flashingqwerty

Abdolute shambles tonight and i see a big defeat coming if we dont change. The players seemingly arent working hard enough when sent out against a team that has less talent but bags of desire. Is this because the players are overconfident or because the manager is failing to motivate them? A number of you have posted about players failing to do the basics - and this is a recurring theme and usually aimed at the same group of players. The same can be said of a number of poor performers. So either the players are better in training and so get picked, play bad, but continue to get picked because they did it in training, or this is how they look in training but the alternatives are worse. There doesnt seem to be a cost to playing poorly or a reward for playing well on a consistant basis. In the few games we saw bree he looked every bit as good as elmo or hutton at rb but has been left out in the cold. O'Hare looked good in the few cameos hes had. Why when hourihane and whelan have been in poor form has he not been involved more? The lack of rotation, i believe, has had a big effect (cause) of our injury problems, coupled with playing people when they arent fit (snod, samba, kodjia) and rushing players back to soon from injury (kodjia, maybe grealish). So many of the decisions being made are nonsensical and i fear in the long run this will come back to bit us. I remain firmly sceptical of our chances of promotion as i dont believe the people in charge (let alone the players) have what it takes to get us there. I give you a vote of no confidence in the current regime and i fear for the long term future of the club.

And who was responsible for ensuring we had sufficient resources for the season ahead again?

There is no contradiction. He has only used senior players out of position for short periods not for entire games. Davies got a chance because we had no senior striker fit to start. Two bery different things starting a youngster when you have no senior option than having a youngster on the bench to blood them so that the next time he is forced to use a youngster it wont be their first appearance. I also never said our young strikers were ready for the first team, but if they never get to appear on the bench then they never will be. Even Chelsea with their multi million pound squad rotate youth into the side to give them experience. Its something all clubs should be doing to encourage youth development. Bruce however is reluctant to do this and the only reason that is logical over such a long period is fear.

So you dont think Davies looked shattered from the start against leeds? You dont think having someone how perhaps wasnt tired start who can play as a striker would have been a better option? Bruce has used players who are not strikers as strikers only for short periods in games when he has had to withdraw our recognised striker and we didnt have a recognised striker on the bench. Using Davies was forced upon Bruce because he had literally no senior strikers available and wouldnt risk playing someone out of position up front for a whole game. Not having a youth striker on the bench considering our lack of options up front to give them a few minutes experience here and there wreaks of cowardice for me. Whats the point in having a squad if you dont try and use them? When the inevitable happens and Davies, or any number of other players who look tired, breaks down because of injury from being overplayed, would it not make more sense to turn to a youth team player who has had a few appearances here and there off the bench to bed them in rather than having to throw someone into a starting spot with the weight of responsibilty of being in the first team having never played at this level before???? We have injury problems and the guys playing weekin weekout look exhausted. This will lead to more injuries if he doesnt start rotating. Pretty basic management this, and he isnt a fool, so he is clearly aftaid to do it.

Im also baffled as to where the Whelan love has come from. Every media outlet ive looked at rated him as equal worst or near worst player on the pitch. His retention tackle and passing percentages for that match versus his season average( and for me he has been having a poor season) were way down. Objective and subjectively he had a poor game and look very off the pace.

So you admit we were awful but refuse to place ANY of the blame at the feet of the manager? Sorry but it seems more like you who has been at the smethwicks as opposed to me. Half the players that started the last match were clearly either carrying an injury or exhausted. Last time i checked the manaher picks the team so in picking players that wetent fit to play he put us on the back foot from the start. But then i suspect you already knew this and you are arguing for the sake of it. I cant believe a guy who talks so much sense about many things truely believes those 11 players should have started.

TRO noone has ever said he hasnt achieved things in the past. But you'd be crazy to think that what he has done so far at villa is even remotely good enough to achieve automatic promotion. I seriously doubt that you actually believe we were set up correctly for this match. If you do you clearly didnt watch the game as we were awful. Cawardice is the only logic reason i can think of for why he continually plays senior players who clearly are not fot ahead of adequate junior squad members. Kodjia was clearly not ready to return, snodgrass played with damaged ribs and samba played with a groin problem. All unnecessary risks with ample alternatives available. He is afraid to blood young players and he is afraid to rotate. Whelan and hourihane looked like they had already played 90 minutes when the match started. Its not as though he couldnt have rotated them out when it was clear they werent up to it. Its all pretty simple stuff and cowardice (because he isnt stupid or inexprienced) is the only logic i can apply. Many of his comments on the media, particularly those aimed at the fans, also support the idea that he is scared of whats happening. The alternative as i say is incompetence, and i dont think that can be the case.

Thought Bruce picked the wrong starting 11 and could/should have totated more. Dont think he sent them out with the correct mentality or set up in the right way to handle leeds. Samba was clearly injured and should not have played. I wonder had he not started would leeds have scored as their goal was all about sambas poor fitness. Based on the short coming of the 1st half od have rated Bruce very poor. Second half he sent them out slightly more aggressive and tweaked a few things. I believe he should have brought on kack and henri at half time but he chose to waot. The positive and negative here balance to zero for me. When he eventually dod make changes we were much better. Had we started this way and without Samba it could have been a very different game. I will lift him up to poor for making the subs as it should have been done sooner. Davis isnt ready to play all the time. He could utilise a number of our first team as makeshift strikers or throw in a youngster for the last 20 minutes to see what might happen - but hes too much of a coward for this. Overall im satisfied with a point. I dont think leeds were particularly good and had Bruce been braver/smarter with team selection and rotation i think we could quite easily have won. The sort of game you have to win to get automatic promotion. We have developed a resilience but we lack cohesion fluidity and creativity. I maintain that without this we will finish 7th at best. I still dont think Bruce has it in him to get is promoted. I still hope im wrong.

