dn1982

If Onomah has a mare again where does he go? 3 defenders on the bench surely only 1 FB and 1 CB is ever needed? Grealish or OHare should be on the bench. Throw Thor in the u23 and let him fight for a place with Grealish and OHare just leaving him on the bench is a joke especially when he's frightened to use him. Bruce will never rotate players and it'll always be the kids who lose out to his so called experienced ones. In Jan I think we will have a problem with players wanting out. 

1 minute ago, Eastie said:

Have backed him recently but his decicion to keep Hutton in ahead of Taylor and start onomah again is ridiculous - should it backfire he deserves the Pelters he will get 

6 subs yet only one is an attacking one. No idea what Thor is!  We've kids ripping up the U23 league yet none get a look in. Bruce is so defence minded its unreal. 

17 minutes ago, Czechlad said:

We aren't that good in the striker department. I think Kodjia will eventually find his form again, but just look at our strikers stats.

Top Goal scorers: Adomah (5), Hourihane (5), Onomah (2), Davis (2)

It's November and Davis is our highest scoring forward with 2 goals. 

We aren't that good in the attacking department but that's more to do with the coaching than the players. You don't commit men forward you don't score goals. Kodija not firing knackers Bruces tactics. 

5 hours ago, hippo said:

What % are putting down to coaching though ? Common consensus seems to be Davis offers more in terms of all round play. Adomah is our leading scorer - and Kjodia got 19 goals last season.

A significant portion of Hogans woes is his inability to control the ball when he receives it. It just seems to bounce off him. That has to improve if he is going to rack up any goals here. Sure the way we play may mean he doesn't score as many as he did at Brentford - but I can't believe it  justifies him not scoring any at all. Especially as he doesn't seem to contribute in other ways.

How many starts has he had? How many minutes this year? When he played early on we lumped the ball up to him and expected him to win battles that's why Davis has looked the better option. For some reason Bruce wouldn't go 2 up until Kodija come back when most would like to have seen a Hogan Davis partnership. Lately he gets on late on games where we are closing out the game. Sunday he played LM!! He needs a run of games hopefully alongside Davis because if not our direct approach won't suit him. We don't create many chances that's not down to Hogan and it's something we have to address. 

7 hours ago, Junxs said:

I hear you, but whilst WE ARE paying him £35k/week or whatever the actual figure is, it makes sense to use him. Rather than buying another player on similar wages as a back up to Taylor. 

Dont forget RdL can play there too.

Otherwise we would have yet another player on big wages not playing. Especially with how tight things are with FFP at the moment.

I'm actually happy with the squad, this is as good as it gets under Bruce, no matter if we had slightly better players - the style of play would remain the same. 

Our squad still has weak spots.. An injury to a centre back and we will struggle. Hutton has done ok covering but would you want him playing 15+!games there? We are unbalanced with him there so we could do with adding someone to be safe. I don't think we are strong in CM but your last sentence is the biggest issue there though. 

47 minutes ago, tomav84 said:

Well you never know what comes next...every managerial change is a roll of the dice. The fact is that numerous fans want Bruce out now (3 clear examples in page one of Sunday's ratings and reactions thread alone) and i would just be interested to see the stats to see if its the majority, or just a vocal minority on the basis that I've yet to meet a fan in person that wants him gone, yet there are plenty on here and social media. Christ there were plenty hoping we would lose the boro game if it meant him going...had we lost and we had sacked him would we have gone on the run of form that we did? Who knows...all i know is as long as promotion is a possibility, keep him in. It's not pretty, but he's getting the results to stay in the hunt

I understand what you mean it's he's just doing enough to not have a big Bruce out thing at the minute that's why I said it's pointless. Numerous fans will always want him out but there's no ground swell to do it really. That's why I said it'd take a 4/5 game run for it to take off. Most realise it's not going to be pretty football then if you can come to terms with that it's all about him getting us up somehow and at the minute he's just keeping us in there. You could do a poll tonight at 7 and one at 10 and it'll be different.  

Asking a simple do you want Bruce sacked is pointless without knowing what comes next. Bruce is underacheiving for me. The football isn't good but I've never expected it to be under him. We are still in the hunt for promotion and unless we have a 4/5 game run of not winning he isn't going anywhere. The bad start has left us not being able to have another bad run and because of that Bruce will be close to having the fans turn all season. We lose tonight we will be 9th! Win we go 5th and we can look at going on a good run for November. Thats how close it is. 2 points a game was Bruces target. We need to hit that till Xmas then there might be a break away group. 

