GodsBarkeep

Oh dear blaming the players again. You think he might try and give them a brave heart style speech before the game, or at least ask them to try. 

The excerpts I read of Bruce's interview sounds like he knows he's up against it now. I wonder if he's lost the dressing room without his mates snoddy and JT to control the bantz, (the last few performances would  certainly suggest so) and whether the board have discussed how long he has to turn it around

Evolution occurs at such a slow rate, you can't actually see it happening with the naked eye

I hope this means Dr Xia's Villa movie will get green lit now

Flicking through Twitter and I stumbled upon this historic tweet

I wonder how much of that could the club write off if we all pledge to buy 2 balti pies each per game next season

As painful as the football is to watch, Bruce has to stay and finish the job I feel. It's not beyond him to keep us in the PL for a year neither; then we could look to make a positive change in that respect.

4 hours ago, Michael118 said:

That was Hogan's second goal for us. The other came in the 0-2 away win at Wigan last season.

His record compared with Gabby's is 0.11 goals per game from 16 starts and 1600 mins played. Gabby has 0.22 goals per game from 6 starts and 787 mins played. Hogan is averaging 1 goal for every 8 starts. Gabby is averaging 1 goal for every 3 starts.

 

Clearly goal machine Gabby should be first name on the team sheet then

A very nice and convincing win against a good side

Let's not get hysterical en masse about it though, 

We know how much Mr Bruce hates that

Bona fide 4th and good reason to look up the table, 

This feeling of positivity is weird and unfamiliar

Commentator against blues described him as a 'Renaissance man' 

All these years and it turns out we've been playing him out of position!

10 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

no tin hat

no holes barred.

I joined the game last night after 16mins so I cant comment on how good or bad it was.

temporarily ffwd to HT sky coverage and Chesters goal was very reminisent of Guzan in goal and a static noncommiting defence a la Lambert. Basically their defence just stood there and let Chester score.

rewind to where I joined the game.

16mins 0-1

I thought „great, way to go, this may end up 0-3/4“

Then as the next minutes unravelled, I saw a team that cost £2mill, managed by Alex Neil (AN ffs) pass and move us off the park with 69/31% possesion. Now stats are really not my thing, but is that not asking for trouble?

The inevitable happened and our defence was forced into a desperate challenge. My first reaction was „oh no, penalty“ I was both astonished, and relieved that the ref didnt give it. Somehow he conveniently ran away from his normal line of view and a Villa player (snodgrass?) blocked his view.

I thought, ok, lesson to learn, we must get back into a stride, but no, we just let them come again and again. admittedly they didnt trouble much but wtf is that?

As it turned out an even more horrendous error left them chasing back whilst we had PL quality players taking advantage.

Some will argue 0-2 what more do you want? Now come on. We all knew beforehand that their defence was made up of 2nd & 3rd choices (and had on pitch injuries) Why oh Why didn‘t Bruce just go for the throat? Goals for Davis, Onomah, Hourihane and Adomah would have done wonders. No, let’s sit back, be cautious, make it uncomfortable - and absolutely frustrating to watch - for ourselves. Shyte, utter scarred to attack shyte.

Now what would have happened had the ref called penalty? 1-1

Maybe without the luck of injuries the pen would have meant 1-0.

ffs what is this shyte?

Is there sooooooo much wrong with trying to make a sure thing of it all and play football, keep possesion, play players in their natural positions, playing their natural game, introducing our youth players into a „style“ alongside experienced PL players against inferior players in the hope that they will develop the right way?

(look at Clark & Baker for example - 2 players with potential shown up in the PL and to an extent her in the Ch.)

Are we seriously acting like a professional football club? in the past no! now? is hoofball and defensive shyte of any use to Davis, Green, O‘Hare, Doyle, Bree, Lyden and anyone else coming through? we are going to need them  in Ch AND a level above (hopefully soon).

I‘m not gonna waste space here ripping the whole natch apart, but is anyone honestly serious that that what was on show yesterday was anywhere near decent football?

If so, standards of expectation and tollerance has stooped alarmingly low for my taste.

Is there really any merit for scraping through the season, getting promoted somehow (playoffs/penalties..... whatever - and it seems some VTers AVFC and whoever would accept anyway thats up) and having the thought „new ball game here in PL, lets just buy 18 PL players in one window and hoof/caution our way to survival?

a big no from me. Because, SJ loan ends, Cafu/Roberto‘s contract is up, (for the Allern lovers) Terry‘s loan ends, Jedi & Whelan are another year older/slower/injury-prone, Snoddy‘s loan ends, Onomah‘s too, we would go up with a skelton 1st XI and an even less of a squad.

I‘m going to casually remind myself that we may be yo-yo-ing in and out of the top 6 when we should already be top 2.

And whilst I‘m at it, why can AN get a team costing 2Mill to pass to one another, whilst we have a 1st XI costing more than 10 times that not even play a basic form of competent football, not relying on mistakes or a bit of individual magic. (come to think of it nearly every other manager in this league so far) It wont work against every team in this league home & away (as proven) and may just be the difference between promotion and not. (does anyone need the consequences of not going up spelt out?)

I‘m absolutely astounded that yesterdays win is so highly held. I‘ve heard comments like „win the league like this“ „SB has turned us around so quickly“ Wtf? are these serious thought out beliefs?

Unbelievable.

