MarkLillis

I think Hogan is a great striker.

His movement across the opposition back four is constant. This makes him a headache for opposing defenders who are never quite sure where he is.

What must be very frustrating for him is that his teammates cant seem to get him "in" on goal.......

We have not seen the best of this guy!

11 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Things like sloppy defending, unable to keep the ball and struggling to create chances

I cannot seehow we will possibly be  "sloppy" at the back this year as long as JT is fit.

However the other two things may well raise their ugly heads, so pre-season will be a good marker for whether Brucie has got to grips with it or not.

27 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I genuinely couldn't give a toss if we get promoted or not. I know that must look like it's easy to say but not really true, but it is. 

In fact, if anything, I enjoyed last season more than I had in years. 

Im not sure I don't give a toss........but last season was enjoyable yes. I guess it depends on how you see things but there are a lot of distinguished football clubs in the Championship and to be honest I don't look at Bournemouth or Watford in the same way that I look at Say Leeds or Sheffield Wednesday!

2 hours ago, DK82 said:

You are basing him up against Hendrie's complete career, remembering all his good, but forgetting a lot of bad.

I am not going to quote stats (basically because I don't really know them that well tbh),but the Hendrie I remember had a great work rate and stamina and used it to great effect in the 90's sides he was in.

in comparison to Jack who has tremendous talent, but appears to lack Lees will and desire.......

Both are Villa youth products and so have longer rope as far as I am concerned, so maybe I have looked back on Lees earlier Villa career with rose tinted glasses? Jack on the other hand could really be something at Villa and I hope he can be!

Fulham were very impressive during our defeat there last season.

Derby have been there or thereabouts for years no reason to think that wont continue.

Sheff Wed (see Derby)

Blues will no doubt be good under Candle wax face

Brentford I like but the may lose Jota, which would hurt them

Villa of course....Steve Bruce will have the failings that caused us to go on the two bad runs last year under control

Honourable mention to Sunderland Hull and Middlesboro who will all have good spells...it just depends how long they can keep it up after dropping out of the premier.

And finally Barnsley not sure how strong they will be after they have finished being raided during the transfer market, but I think they must have some pretty impressive scouting system up there........

I think Adama Traore takes some beating for me....

The fact that he was at Barcelona but still managed to have no idea what to do with the ball when he had it or where to stand on the pitch, shows a high level of ineptitude...

The man must have a good agent!

On ‎21‎/‎06‎/‎2017 at 17:27, One For The Road said:

He doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the u21 squad and im very surprised he is even on the bench. Very overrated player who will end up going the same way as Lee Hendrie if he doesn't sort himself out.

Tbf he does not look half the player Lee Hendrie was

On the transport bit...

Witton station is very near to the ground. Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow purchase enough land leading up from the station to the ground to create a concourse similar to Wembley.

On match day it could be filled with bars and fast food joints, leading up to a Fan zone type area that other clubs already have.

Our match day experience could be so much better!(both on the pitch and off it )

33 minutes ago, lexicon said:

Welcome to 2017. To be fair, if you want to see good players, investment in the squad etc. then you have to pony up the dough. That's just how the modern game works. 

Doctor Tony thinks that we will surpass 20000 season tickets - http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-season-ticket-sales-12868811

If so 20000 x £500 (approx.) = £10,000,000 in revenue. Its not to be sniffed at but if we dropped the prices to £250 each Villa Park would be full to the rafters every week. That would cost (approx.). £5,000,000

Lets "buy" some supporters!! The atmosphere would be fantastic!

All for the price of one Micah Richards

We are in a position to mount a challenge next year along with a few other sides....

The teams that come down from the PL will be dangerous of course, but last year it was reasonably easier to predict the top two.

Newcastle had Rafa who had already started the recovery before they went down. Brighton were ready to go up after a few near misses...

No sides like either of them in this division next year (assuming Reading go up that is...)

Well I would have given Garde more time (could he have coped in the Championship? we will never know).....or Sherwood even (with hindsight would also not have been pretty, again we wont know) and was always arguing for Lambert to get one more season too....but I think in the end he was given a fair crack at it although most fans would have had him out in season two.

The only one that didn't really have my support was RDM he just didn't feel right for us. What I AM searching for is a manager I can trust running a club with an identity, which we have definitely not been for almost ten years.

How can anyone create this in 9 months?

In my opinion we have to keep giving managers time until one of them creates the club we are looking for.

On ‎09‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 13:35, srsmithusa said:

We have not had a manager in my memory that has been handed constant excuses the way this guy has.  I don't get it.  

We have got to stop hiring and firing.....

We all know this that is why excuses/reason are made.

Villa need to play the long game (not long ball!!) what I mean by this is when a big ship is off course, changing direction is a slow and laborious process.

Can we please give at least ONE manager time to do it properly?

I liked the look of this lad...if we can keep him around getting gradual game time I think he could develop for us in the same way Delph did....

Old "Arry" has had a chat with Brucie and suggests that he knows he has a difficult job on his hands......

I could see during the derby game that Redknapp had a plan to score and it didn't take long to notice what it was, but he had obviously looked at what he had and said "right this is how we get a result today".as some have you have stated above Bruce doesn't seem to be trying to do that.