On 30/10/2017 at 22:27, briny_ear said:

Two possibilities in my view:

1. He scored lots of goals for Brentford so he must be able to score lots for us and if he isn't it must be someone else's fault (most likely Steve Bruce since he gets the blame for everything on Villatalk)

2. His goals at Brentford came from a system that also conceded lots of goals which ultimately got them to mid-table and no better. He has to learn to score in a team based on tight defence or he is useless to us.

I'm on 2. And have been for some time. I have no idea why we bought him really.

We finished mid table last year! Surely Bruce knew what he was buying last January and if he didn't fit his style why do so? So I think you can blame Bruce simply because he's bought a player then doesn't pay to his strengths. He's never even gave him a run alongside Davis to see if they fit. Bruce likes Kodija because he can leave him up in his own and wait for some magic now we will have to be a better team to win games hopefully Hogan gets his chance and takes it 

We are weak in CB and LB. I think we need more energy in CM. Bruce will probably sign another RB though. 

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

He attempted 29 passes against Blues - 7 of them went backwards.

For the avoidance of doubt, that's just under 25% of passes going backwards.  "Stock ball" indeed.

 

 29 passes? How many in final third? How many shots? You're so keen on stats I tend to just watch the game and it's infuriating the amount of times he pops it off instead of using the space he has. For the Jota one there wasn't anyone within 10 yards hence the stock ball he does it without thinking. In some games he ends up deeper than a Whelan!  

3 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

 Hardly positive? We were being overrun and looked extremely likely to concede as they piled on their attacks. Jedinak came on and that turned around instantly. Within 5 minutes of him coming on we had 4 decent shots and in that last half hour we had 8 and nearly scored a couple of times.

If that’s not seen as positive, I wonder if expectations are unrealistically high?

Maybe switching to 442 with Davis and Kodg up front would have succeeded despite having failed so woefully against Wolves. I don’t know. I can sort of sympathise with Bruce for maybe being a bit wary about trying it given the pressure of the derby situation.

But ignore me. I am a bit out of step these days with the general view tha Bruce is a coward, fool and dinosaur, so I may tend to give him more credit than he is due.

 

Jedinak came on and nullified their aerial threat in the big lump who was bullying Whelan. Bringing Jedinak on was the right thing to do but it's who he takes off that shows it wasn't that positive. It was to stop them more than to get us on the front foot. Is it unrealistic to think we can try to give teams something to think about rather than nullifying their threat all the time. Bruce has a history of not backing his team and changing to counteract lesser ones. Bristol away being a classic example of going 3 at the back which doesn't suit us after a good win with a buoyant side. We've enough good players players to let the majority of teams this league worry about us rather than the other way around. 

Hourihane's back pass for the Jota chance has become his stock ball. He was in acres yet his first thought was to pop it off to the defence instead of turning and trying to go forwards. That's got to be from coaching as he's shown in home games he can attack and create. In away games he hardly shoots or gets into the box. If we are to have any chance we need to improve our away form and that means showing more attacking intent. I'm not sure if Bruce is that way inclined though. 

8 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

That sounds like hoofball with a purpose, something we may succeed  with with Davis up front. The problem is against Cardiff, Reading, Bristol and Wolves we played completely aimless hoofball. Literally just sat back all game and cleared the ball. Even with Davis' positive influence that's likely to get us trounced once again.

We haven't got any tempo in us and that's the biggest issue. Against Fulham if we put a bit more into the fans we'd have been out of sight and the same against Blues we started well then lost all urgency. I can see us going 442 with Hogan and Davis then Whelan and Jedi sitting protecting. The stuff dreams are made of that is. 

16 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

That's the thing though, we won't go there and play positively. If I were a betting man I'd bet good money on us playing ultra defensive hoofball and ultimately getting battered. 

I've just read what Dean Smith said about beating them and their high press. Going long then winning 2nd ball so hoofball may work!! 

Preston is our toughest game out of the next 5 by a long way but they've hit a bad run so we should go there and be confident. It's these games that'll shape our season. After the awful start we need to win the next 5 really. That should see a gap emerge going into a tough December. 

