the Bruce coffin.

Literally the worst player I have ever seen play for Villa since 1974 or so when i went to my first match. Seriously. He's finished.

I was thinking the other day, I can only think of one manager of us or you who has left to go straight into a better job in my lifetime (52 years) other than Graham Taylor, and that was 30 years ago. Two jobs that basically kill managers. Bruce will just get on to the English manager merry go round and wash up somewhere else where they're looking for a patsy who'll front up the lack of ambition, and continue to get protected by the cretinous English football media (as evinced by Redknapp above).

We are after Morgan Sanson from Marseille. No idea if he's any good.

You can't even get in there to throw a cabbage at the bloke.

Selling twice as many tickets as their ground holds when no one can go is class. Cup run finance will do wonders for them. I saw that report on it on the news this evening, magical stuff. Ironic because of the way the ground is set up there will be fans effectively there The insane mentalness of it all, with the numbers showing which house to call on to get the ball back, all that, it's traditional English football in a nutshell. Brilliant stuffl

Selling twice as many tickets as their ground holds when no one can go is class. Cup run finance will do wonders for them. I saw that report on it on the news this evening, magical stuff.

I'd be buzzing with that if I was a Villa fan. Actually find myself warming to villa recently (mainly because your fans are some of the few people who realise how bad Bruce is!) The whole stadium were complete cunts when we got relegated though. Zero need. It was like we were Birmingham City- they made it seem personal for some reason, and the amount of gloating was sickening. Because you getting relegated is a big deal. It's when you go down in silence that it is a problem. When we went down we had exactly the same, week after week. We did it with a comedy pathetic relegation too When you slip out of the top flight and nobody bats an eyelid, that's when you should worry.

Imagine how that kid is feeling tonight. I bet he watches that 3000 times.

Proud of the kids. No wonder our adult team put seven past those jokers.

Because the entire first team squad and entire coaching staff have been forced to self isolate after a mass outbreak of covid - all of them, all players, Smith, Terry, the coaching staff, the lot of them. It's basically anyone who was training as part of or with the first team squad at the training ground. The U23s work in a totally seperate building.

Louie Barry is supposed to be incredibly promising. Left Albion to go to Barcelona (seriously) then bought by us.

This And also, what an unsporting cunt.

Do you think there's a chance you don't want the fixture headache given things are going pretty well in the league? Unlikely, but I guess it's a possibility. Our next league game looks a banker to get postponed too. We've already played 2 games less than most of the clubs around us.

We are apparently playing our U23s against Liverpool in the cup tomorrow night. No first team involvement at all - no players or staff at the ground. Hmmm. Detecting a lack of consistency in how the game is reacting to these challenges.