Essentially the Allams used Bruce for that last promotion, it was like one last fling with your ex. It would be very interesting if we lost at Wembley that day, where we would be. We’d be down circa 100 million.
The decline of our club started when Steve Bruce got us relegated after the Allams gave him a £40 million war-chest and Brucie ****ed it up and got us relegated - no more money after that, only a constant player sell off to recover the gift - better players were replaced with loans, freebees and minimal investment - instead of moving forward and consolidating we started going backwards - you can blame the Allams for pulling the plug on the financial investment but the cause is Brucie ****ing up that season - **** tactics, **** negative football, strikers off if winning or everyman and his dog pushed forward if we were losing and of course putting his son down as first name on the team sheet no matter how **** he played or who he dropped or farmed out to give him a game - yes he got us promoted again but not by the way we played, we were well off the pace in 4th place, 12 points behind Brighton - we got promoted because Brighton ****ed up - the Allams wouldn't give Brucie any more money, who can blame them, so he ****ed off leaving his mess
I think even Adkins would have that Villa team in third place. Far and away the most coveted group of players ever to play in this division.
Great to see Bruce is doing his usual terrible job at Aston Villa....o wait...... I don't get how our club puts down Steve Bruce's achievements. Given our history and where we have spent most of our years you would think someone who has won us two promotions took us to an FA Cup final and Europe would be celebrated as one of the greatest figures in our history. Bruce made mistakes, but he gave us some great times whilst working with testing (understatement) owners.
Agreed that was a strange season. We signed all these British players to tackle Europe etc etc. And I remember play 532 with Snoddy in midfield. Oh what I’d give for them problems now.
Ye the way he told mcgregor to give the ball straight to their player in the away leg, and then to tell sagbo to get sent off in the home leg. Well it just beggars belief why he'd do that
Hah. Actually yes. He’s just the sort of striker we need right now. Also 5 mins of how ****e he knew Marco was and how he can’t understand why Watford wanted him nor Everton. He’s one of the worst managers he can recall. I think he’s going senile tbh.
more to do with playing a second string rather than McGregors mistake - leaving out Dawson, Davies Huddlestone, Jelavic. Robertson and Elmo from the starting line up in the first leg was the main reason we lost - we limped out because he thought it wasn't worth 'going for'
I thought he started the season ok, and how do you explain his Ireland performances? He is someone who we have always assumed is a model professional. Ok he so he gets paid handsomely. but seeing everyone leaving (he was one of the Portugal 9, and even worse happened last season) must be totally demoralising.
That was our most realistic opportunity to establish ourselves and to be fair, Allams gave Bruce some money. It was the season of Leicester's ridiculous escape, without which we would have survived. Not making excuses (and neither did Bruce) but that season was ridiculous in terms of injuries. Marquee signing (Snodgrass) lasted 10 minutes. Every time anyone showed any form, they got injured. Jelavic started superb, got injured and that was actually his swansong. Despite a well balanced squad in all position we ended up with square pegs because I recall both left backs getting injured within 30 mins, three centre backs in one half. It was freakish. Bruce never once blamed this. The amount of injuries was an issue. I recall someone responding to a similar topic I posted on City Independent with a league table of injuries and we were actually half way in the 'league'. On analysis though every single 'rival' were above us. All teams below did underperform that season.
I still don't understand why Bruce was so castigated for using squad rotation that season. Fantastic first ever opportunity to play in Europe, but surviving in Premier was always the main target. We had to start the season ridiculously early, lost marquee signing after 10 mins of the first league game so it was never going to be first xi.
Jelavic came back from the World Cup late and missed some preseason and as you say was injured a lot.
