striker

Like what i've seen so far of Bjarnason. Busy little player. Every side needs at least one of those especially in this league. Still think he would be better used in the DM role when Jedinak is unavailable. Was just showing signs of settling too so it's a pity that he is now injured. 

On 05/03/2017 at 10:09, Johnnyp said:

I still maintain we can beat any of these 24 teams in a one off game and Aston Villa should never have a complex about playing Huddersfield Town. Never. Let them worry about us.

Wasn't impressed with Huddersfield against Newcastle. I expected a lot more. Newcastle strangled the life out them in the same way they did against Villa and Huddersfield's much lauded manager also had no answer to it.

I think Bruce will have noted Rafa's tactics against Huddersfield and should have learned from it.

Agree with the post above that there is nothing to fear and expect a much improved Villa from the last game against Huddersfield to take all three points.

1 hour ago, JE- said:

Bruce is here next season regardless.. 

The irony of these wins and improvement of results are as a result of Bruce playing a system he actually doesn't even believe in.. Which further cements my view of why he isn't the man to have another season.. But Wyness will keep him in the attempt to not be seen to oversee another managerial mistake 

Two of your points I agree with concerning system which was basically forced upon him due to injuries and Wyness but someone mentioned a stat a few weeks ago on here that Bruce promoted his other teams after being at those clubs for a season and a half.

When you consider the changes made at the club (for the better in my view) giving the present manager a pre season and the first 10-15 games of next season to see how he does is not long to wait especially when the new players and manager are now showing signs of settling in.

Good solid win to make it a hat trick. Hopefully the injuries aren't too bad because they are mounting up at exactly the wrong time.

2 hours ago, sir_gary_cahill said:

Don't see why not

Good to hear mate as I love to see young players given their chance.

With Green out for a month could we see him on the bench for the 1st team?

How long has Bacuna left on his contract?

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

I don't think he or the club thought it would work, this season.

The comments from the owner suggest the club basically accepted promotion wasn't going to happen this season so brought in a lot of players with the goal of bedding them in ready for next season.

IF it works, then it's an approach that will likely look very astute in 12 months.

Not sure that was true when Bruce first came to the club though. If it was then why sack Di Matteo? Villa were playing some good football under Di Matteo and were unlucky not to gain more points so why not keep him and let him build as they are allowing Bruce to do now?

 Also at the outset Bruce stated he wasn't going to bring a lot of players in and that only changed when more players became available due to coming to the end of their contracts.

I think the goalposts where changed by Xia after it became apparent that the club were unlikely to gain promotion this season under Bruce?

Surprises me that any of the coaching staff or indeed the player himself hasn't apparently worked on his crossing or passing ability which many have said is poor. Even a slight improvement would have made him into a much better player with his willingness to go forward.

Nevertheless he has always given 100% in the games I've seen him play and seems the type of player that Bruce would offer a new deal to.

Becoming a bit of a cult hero with the fans as well maybe for the wrong reasons but I also feel the player and club should move on with his best season at the Villa behind him.

Bruccy baby see what happens when you let the good players you signed play? Now then do it again on Saturday and until the end of the season and we'll all love you for it.

10 minutes ago, TRO said:

• Platt
• McGrath
• Yorke
• Laursen
• Neilsen
• Teale
• Spink
• Gidman
• Barry
• Morley
• A Evans
• Cropley
• Bremner
• Mortimer
• Rimmer
• Ehiogu

and more

Ok so I'm going back a bit....but even then , they were modest sums, even in those days

We have been more successful, with those type of buys.

Going back a bit is probably right. There are less good players available at modest sums now and look what happened when Lambert tried that.

Wee jewels can still be found though but the bigger clubs now have world wide scouting networks that tend to snap up potential before the likes of Villa can get their hands on them.

Can Villa ever be successful without getting into debt? By that I mean manageable debt?

As above Hourihane for Bacuna and that would be the only forced change I'd make unless you experiment with Amavi left midfield.

If Bruce wants any validity to his excuse of too much change at the club then he must stop tinkering and stick as much as possible to his best team.

Been impressed with Taylor so far. 

3 hours ago, Eastie said:

None of the other clubs he came into were in the sort of mess that villa were - one win in 19 , no wins away in over a year - a whole team of new players - this is Steve Bruce trying to manage a football club not some magician pulling rabbits from a hat .

the club was devoid of confidence totally - the fact he took 23 points from 12 games is astonishing considering the mess he inherited - of course we'd like to have reached the play offs but some people need a touch of realism here .

the manager has to be given time without people calling for his head on the back of one bad run of results .