The question has to be why?

I mean Steve Bruce knows football and he knows players, he hasn't just forgotten this knowledge lifetime of being around football can give. He CAN see their strengths and weakness's so why has he decided to play this non progressive un attacking anti football when we have some (on paper anyway)good attacking players.

Please don't tell me this man who has been in and around football success all his life is just crap.....

RIP Ugo.

Bruce will get it right.

I agree with the comments about players taking responsibility. There is no way Bruce should be made accountable for a 20/30 grand a week player not being able to pass 5 yards to his team mate or in some cases not even notice that the pass is on.

Unless he keeps on picking the culprits.....and I like to think (personally) that he knows who they are and he won't once he can replace them.

Next year will be different!

1 hour ago, dn1982 said:

You're confusing stability with decline I think. We've been unstable since Lambert left if that's what you want to call it. Our 1st choice midfield is on paper one of the best in the league. Hourihane was smashing it at Barnsley. Lansbury consistently one of the best in this league and Jedinak well is Jedinak. Upfront we have 2 of the best strikers in the league. Out wide Adomah is up there as one of the best assists in the league. How is swapping from a back 4/5 stability? Or bringing players in and out at a whim? There are no signs we are improving as a team. Results improved after January basically because of Kodija. The football itself though isn't getting better and I'd say it's actually got worse. The best I've seen us play was against Preston at home for 60 odd minutes we played 442 that seems ages ago now. 

I do agree. None of it sounds good.

Recently, although performances were not pretty the team looked solid and like I said stable.Johnstone was showing good form..... Baker and Chester with Jedinak were looking strong, Taylor and Hutton were fine at full back.

Lansbury and Hourihane were starting to show flashes of previous form and Kodjia was knocking them in..

Now three games after the winning run has come to an end this improvement will go away never to return?

Virtually every team in this league goes through spells of good bad form the improvement cannot be linear. But rather it will be gradual and sporadic regardless of how much money we spend.

How many people tell us that money is no guarantee for success, then when success doesn't arrive say it should have done because such and such a club has spent X amount?

I have faith (I hope it is not in vain) UTV!

He is stabilising the club.....

After the last 7 years of instability, I imagine that is a difficult job.

The signs are there that we are getting better as a team. The goalkeeper has settled in,we generally have a settled back four/five (depending on what Bruce is trying out) and he obviously does not have the personal yet in midfield/upfront but I imagine he knows who and where to get them from in the summer.

It is going to be a good season next year.

Jackson Irvine looked a real player for Burton this year. Will go on from them....should be to us!

20 hours ago, blandy said:

And one intangible one - fans are starting to like the players again. There's a bit of the start of a reconnection between the supporters and the people who kind of represent us on the pitch. That was totally broken, and now it's looking to be starting to be mended. I don't mean support for the team, but respect for the efforts of individual players.

 

I see this and its massively important.....

We  are slowly staring to enjoy the efforts/performances of certain players,soon we will have cult hero's again! (The Scottish Cafu amongst others).Its a slow journey we are on but there are green shoots.... and fans clapping the team off because they played well at Huddersfield  but still lost shows that we are appreciating their efforts and not just blindly getting upset and stating "we should not be losing to Huddersfield"

This club was fcuked and for a long time I felt no connection with our players.

But watching their battle this year, and the improvement over the last couple of weeks is giving me hope.UTV

22 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Physically there isn't a huge difference, if any at all. The Championship is a professional league and at the top end, with the resources at a club like Newcastle or Aston Villa it is every bit as pro as the PL. The difference is in the decision making. It appears faster because even at a plum average mid table team like Southampton, they cycle through the phases quicker.

Our decision making has been poor all season. In fact its been dire......we hardly ever make the right decision with the ball and if our current batch of players are under the kind of pressure the top teams put on the ball I would fear for us.

Thankfully we are seeing signs of improvement recently.... maybe Bruce is working on it, and if he can coach Kodja (amongst others) to get his head up and make better decisions then he will be a great player for us!

Nice read!

I was also told that "you should be pissing this league with Newcastle the amount of money you've spent" on the train afterwards.

Its not the first time I've heard a similar thing either, teams in this league are not keen that we've tried to buy our way out.

When they beat us they take the piss when they lose they use it as an excuse........

Haven't seen it mentioned much here but Huddersfield's pressing play deserves a mention. At time our players were surrounded by blue and white shirts.

The effort and fitness levels were all important last night and i just think we ran out of gas in the second half where as Huddersfield players are clearly suited to the style of play and were able to keep it up for longer.

When they had the ball there was little in the way of creativity, Arron Mooy looked like he was very difficult to play against so credit to him.

The pressing game also gives there fans a sense that the players will give 100% in every challenge and whilst SOME of our our players can hold their heads up high,last night others were not at the races and were virtual passengers ....(Albert I'm looking at you!).

On the whole we lost to a club making 100% best out of its resources which results in a very proud set of fans who feel that the club is on the verge of something special.

We on the other hand have a very expensively assembled squad of players that on paper are under performing and most of us,(i think) wouldn't care if they left tomorrow.