Skills

10 hours ago, hippo said:

Where does this Lampard is doing well come from ? - We are 10 games and Derby have 2 more points than us - thats whelans penalty kick and we are level pegging. 

how many points in front do you think we'd be if they had Bruce and we had Lampard?

Is Biesla doing ok at Leeds?  they're only 7 points ahead of us, add the 2 points from Whelan so less than 2 games away...   Why the hell did we get rid of Bruce again???

6 hours ago, danceoftheshamen said:

I've gone Thierry Henry,

A punt of course as he's not managed before and i voted for him only if he was supported (Which surely he would be even if it was "behind the scenes") by Wenger. Tactically he sees things many miss as i would expect from being in the "World superstar" bracket. The top people in any walk of life tend to get to the top because they have that extra effort and attention to details which others often don't even know exist. If he could come in and transmit that to the players then it could work.

With our squad it's clear that we need someone with a crystal clear game plan and a great tactical knowledge. If we can add that to the undoubted quality players we have things will surely improve. We are not that badly placed despite the dire results being only 2 points adrfit of playoffs and with all the big boys still to play that means we have a good chance of catching them if we can sort things out quickly.

My only concern is as he would likely see us as a mere stepping stone however but then isn't everything in life temporary?!

Not sure about Dean Smith although i like he's a Villa man.

As for the others, Terry would be interesting and may just be the man to pull us together....Player manager anyone? Only trouble is he is just way too Chelsea orientated and would be off as soon as they came calling.. but i guess that means he would have done well here so...

As for the others?

Allardyce? No

Flores? Unsure

Rodgers? Too arrogant

McCarthy? Please no.. Bruce mk11

Billic? Too West Ham and simply no connection here

Other than that it'd be Interesting to see who Mendes would come up with of course

 

 

 

 

why not go straight to the source in Wenger?  with Henry as his assistant / successor in a couple years

I know it might sound unrealistic, but the challenge might be what Wenger is looking for at this stage of his career...  worth the conversation imo

5 hours ago, Villaphan04 said:

Wonder if he has a recall option? I'd have to imagine that the new manager when hired would have to look and see if we could bring him back 

was thinking the same thing

is Moreira injured?  why did Bunn get the nod ahead of him?   again a wasted loan space for someone who's not even back up keeper!

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I simply do not know.

I thought we got the selection right, then played it slightly wrongly with Kodjia and Grealish wide, but it was fluid enough (or Preston were bad enough) that we made it work with both drifting into a more natural 4-1-3-2 for our better moments. We scored a couple of reasonable goals and went in at half time looking comfortably the better team.

At half time, the players ate a large Sunday roast with plenty of mash and lashings of parsnips. Or something.

We came out for the second half as flat as the women's 1500 meters. I'm sure Preston had had a rocket, but for the eight minutes between the start of the half and the sending off, I don't think we made a pass. Preston looked lively and dangerous and threatened a bit and we were waiting for a reaction from Villa when Chester challenged a little clumsily and the whole world went batsh*t crazy.

I was too far away to see if it was a penalty or a sending off so I can't comment - however, what I will say is that there was a rule brought in last season that said if there was a foul in the box and a penalty was given, then even if the defender was last man it wouldn't be a sending off. Double Jeopardy they called it. The ref didn't remember it as well as I did, but I really hope it exists, because if Chester is suspended for three games, we're in the toilet.

Bruce made his biggest mistake on the night at that point and took off a tall, quick striker who could hold the ball up and bring people into the game - a player ideally suited to a lone role in a ten man team and left on Kodjia - who spent the whole of the second half looking like he was waiting for a conductor to check his ticket.

On came James Bree and we achieved Neville Nirvana - a whole back four of players who have played most of their games at right back. All the right backs made exactly the kind of back four you'd expect them to make and we proceeded to defend our goal like a nine year old girl with a feather duster. I got a great view of the incident that lead to their second and it was never a free kick in my opinion. They then looked like they'd score every time they put a cross in and all the unpleasantness started.

At 90 minutes, Preston started daydreaming about unicorns and tomorrow's tea and we magicked our way back into things before earning a penalty and missing it like knobs. 

A couple of individuals to say stuff about before the meat of it - I don't like Elmohamady but I thought he had a good game, Tuanzebe looked promising at times, Hourihane had a good first half, Jack was lucky not to get sent off for having a go at the ref, Abraham is a proper player. 