And he isnt winning the foot races all that convincingly either. He is no tony daly

To be honest sidcow, they say that about you all the time

Thats a little unfair. Before his injuries he looked decent. That he had 2 bad injuries while at villa was unfortunate. Doesnt mean he couldnt have made it without them.

Im not 100% on the deflected shot. As it stands id agree there is luck involved. However id Onomah scores another i may have to reconsider I remember Dean Saunders hitting the woodwork something like 20 times in a season and he was asked about it and said something along the line of "if i aim for the post or bar, i can nearly be sure the keeper wont save it, and if im a little off its a goal or wide. Lately my shooting has been really accurate so maybe i need to practice less"

"You have to buy a ticket to win a raffle" Pauraic Harrington i think recently said "i find the more i practice the luckier i get", clearly implying that as he practices more the likelihood of him hitting better/harder shots (worldies if you will) increases. Some call it luck, personally i dont. A ref missing a decision because he didnt see it is luck, something that can be practiced - im not convinced...

We had 2 strikers?

Wrong decision to start unchaneged in 2 games only 72 hours apart. We are setup to counter against a team setup to sit deep. Pure cluelessness again from villa. I dont think we deserve to be ahead. We look nearly as bad as them!

I think you completely missed my point. Whilst i agree that what you describe is what a good team should aspire to do, i dont believe that we have any players that are good enough to play in that way. At the risk of repeating myself, we have a squad of players that have played for the most part only at championship level or below. Theres a good reason they havent appeared at higher levels - they arent good enough to do so. This means we need to adopt a way of playing that suits the team we have as i cant see is signing many next window.

Well thats just silly. As manager appointing coaches and telling how and what to train the players to do is entirely within his remit. If we are making the argument that SB wants the team to play attacking football but the coaching is letting him down then he needs to hire new coaching staff. If its that the coaches are doing what they can but the players arent responding, either he needs to try different coacjes or he has picked players poorly ( this seems unlikely as the majority of these players were very good attackers before coming here). My opinion would be that the players are being coached or instructed to play in very rigid roles preventing them from performing well in a fluid and creative manner. This would suggest why defensively we have improved as we are working well as a unit and everyone is where they should be. However, when you set up a team that way you lose the freedom and cutting edge a more liberal approach brings. We also have to acknowledge that we are working with championship not prem quality players. These players remain in the championship because they are more limited. I believe they are effective when asked to play a single role in a team but when asked to play multiple end up either getting all wrong or only doing one well. For example in a 3 man midfield we should identify who is the best defensively and have them only do that role, identify who is the best ofensively and have him only do that, and then you need to identify a midfielder with that bit of extra quality that is able to play and be effective in both - i dont believe we currently have on of those. Imo currently i think all 3 cms play quite defensively meaning we suffer in attack and forces us to play long ball

From what ive seen of him i dont think he is any worse than any of our right backs. The difference being he still has time to improve. On that basis alone id be starting him as first choice as he isnt going to progress without game time.

Source - yeah i know its the sun but i didnt look very hard

I think we might see a 3-6-1 Cb cb cb Dm dm Wb cm cm wb St

How many loans can we have? Something tells me its 4, and we have 3 already...

Yesterdays result has to rest on SB. Quite a few of the players picked were playing their 3rd game in 7 days and it was evident they were not fit enough to play. It was also evident that snodgrass should not have been in the squad. He was huffing badly after about 5 minutes. Add to that that Weds are a good side and we struggle with 4 in midfield against good sides (a point sb has also mentioned himself a number of times) tells me the setup from the start was poor. Obviously no accounting for the 1st goal or JTs injury, but i think we all knew having samba as our only backup cb was a bad idea and so it proved today. This one also rests on sb for me. Should have kept baker. Another area that needed attention in the closed season was in attack. I think we all knew it wasnt going to happen for mccormack and with kodjia injured it was uncertain whether he would be the same player when he came back leaving only hogan as our senior recognised striker (think we can all agree gabby is done). Not adding depth given the circumstances was another error in judgement from sb for me. When we could have rotated elmo for de laet or bree, whelan for jedi, snodgrass for grealish, hourihane for ohare, and any number of other permutations i find it odd that either he couldnt tell players were tired or chose to ignore it and risk a poor display and injury. All down to sb for me. Hopefully we can start winning again after the break

Formation, tactics and team selection was all wrong from sb for this one imo. Weds are a good side and we struggle in midfield against better sides. No accounting for the 1st goal but having samba as our 3rd choice cb cost us - he really isnt up to it and we need a better option. Snodgrass clearly wasnt fit and should not have played. A few others on the pitch were also clearly tired after the 2 games earlier this week. Its not as though we dont have some option particularly at fullback and in midfield to rotate and not doing so cost us today. Not having a plan b also cost us. Hogan clearly isnt happy or settled here and i cant blame him with the way sb has treated him. But i said at the start of the season we needed another striker and it was evident today that is still the case. Sb took some silly risks with this one which i dont believe he needed to and as a result we lost. I think today is mostly on him as the majority of the players who had bad games looked exhausted and that would have been apparent in training but he played them anyway. Whats the point of a squad if you are not going to use it when playing 3 in 7 days?

If only we knew at the start of the season that we would often play 3 games in 7 days. Having only 1 fit first team striker maybe we should/could have tried harder to get in cover?

Great to win and keep a clean sheet Props to sb for second half subs Still think we play dire football and still think we are too megative. Think we really took our foot off in 2nd half when preston were there for the taking. I'll give sb a C today. He did gook but there is LOTS of room for improvement