Stratvillan

Thought Villa played patches of good football on Saturday. (Sit backs and awaits condemnation). 

The issue I had with Bruce is that even my 9 year old knew he wouldn't make subs until a prearranged point in the game, and even then, not really change the system. We've 2 or 3 players who are hideously out of form and yet still get picked, and these are all forward / attacking players. So even when we play out from the back as Nyland wants to do in fairness, when we have a collection of forwards who can't control / make a simple pass the ball comes straight back. 

Do I blame Bruce -yes

do i blame the players -yes.

Amazed at how little criticism Kodjia gets. I appreciate that he has had bad injuries but he had game time (probably unwisely) at the tail end of last season, and a full preseason. I appreciate he got an assist midweek and a goal yesterday. The issue is that his general hold up  play and work rate is appalling. We often discuss why we don't put teams to bed. When we play with hogan, kodjia or adomah, who can't actually hold a ball up it means that Grealish, McGinn etc end up receiving the ball 30 yards closer to our goal than they should do. If we had a lump of a cf (Matt smith etc) who could hold the ball up (given our tactics), we'd probably score more goals as a team. ( I'm not saying he's a technically better player), In terms of kodjia he may be being played slightly out of position but if he actually learned how to shield a ball, and make himself consistently available it might help. 

......and relax.

5 minutes ago, meregreen said:

Shit and shitter.

Don't like the position of cdm, but if we are going to play it Whelan does it much better than Jedi. 

Thought Bruce played it right . Blooded youngsters (which we all want) and rotated the squad ( which we all want). It does show that unless kodjia begins to show up we're in trouble. A lot of the problem is that the ball doesn't stick to the front 1 (3 if you include wingers) is this Bruce's fault or the players, surely it's common sense to play the ball to RHM feet.

thought axel played well, and dh did enough. RHM doesn't look big enough to play as a cf imo. 

I actually was impressed with whelan, compare his performance to Jedi on sat. 

I thought the subs today were positive and had a massive impact on the game.

There were few people who thought Elphick played well against Hull, so assuming he should be dropped who comes in. I'm surprised that he chose jedinak instead of axel.

Up front we have no options. RHM is being blooded (slowly and correctly imo) no matter how poor kodjia is, he's our best option at the moment. Davis and hogan aren't fit. 

Some good individual performances McGinn, Grealish Hutton, Elmo. But a very disjointed team performance. The defence looks suspect, but should be strengthened with RDL. A central defender and a centre forward on loan s essential. Thought the keeper was suspect, but time will tell.

Kodjia can't play as a lone striker. 

Thought McGinn was really impressive, with and without the ball. 

With a more energetic midfield we shouldn't need a cdm. But with Elphick as a defender, we probably need to protect the defence. 

I think this will be a hard game. They're newly promoted and positive. Would rather had played them than n October. 

Happy with the permanent signings. Disappointed we missed out on Bryan, but at least we missed out on the right type of player. The loans will be the key issue now. We need a defender and a centre forward. 

12 hours ago, Paul33 said:

Sounds like Hourihane was and sounds like Lansbury was and sounds like Bjarnason was ...... just praying that Bruce doesn't destroy this one too !!!

Hope he plays him and hourihane, and destroys him to the same number of goals as hourihane got last season. 

Signed a goalie, an attacking uptempo mid. And kept jack. I'll take that. 

What a transfer window. A day to go, I think it really will be a day tomorrow.

Disappointed to miss out on unsworth mark 2.

got a really good (imo) midfielder. 

If we keep JG - brilliant. 

I think well see 2 or 3 tomorrow. 

Sky saying that grealish wants to move. We could do we a statement from the man himself. 

What's the record for a championship player?

think he's gone tbh. We need to get as much cash and a sell on percentage. Spurs don't let anyone go cheap. This time a couple of weeks ago, we may have been looking at 15m amazing what having an owner (s) with experience in business can do without even speaking. 

Hope it works out well for him, but will annoy me when he's in the next England squad. 

My criticism (well 1 of them) of Bruce last year, was the reluctance to give game time to youngsters. Really good to see Green and RHM get game time. Personally I'd start Green. If RHM, COH (when available) etc get 15-20 minutes regularly, at least we can can judge wether they can step up. 

The big issue is the defence - we have to hope that we get Bryan, (Taylor offers little) and a settled central defence (Elphick is a 6/7 games a year reserve a la Samba).

Thought whelan did well ( I hate myself for saying that). Thought kodjia and elphick were really really poor. thought we looked really disjointed. 

Glad we haven't signed someone for the sake of it, we've done too many short term signings. We now need to keep grealish and Chester and get 2-3 quality loans in. Def. mid. Cf. 

2 minutes ago, Villan4Life said:

Translates to Robert Huth on a free

As I said could we have a link to a defender. 

I like the link to a defender. Could we have a real one?

Central defender please.

(not samba!)

Losing Grealish is one thing, not being able to replace him and the effect it will have on the fans attitudes is another. He is the one who sets us apart from other teams.

I'd love to see woods replace a dm at home, which will avoid the issues we have when grealish has to drop deep to actually get on the ball. Imagine having a mf who recycles the ball. Gets it too grealish in the opponents half. The youth can replace woods and grealish as games / injuries allow.

6 hours ago, hippo said:

Where on earth  have you got that idea from ? 

Common sense not itk. No one surely would give a novice a job without a) an experienced coach or dof, b) there's no way he's going to challenge without 2 or 3. Proper loan signings. 

Don't know.

We are getting rid of a manager who got us the the play off final - but lost. The question is would we go one step further with potentially a weaker team under Bruce? Probably not. 

but, can we guarantee Henry would do better. Brilliant footballer but no real management experience, but can't believe the owners haven't got a dof, and loans lined up. 

I dont know, there's too many unknowns,  all I do know is I'll give whoever gets the job my support for a season before I make a judgement. There almost was no villa last week - that's more worrying.

IMO, this isn't the time for a novice.

So do we get rid of Bruce just to get rid of him. I can't agree with that, he has to be replaced by someone better who is available. He failed last year but that doesn't mean every other manager is automatically better. 

The problem is who is available?

wenger as DoF would be amazing It's the only way we should appoint a novice like Henry. 

Think the question needs to change. It's no longer should Bruce have got us promoted. The new question should be, given the fact we have no money should we change manager? A top manager is not coming to us.