DeanoVilla posed an interesting question to members of Vital Villa this week…have we all turned into a bunch of Doug Ellis’?
The appointment of Steve Bruce was certainly welcomed in a calmer manner than the appointment of Alex McLeish.
Whether that was down to the gap in years between Bruce’s ties to St Andrews and the fact he tasted promotion success during his time at Hull City crossed with the fact Big Eck travelled directly to Aston from Small Heath is open to debate.
In any event, Bruce has still had to go some way to winning over the fans and for the large part, I’d say he’s been successful in doing so. That doesn’t mean he won a clean sweep and nor does it mean even his supporters don’t carry concerns when it comes to team selections, tactics and so on.
He has a way to go before he gets into the realms of a ‘great Aston Villa manager’ but if he’s up for the challenge a large number of fans are more than willing to give him the shot.
They see the work that has gone into turning the club and the atmosphere in the camp around and how much tighter we’ve become in defence as a foundation to build from. The next part in the journey will hopefully not only involve a return to the top flight via Wembley and the Play-Offs this year but more of a front foot approach to games as we do undoubtedly turn defensive when we anticipate a wobbly moment when going ‘great guns’ usually brings us a better return.
But as things stand, fans are split given our failure on an automatic front and Deano had a thought that made him chuckle with all the talk of swapping managers once more.
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What were the two biggest criticisms of Doug?
1) He sacked managers willy nilly hence the nickname ‘Deadly’.
2) His penny-pinching ways. I could make a long list of players we missed out on because he wouldn’t pay the extra £100k. Robbie Keane and Juninho for starters.
We hated him for it!!!
Fast forward 12 years…
The majority of fans seem to want managers sacked every 6 months, and now I keep reading people saying they wouldn’t pay £12 million for Robert Snodgrass as its too expensive. Too expensive, in this market for a man who has 14 assists and 7 goals for us so far this season, a man who is proven and really wants to be at the club?
Would you really gamble on a cheaper alternative and end up with another Jordan Veretout? Penny pinching at its worst. Just pay up and get him in.
And to the fans…Please, please, un-Doug yourselves!!!
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As you can imagine it drew some interesting responses with varying degrees of addressing the point or just taking the mick – you can read the lot by – Clicking Here.
It’s an interesting point though, football is far more instant gratification based now than even early Premier League days. Arsenal are up in arms over Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho isn’t quite cutting the mustard at Manchester United and I’m not sure what the average length for a manager to keep a job is after this season, but it feels like somebody gets the boot each month now.
The endless cycle of appointing defensive managers to tighten you up at the back and they get sacked because they aren’t easy on the eye despite doing the job they were employed to do, matches with the cycle of appointing more attacking minded managers to be easy on the eye, yet when goals are conceded it starts all over again.
Every manager has faults – is it time football, and not just Villa, accept that nobody is perfect? Even if Pep Guardiola appears to be?
