No its not a cop out, it is the one blindingly obvious fact that people are ignoring in order to lay the blame at Bruce's door.
You cannot sell a player who has won you as many points as Bent and simply expect to maintain a good run of form, I just cannot believe anyone would think this would be so - explain why you think we could do this BruceysBeak.
Who sold Bent - do you believe the geordie propaganda that Bruce had a falling out - rubbish, he was sold by Short as it represented a good return on the investment, this was "little club mentality" and just bad business, did they get this from the Bob Murray book of football ownership under the "lets sell Don Hutchison" chapter?
To save a few millions we sold too quickly and without taking into account the affect on the teams moral - again a reason for the bad form, the boat was well and truly rocked and results suffered.
We blinked first and after that Torres and Carroll deals were struck, inflating the cost of replacing Bent and the wages we will have to pay - effectively wiping out any financial gain - selling Bent was a horrendous footballing decision.
I have no doubt Bruce being backed in the transfer market came with caveats, with one of them being every player has his price and Villa met bents price, which the board got wrong.
Selling Bent has set us back badly, how much remains to be seen.
You cannot sell a player who has won you as many points as Bent and simply expect to maintain a good run of form, I just cannot believe anyone would think this would be so - explain why you think we could do this BruceysBeak.
Who sold Bent - do you believe the geordie propaganda that Bruce had a falling out - rubbish, he was sold by Short as it represented a good return on the investment, this was "little club mentality" and just bad business, did they get this from the Bob Murray book of football ownership under the "lets sell Don Hutchison" chapter?
To save a few millions we sold too quickly and without taking into account the affect on the teams moral - again a reason for the bad form, the boat was well and truly rocked and results suffered.
We blinked first and after that Torres and Carroll deals were struck, inflating the cost of replacing Bent and the wages we will have to pay - effectively wiping out any financial gain - selling Bent was a horrendous footballing decision.
I have no doubt Bruce being backed in the transfer market came with caveats, with one of them being every player has his price and Villa met bents price, which the board got wrong.
Selling Bent has set us back badly, how much remains to be seen.