1 hour ago, sne said:

Will be interesting to see how we set up once our players are starting to come back from injuries.

Can't see Snodgrass being benched and Adomah is possibly our most threatening player (albeit a bit on and off)

Grealish was supposed to be THE focal point for our attack before he got injured and Green is really promising and looked dangerous before his injury.

Kodija has been a disappointment  so far but he'll continue to start surely.

I imagine it will be a 4-5-1/4-2-3-1 thing for us to have as many of our best players on the pitch at the same time without having to play the out of position and by this be able to play a more creative football and not having to resort to hoofing.

Snodgrass and Grealish competing for a central spot while Green is on the left and Adomah on the right should work? Hourihane/Jedi/Whelan/Lansbury/O'Hare competing for the 2 (or 3 depending on opposition) CM spots.

Don't really see the need to retain Onomah after new year. He's a talent but not quite ready yet as a DCM  and not skilled enough for a ACM. Of course we are always going to have injuries...

Competition for places is good if handled correctly, but we are going to have quite a few very expensive players on the bench and in the stands any given week.

Spoiled for choice and we might have to loan out or get rid of a few if possible.

 

 

Bruce will not have a clue who to pick. Thor takes a spot on the bench and is hopeless. Yesterday we ended up with Hogan LM surely if you put someone on the bench you have to have confidence in using them. Jedinak and Whelan will probably be our midfield now which isn't ideal as neither can create. I just hope he gives Davis and Hogan a run together as a partnership. 

1 hour ago, Dave J said:

Does this make up for everything then - 15 mins against the noses and all is forgiven - not for me tbh with you. The fact that we actually talk about this topic as though it’s something to be applauded - tells me everything I need to know.

was it Blackburn away after the noses last year?- normal service resumed !!

Fair play in allowing hatred to trump wanting to beat Blues. I hope it was easy not celebrating his winning goal last year. For me the most important thing at the minute is beating Blues and having him around makes that more likely IMO. 

We'll be kept in for ages but the coaches won't be leaving until we've been escorted away anyway so they'll be in even longer. Don't use the coaches make it as difficult for the police to treat us like 2nd class citizens. We've been to Blues liars if times. Trouble free and been allowed out at the same time. Why can't they close the road off at the away end  and just march us to Aston straight away? 

29 minutes ago, Dave J said:

He ran around abit at theirs not really doing much with the ball imo - couldn’t miss at ours - and pretty much non - existent since. No thanks - i’ll Stick with the current mob 

Who would you rather be on the bench Thor or Gabby? You seemto have completely over looked what he does to them mentally. Away last year he came on and they dropped off scared of his pace even though it's gone. At home he ran around and got the crowd and the rest of the team at it and then scored the winner. You can hate him but he does have a big effect on them. 

34 minutes ago, Dave J said:

No thanks - it seems our current incumbents in the striking department - can do just that!!

Last season him coming on at their place got us the draw. He's mere presence terrified them. Then he gets the winner at home. If he can manage 10/15 min he's worth having on the bench for the mind games alone. I'd let him play the next 2 derbies before his contract expires then send him on his way. He could always have a testimonial against them in the summer just to finish his career off! 

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Why does everything have to revert to having a dig at Bruce.

 

Let's say Grealish does come into the side and we do start performing really well, where does that leave you lot?!

 

Cynicism for the sake of being cynical.

I'd say everybody would be extremely happy if Grealish came in and did well. I have my doubts he can as a 10 and that's nothing to do with the strange Bruce comments about building the team around a player he had last year yet never played him that often in the position. 

1 minute ago, TrentVilla said:

Bruce so should have said Gabby was for and starting just to mess with them.

If he can run fir 10 min and put himself out for 3 minted that'll do. Just his presence affects the crowd and players but we need a new talisman. Jack or OHare off the bench to seal it. 

46 minutes ago, KHV said:

None of those players fit in with the way we line up now anyway so it's not really an issue

Grealish can cover LW and 10 I just hope he drops Thor and not OHare 

On 22/10/2017 at 14:46, wedge said:

Aston Social opening at 8am, I'd imagine most usual haunts will be.

 

Then the fun march to the ground.

 

 

Any news on if we are being lock in again after? Last year took the piss