I‘ve seen us play some real shyte since MoN left. Has it really effected our relativety that much? I‘ve seen the days of Div3 football. Andy Lochhead, Brian Godfrey, Barry Hole and a number of others who were no great shakes, BUT we never played this shyte. Even in those times we had talented player who were allowed to shine, like Rioch, Chico, Anderson, Little, Graydon and many more. Not stiffled like this lot. Even the dark days of Dougs flogging off the crown jewels, one could not put 100% of the blame on messrs Venglos/Turner/McNeil. As recent as Remi Garde, who was hung out to dry, it was no surprise that we were so bad, full of bottlers and missfits.

Bruce has it golden, and comes up with this shyte. Wtf? w.t. absolute £ is going on here. Is it really so much fun playing with destiny that we could fall short?

Now before many of you think GH has completely lost it (I really dont deny the possibility that that has already happened) or I‘m having a rant for my own sanity, let me give an insight, if I may, to why I think as I think.

As a person, I‘m an artist by trade and have played sports since childhood. (I‘m by no way proclaiming abilities, just an insight of my thought angle). my job is about 50% creativity and 50% chores (aquisition, logistics and all the typical shyte one has to deal with) However, regardless of the task at hand I wear my „work attire“ with pride and give my all, much like I imagine my heroes to wear the Villa shirt and stand in the „Doug-Out“ proud of the honour & privelige. I ask myself, looking from inside the shirt and through the mind of the manager, „is this shyte what‘s before our faithfulls eyes in any way worthy, and something to stand up and be proud of“? Can anyone honestly answer that what we‘re seeing is anywhere near some kind of pheasable concept of progression that can lead to an outcome that would favour us to a climb out of this division and on to better things?

All I see is a hanging on a thread, scraping through, oh It‘ll do! its only the Ch and the rest are shyte.

Now some will argue, But it‘s going well now x ppg from x games and all comers welcome (SotC - Derby are t*$$ers.dingles a go go....etc) May I remind myself:

1- we started syhte

2- still play Hutton

3-Elmo, Hourihane and Adonah out of position

The upturn in results coincide with

Kodjia‘s return

Davis (Bruce admitted he had no other option) turning out to be the mist important fraction of our hoofball

Greens injury forcing Bruce to fetch Adomah from the stands to LW

can anyone honestly say this all happened by design?

The design was appently Grealish as a Nr. 10

But when Davis is not on the pitch, it‘s still hoofed.  ???????

Why is Hourihane attempting to spray passes from around the center circle when he‘s a goalscoring MF‘er?

So many factors, and we‘re still not 2nd, just scraped a 0-0 v the Sc*m, However, after a „Circumstances favoured a win“ we‘re gonna win the league and have turned the ship around „so quick“ Wt£?

I‘ll get pelters and ridicule, but I don‘t care as I wear my Villa heart on my sleave and believe in seeing and telling it as I see it.

Rant over (or maybe I‘ve just completely lost it)

So I‘ll get back to my own life of Loving my wonderfull girlfriend, Loving my Job, loving my Golf, eating well and trying to get healthy again and maybe when I pause from my daydreaming of a better world Villa will finally be in the PL performing proudly as our history suggest and our fans deserve.

UTV

VTID

 

...You OK hun?

Todays formation is already well known

Latest from Dr X ahead of todays game...

It's not the winning

Its the taking part that counts

I have sympathy for the Doc. He didnt want Bruce initially, but was clearly talked into it by supposed 'football men' (4 promotions and all that), and as it turns out just employing an EFL or CL winning manager isnt a guaranteed solution

Did we really have a good 45 minutes against hull, was it some kind of optical illusion, or were they actually just worse than us for 45mins?!

We spend too much of the game reacting to what our opposition is doing and dont stamp any authority as we can't keep possession long enough. So the team loses its shape with players get pulled out of position. This makes everyone look below average.

We cant hold onto possession because we dont keep the ball on the ground enough, and hit too many speculative long balls. The players need to show more vision and composure - the break isnt instantly on EVERYTIME you win the ball back for Christ sake!

Also when we do attack, support is thin; expecting our wingers to beat 3 or 4 men before delivering a perfect ball, rather than sending two other players to exchange with.

Everyone can see this apart from the staff, but it doesn't matter because 'hopefully' we'll win on Saturday

SB: "So what are we going to do? Hopefully we'll get a response, we'll get up and running on Saturday and keep trying and working hard at it."

If all we're doing is 'hoping' that our deficiencies get corrected, then it really is hopeless for us.

but even the word 'hopeless' has 'hope' in it, aye Steve?

Don't worry, only three more years to go until we're bigger than Real Madrid

5 at the back tonight I reckon - that's defenders I mean, not goals - although that'd wouldn't surprise me neither after Saturday

Obviously Bruce is up against it, and I'd expect that to translate into an even more cautious approach, rather than an open, gung-ho performance that many dream of

If he does thrive on being 'the man', as I believe some have suggested, now might be a good opportunity for him to show what he's got to offer

Is it a case that he doesn't want to be here, or is he being forced out in regards to ffp with the aim of getting a target man?

Courtesy of the beeb gossip column, it seems he's going to Marseille on a season long loan?

French article

https://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Jordan-amavi-s-est-envole-pour-marseille/824415

I've got a bad feeling about this.

16 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Na.

 

Our only site of europe is the photographic memories we have when we where last in it.. some 9yrs ago!

Short memory!

RDL won't be getting straight back into the starting lineup, that much seems clear

Bree is hopefully our long term replacement for this position, but Hutton isnt the reason we didnt get 3 points against hull