I have nothing against Glenn Whelan stepping up to take the penalty, he's a senior professional, he knows what he's about and he had the balls to say "I got this". If he does it again, someone should hit him, but I've got no problem with him stepping up tonight. Even if the effort was insipid.

But this Tuesday night is not football night, this Tuesday night is the Steve Bruce show, featuring Steve Bruce.

On the night, I didn't think he got all that much wrong - I didn't give him too much credit last week when we started the second half fired up against Bristol and I won't knock him too much for the way we limped out for the second half of this one - players should take some responsibility for that. Formation's were odd, and everyone was out of position, but that's sort of standard and not about tonight. In fact, the biggest thing he got wrong tonight was leaving Kodjia on over Abraham.

It's not a one night job though and tonight's game was entirely and absolutely the result of our manager. We have one central defender. One. Not four like everyone else, one. When he's sent off, we fart about putting people into places they've never been. I've met James Bree, he's about five foot nine and he's got a kind face. He's not a centre back. When you've got four right backs at the back, you're going to struggle - we have a midfield that can all pass the ball, but a system that says get it forward and get it wide quickly - when you do that, you don't control the ball - when you don't control the ball and you've got ten men and no centrebacks, you're in trouble. It doesn't look like we practise plan B so we carried on trying to get it forward and wide - it kept coming back and they kept scoring. A really good manager changes that. One that's not entirely negligent in building a squad over two and a half years never lets it happen in the first place.

When you've spent two and a half years building a shambles of a squad, with exciting, talented goalscoring players in parts and huge great gaping massive defender shaped holes in others, what you get is games that are shambolic, with exciting goalscoring but also with huge great gaping gaps at the back which mean you can't defend. We have built a squad to have games like tonight, seven goal nonsenses (and they say he's boring). You could make the claim that Steve Bruce did a reasonable job in parts tonight, but that he's trying to manage an unbalanced squad put together by a really bad manager in the summer. Him. I was disappointed Whelan missed the penalty at the end. I wasn't surprised that we'd need to score four to win a game. 

We don't have a full squad, we don't have a plan, we don't have a method and the manager has fallen out with the support. It looks like he may have lost some of the players too. There is no coming back from this, we are counting the days, in truth we have been since the summer when we failed to get a defence. 

Thank you for stopping the slide, thank you for Wembley - but it's got away from you Steve; take a break, have a cup of tea, put your feet up, grab some sun. You're done here.

Also, have I missed some sort of cabbage based incident?

 

 

 

perfectly said, i usually find a statement or phrase that i dont agree with in your game analysis, but this was spot on! 

cant blame Whelan for stepping up, we have a lack of leaders in the squad and that was a pinch of it, too bad about the outcome.

this result along with others comes purely down Bruce's poor planning over the summer and the fact we have an unbalanced squad

only watched a bit of the second half but thought this thread would be slamming Nyland once again...   watched a few replays but couldnt really see a deflection for the goal, i am definitely not giving him the benefit of the doubt given his poor performance.  I think its time we start with Moreira 

oh and everything else that people are saying, Bruce out, players in positions, boring, abysmal etc etc

when's the latest we could sell a player that would hit this years books?  is it Jan window or is it in June sometime?

cant see any renewals for Jedi, Micah, Whelan, De laet, Elphick and Lyden.  Could also add Hutton as well

On 23/09/2018 at 02:50, S-Platt said:

Chester gave the ball away for both goals from my view in The North Stand.  The whole defence gave the ball away countless times.  The one tactic to get it wide and cross is so easy to defend. McGinn aside that was pisspoor. Could have been 5 easily.  It’s Groundhog Day though we all see it but we just do the same thing all the time.  Decent teams expose us. Weaker teams trouble us. I cannot believe we are not better after 2 years and 4 transfer windows.  I am convinced we have good players being made to look shite by bad management and coaching.  Change that and see the difference.  

up there with Chester's worst game for us.  The partnership between him and Jedi is awful and will cost Bruce his job if he doesnt change it soon

warm up dem boooos

everyone blaming Jedi but Chester is having a **** mare

jack needs to put them shots on target at least.. getting tired of the curling attempts at the far post

**** me the best goal ive seen ever

wtf was that pass chester

don't know if the other aussies can hear it, but our broadcast has a mic too close to Bruce and the commentator has had to apologise for the language a number of times lol

leeds 2 down now

I don't think I have ever seen our wingers swap sides!

think we have settled finally

28 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Not convinced that playing Jack on the left is a permanent solution. El Ghazi, while he didn’t have a great game on Tuesday playing on the right, looked more comfortable on the left in his opening couple of games. 

