romavillan

Gana woudl kill it, Veretout woudl be great too. Albrighton would be amazing as well...

3-4-3 aint that novel though surely?! plenty played it well back end of the 80s and early 90s. How Barca played in that crazy comeback against PSG was nice, 3-3-3 with the extra one (handily Messi) going where he wanted. Argentina did it with Veron ages ago too I think. Woudl love to have the players to do that sort of stuff.... On Hogan his movement has looked great with respect to what we've been watching the last few years, just his touch and finishing have looked a bit off. Could just need some time to settle in and calm down a bit. Certainly showed signs of being decent so far, a goal will do him the power of good I'm sure.

If we manage to get 21 points from 9 games then Bruce will have more than earned a crack at next season, I'd be delighted with 18 from the last 9 to be honest. That's title winning form.

...is about the best summing up of what it is to be a villa fan I think I have ever read.

Fergie didn't build a foundation? So the 3/4 years where he won **** all at the start he was just dicking about and not building the first of his series of incredibly successful teams? incredible. I am not Bruce's number 1 fan but you can't just say we are where we are because of him, like the first 11 games didn't happen or something. He has had 1 window and no pre-season. I wanted him gone around the time we played Newcastle, and was pretty pissed off after that game but it's not like the totally unbalanced mess he inherited that had only managed one win in 11 was his fault is it? As has been said by others, there are 10 games left now, DCJonah said 17 points, I'd prefer to make that 17+ but still, averaging 1.7 a game next season the whole season should be enough. He has to do enough in these 10 games though, he has to show that we won't be bottom half material at any point next season.

Next season we had better be challenging for promotion or we're in deep shit.

depends what you mean, played well in a brazil 70 kind of way? no. play well in completely killing their game and not letting them play, yep, from what I heard on the radio we completely smothered them and made the best chances. the game can be dull and still be good football in a certain catenaccio sense. I think it's going to be Bruce's best style and it seems in character with a center half who played in a winning side, his strengths are naturally on that side of the game. Like I've just said in the match thread, if he gets us doing it well and we win a shit-ton of games 1-0 with suffocating anti-football that's hard to watch, then **** it, I'll take that if we get promoted doing it. Against my footballing principles but needs must at the moment and I can't see Bruce turning us into a 70% possession passing and movement between the lines type team. He needs to prove between now and the end of may that that's a real possibility though, that we can do it effectively and average 2 points a game doing it.

yet another game where we perform worse after the break, it's a bit worrying as a trend really. it's happened a lot, the chances we made in the first half dried up almost completely second half. instead of building on the confidence of the chances made and missed first half we disappeared second half and we haven't shown we can defend 0-0 with confidence this season. especially away. I'm not completely against the tactics of thinking about shutting down the opposition over and above playing free flowing football, if that measn we will be promoted doing it. If we're going to do it though the minimum should be being able to close out a game and concentrate for 90 mins. we've committed suicide a lot this season. not sayign that was particularly the case last night but still, the pattern was there, miss chances, disappear second half, concede, lose. Bruce has to show that if we're going down the catenaccio route, that we can win consistently doing it before the end of the season. If that's a series of horrible 1-0s in our favour I really don't care. I would take being hated for anti-football boring 1-0s next season if we're 6 points clear at the top this time next year with single figures in the goals against column!

Interesting that it seems some people think we have a divine right to win. We've done nothing consistently this season to suggest we can just turn up at Huddersfield and expect to win. They on the other hand have been consistently good at this level all season. Not getting beat will be a good result.

I saw that interview too, he qualified it in the interests of stability, I don't think Wyness is an idiot though and if it was obvious we were still rubbish come the summer they might like to give someone else a full preseason and window to sort things out.

If the team stil looks like a bunch of talented strangers who occasionally manage to win with some individual skill then at the end of May Bruce will be given his marching orders.

3 wins in a row and we've played well for 60 mins out of 270 maybe? we really should be doing better in this league ay.

ahaha "the scottish cafu" getting sung

sounds like we've woken up a bit

good away point here and we're still within 20 points of the play offs o.O

I officially shat the bed

Poor Jack, I think Amavi and Taylor should be ok down the left. if the idea is to get in behind and cross they both should be alright at that.

I care! So want more of our first team to come from the Academy, it's the soul of the club in many ways.

Bruce may be tempted to play 4 in goal, 4 in defence and 3 in midfield

I'm with you if he meant a flat 4-4-2, that will get beaten by any decent passing side playing any formation that puts 3 central midfielders in the middle. There's a lot of variations to it, I think we'd have a good 4-1-3-2 with everyone fit. Who knows though? I'm not too fussed as to what the shape is if he can get us not looking like a group of randoms rounded up out the car park 30 mins before kick off. Which is the current style.

Brighton away was a good (excellent actually) second half. We didn't play well first half.

There it is!!! The SGC kiss of death

Yeah in terms of results that's all he can do, 3 more points and another clean sheet and we only need another couple of wins to be safe. In terms of playing football there's plenty of room for him to improve the performance.

No. We looked fragile, invited them on, loads of mistakes we were lucky to get away with and had the ref on our side. A draw at the very least was what Derby should have got out of the game. At no point did we look solid despite being compact and having lots of players back.

Totally, the question now though is whether Bruce is the manager to make a team from all the seemingly good players we've bought since the summer.