Keener window-cleaner

Psychic you are.

What are those sticks for?

Sky sports stats say we had one shot on target, was that the Chester scramble towards the end?

What was actually going on the last 10-15 mins? first Gabby played up front with Hogan and Elmohammady switched to the left, then we changed again moving Gabby to left wing reverting to one up front, then Elmohammady switched between being back on the right side and in the middle?!?

It's just unacceptable that this Brentford team comes to Villa park and wins possession, has more shots, more shots on target, in the last 15 mins puts US under preassure and looks like the only team scoring.

It looks like Onomah is pushed a bit further forward, him and Hourihane playing in front of Whelan, promising!

He brings what seems to be our main attacking tactic, long ball for him to either flick on or run after.

Looks like this can go either way. It looks like Hourihane is playing as a nr 10 or at least in front of Whelan and Onomah. I'm not sure if that is Hourihane's best position, he isn't creative enough or mobile enough to be a nr 10, he is better when he can come in the second wave and get his shots in, no he is the one who is supposed to create the chances. It seems as if our best weapon of attack is a long ball to Elmohamady to run for. And I don't think Brentford are such a threatening team than we need to retreat and fall back with the whole team when they get the ball, we should press them instead. With this falling back it takes so much time for the whole team to come back into their half, especiially if we give the ball away, we just let them attack us again.

I think we need him as cover. One good thing if he left though is that we would hardly have enough cb to play three at the back ever again.

Could you ask them why they call fans to compulsory meetings and suspend season ticets based on what they write on twitter?

I think you misunderstood me. My point was that the Norwich performance was because of a change of style of play/approach from Steve Bruce, and I questioned why he hadn't done that before. As I wrote in the first post you responded to, my support for Bruce has swayed back and forth and I currently support him. If we contiune to play a normal style of play and get results thereafter, I will be happy with that and wont call for his head. I can't see how that it derived to mean that everything Bruce does is negative in my world. If we win the next three games I will probably think that it is down to the players reacting to Bruce's more positive approach, that was the whole point with my posts. So it's the opposite of how you interpreted it.

Ok, this picture settles it, this is the best thread ever!

It would be a bit like me telling my wife that I was sooo near getting her this new nice diamond ring, it was just that no one wanted to swap it for the old stinking ring.

It's difficult to see how we could afford bringing in two premier league players even on loan if we are just in line with FFP.

The answer to both questions is simply how the team was set up and how we played. Against Reading (and in almost every previous game under Bruce) we have sat back defending, whereas in the Norwich game, after the preassure against Bruce in the media etc, we didn't sit back like before, but continously attacked, attacked in numbers and created many chances. This must surly be because Bruce gave the team instructions to play more adventurous and take more risks going forward. It's quite interesting if this wasn't the case and it wasn't because of Bruce's instructions. If Bruce didn't give the team any particular instructions to attack in the Norwich game and he during his 10 months here actually have intended to play like that all the time and has instructed the players to do so, but they consistently have put in the dire defensive performances we have seen, then Bruce must be kicked out immediatly as he obviously cant get his ideas across to the players. So either way you look at it, Bruce doesn't come out in good light. Either he gave instructions to attack in the Norwich game and one must question why he hasn't done that during the previous 10 months. Or, he has tried to play that way all the time, but can't get his message across. I'm not sure which alternative is worse.

The problem is that prior to Norwich I saw no development at all compared to the first game in charge. At that time I was positive because I thought we looked more solid and diciplined comapred to under RDM and had excpected us to kick on. But the I didn't see any signs of improvement. Regardless of formation or players, it was the same. Then I hoped that a pre season with his own players would show some improvement, but was met by the Cardiff and Reading performances. I think the Norwich example shows quite clearly that the players react to the instructions given to them and made me even more convinced that the fault lays with the management team and not the players. To draw a parallell with the first part of Paul Lambert's last season in charge; a lot of us criticised Lambert for not playing any possession football, then suddenly he made his visit to the Bayern München training ground and came back with a radical change of style of play where we suddenly didn't do anything els than pass the ball around in our own half (he even got Guzan to try to pass the ball all the time instead of kicking it away) winning possession in every game, although not winning any games. That showed how even average players very quickly can adapt to new styles of play and the instructions the manager gives them. Bruce at some point criticised our play and (exactly like McLeish) said he didn't tell the players to pass it sideways etc. Well the question is rather: what does he tell the players to do? Good managers makes the players understand the style of play they want the team to play and implements it. For the most part of last season it looked like the players didn't have a clue what to do when they got the ball. Defensively they knew what to do, they were quite well drilled and sat back defending. But when we got the ball they just looked lost. I'm still hoping that he will get it right, but I have almost lost my hope and I'm not sure he is the answer in the long run. For now though I am pleased with the way he has at least slightly released the shackles and let the players attack more.

I have swayed between wanting Bruce to be kicked out or not. After the performance against Reading (and in light of last seasons performances) it tipped towards definitely wanting him out. The performances afterwards has given him a bit of a respite in my mind. What I want to see it quite simple, I want a more attacking style of play. The previous constant performances of just sitting back doing nothing, just protecting the goal and trying to score on one of the few chances we occationally had seemed to drain out all enthusiasm the players might have had. To that comes the continous irrational tactical decisions of playing people out of position (Hourihane as a defensive midfielder, full backs as wingers etc), not making substitutions in time and strange transfer dealings (saying we had an unbalanced team, then shipping Gestede, Ayew and McCormack only to be replaced by Hogan or buying two more right wingers who both will demand to play when we already had one of the better right wingers in the league). The performance against Norwich was hopefully the turning point, you could see from the outset that the players had far more attacking instructions than before, and Calderwood also said in an interview that we would be looking to play more attacking football. Or put in another way, what I would like to see and make me happy is normal football, not just this over defensive McLeish style of anti football that we have been seeing.

I would have expected this to be straigthened out by now... I will consider you being guilty of twitter trolling untill you have proven yourself innocent.

That's why you should be gay and married to a man!

Be careful, or you're next up for a compulsary meeting.

Just so you know, from here on you will go by the name Rob the twitter troll.

The whole thing must be a joke.

Wow, amazing if true. I thought snooping into peoples private life and registration of opinion was something totalitarian States, intelligence services and Facebook did, not football clubs.

I sense this becoming the new Ashley Westwood thread :-D (The difference for me is that I so far fully support Whelan and want him in the team, which I didn't with Westwood).

Ok, brilliant was perhaps an exaggeration and more reflects how positively surprised I am of him. I just think it is so refreshing to see a proper midfielder puting in complete midfield performances. In comparison to the last years midfielders who haven't done the basics in tracking back, anxious sideways passing or tapping the ball to the nearest player and going hiding for large parts of the game. Glenny seems to make the right desisions all the time, there we can speak of someone who makes it ticking over and who does the quiet unnoticed work. But yeah, to be fair he's been more solid than brilliant.