Otherwise, yeah ok with the team. I think.

not going to be a popular post but Jack doesn't suit our method of play (enter the 'we have a stlye' jibes).   Often slows the play down and lets the opposition get men behind the ball, particularly how often he gets fouled. He'd suit a team like Arsenal where they break teams down with their short passing and movement off the ball

On ‎20‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 16:08, John said:

This will be the 133rd league meeting between the two clubs. We have won 65 and drawn 17 of these games. The Owls have won the FA Cup 3 times, have been League champions 4 times and have won the League Cup once. 

This game will see us welcoming Barry Bannan and Josh Onomah back to Villa Park. Like Tuesday's visitors we also had the same manager in the same calendar year as Sheffield Wednesday with Big Ron moving from Hillsborough to Villa Park in 1991.

We need a win to build up some momentum and confidence. A second home win and clean sheet within a week would be very welcome. It won't be easy with Wednesday sitting just 2 points behind us. We need to make amends for our home defeat against them 11 months ago. Their heaviest ever defeat was 10-0 at Villa Park in October 1912. A repeat of that win would do nicely! 

didn't realise Onomah is at Wednesday. Any idea how he has been going??

On 20/09/2018 at 09:13, Villan4Life said:

I'm thinking he might have been involved with Bjarnason, Gollini signings (as he was here before Bruce) and maybe watched Nyland for Bruce in Germany unless Tony Coton did when he was here.

pretty much part of the reason hes gone id say

10 hours ago, romavillan said:

For how poor they were, they shoudl have been level when they hit the side netting, should have been 1-1. They made quite a few chances and seemed to be able to ge tthe ball back pretty easily. 

We had a squad worth god knows how much more than theirs and in the end it showed, but I wouldn't call them poor really. They don't have our resources but they as a collective are more than the sum of their parts, we're not, not by miles.

if we're playing hypotheticals, by that point we should have been up 3 - 0 

7 hours ago, JB said:

Mystified? Come on. Really? I think you’re being slightly disingenuous or at least exaggerating.

To clarify just in case - I think that another draw or, dare I say it, a loss tonight would’ve seen Bruce on his way. I think that with a better manager, we would pick up significantly more points over the course of the rest of the season and the 2/3 dropped tonight would be insignificant in the long run. Perhaps even cancelled out in the next 4/5 (or fewer) games. Yes, it’s hypothetical but based on performances/results this season, and the players at our disposal, I think there’s a fairly strong case for it.

I would never, ever want us to lose but we won’t get anywhere while he remains in charge. He’s holding this team back and clinging on to the job by his fingertips.

kinda comes across you're unhappy that we won to be fair

i would prefer another manager to Bruce, but i rather him not get the ass as that would mean we're doing alright!

9 hours ago, terrytini said:

Goodness me there’s some talent in this team.

Well, he finally ditched the DM - only took 2 years !

I thought we played some good stuff but as everybody be can see when it’s good it’s by virtue of the ability of the players only.

How much better we’d be if those players played to a meaningful plan is anybody’s guess, but it’s s shame for them and us we won’t find out.

I had my fill of hollow victories a year ago, since then I’ve tried to just enjoy whatever I can, but it’s tough going.

this is what got me excited from the line up, didnt watch the game and unfortunately im not going to get a feel of how it went amongst all the negative posts.

From the few games ive seen McGinn, i see him developing into a DM in the mould of Petrov particularly if we go up.    It allows us to play two up top, i just hope its not a once off against a poor Rotherham team

15 hours ago, Czechlad said:

I don't think Elphick is that good, but honestly if we let Elphick go on loan to sign a half fit Huth or Collins, I'd be furious. There is no way that Elphick is a worse option than two guys who haven't played in months, and zero clubs took a chance on so far. 

im willing to give either Huth or Collins a chance before calling it a worse option. 

Regardless, loaning Elphick out smells of a fractured relationship but credit to Elphick as he hasnt spoken out at all where others might have