This club needs unity and stability and not people stamping their feet and throwing their toys out the pram over a few bad results .

give him till the end of the season and let's judge him then .

It hasn't been just a few bad results though has it? It has been a fair amount of games following decent results. I also don't think its people stamping their feet or throwing their toys out of their prams for the sake of it. Most of that criticism here has been fairly well reasoned and considered. No-one expected to be several points off the relegation places before the game against Derby. I think it has also been the manner of those performances which have given rise for concern, rightly in my view.

Bruce set up very defensively against a Spurs B team in the cup, something which grated with me a lot. He has continued those negative tactics and the club has paid for that in performances and results. I actually thought he set up Villa to play that way in the league as a sticking plaster trying to keep Villa in contention for the playoffs until the January window opened. Since buying Lansbury and Hourihane who by trade are attacking midfielders I expected a more offensive Villa but that hasn't happened and we've seen basically the same tactics before the window opened. Its not just coincidence that Villa still struggle to score goals after signing more progressive midfielders and a forward that prior to coming to Villa was scoring goals for fun.

After seeing that stat though concerning how long it took Bruce to get other teams promoted he has until the first 6-7 games of next season before he loses me totally in thinking he is the right man for Villa. 

19 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Funny you ask that as I looked it up after I posted.  It seems he always got his teams promoted and never spent more than a single season in the Championship.  That is with 2 separate clubs and 4 promotions, 2 of which were after the team got relegated and bounced straight back.  Thats pretty impressive.

Thanks for researching that. So to judge him fairly then he must be given a full season in the job to repeat what he has done elsewhere.

Between now and the end of the season though you would hope to see a steady improvement in results and then that taken into the start of next season.

I'm still not sure that trying to nick games by the odd goal is going to get Villa promoted unless a better more domineering keeper comes in for a start but after that stat I guess he should be given more time to get it right.

6 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Would history not suggest that a season and a half at a club is enough for Steve Bruce to get a team promoted?

That's a very good point and one which I was going to put out there. How long did it take him to get his other teams promoted? Was it just a season and a half, less than that or longer?

I suppose you'd also have to consider financial constraints and the way he has been backed here.

2 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I can't argue with any of that mate. When he was appointed I certainly felt it wasn't beyond the realms we could still make the play offs and at the end of the year that was still very much the case.

For whatever reason we completely folded in January and whilst the loss of Kodjia to the AFCON is a partial contributor it shouldn't have had the impact it did.  By the time he returned we had also undertaken another big overhaul with 14 ins/outs and were back to square one in terms of having a good group of individuals but throwing them together and looking nothing like a team.

You could say Bruce/the club shouldn't have made that amount of changes in January but I think a number of situations fell for them and they felt they had to act. Lansbury, Hourihane, Bree were all coming to the end of their contracts. McCormack was playing silly buggers, clubs at this time wanted Ayew, Westwood and Gestede and there was no saying that would be the case in the summer, and besides the books also needed balancing now.

Regardless of any mitigating circumstances in terms of having to integrate so many players bad runs of results happen and now you can put that down to a bad run under a good manager or a bad run under a poor one. I personally think it is the latter but time will tell. Certainly by the end of this season I want to see a settled side, in a settled formation, getting good results with decent performances giving us all the belief that next season we will be capable of achieving promotion under Steve Bruce.

Again excellent post mate and while we all don't agree on every point I'm sure we all want Bruce to succeed.

3 hours ago, Eastie said:

We played them off the park 2nd half at pride park and played the leaders Brighton off the park too - ultimately it means nothing - the thing that counts is the result and I'd take an ugly 1-0 all day long .

Yet (not directing this point just at you) when Villa lose there are always mitigating circumstances for that loss. If the thing that counts is indeed the result then results under Bruce haven't been good enough.

31 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

You have to take into account that when Bruce arrived we were already 13 points from automatic promotion, 10 from the play offs having won one of our first 11 games. Had that form have continued then 22 games later we'd now be 30 points from the play offs. His job initially was to turn that diabolical form around and the hope, not expectation, was that we would have time to close the gap and make the play offs.

You also aren't comparing like for like with Monk. He went in to Leeds at the start of June and had a full pre season to implement his ideas and tactics. Bruce came in mid October to a club on a dire run this season, having not won an away game for 14 months, and inherited an unbalanced squad lacking confidence.

None of the above is to say he couldn't have done better as I think he should have. I think he has tinkered with the formation too much which hasn't helped in terms of integrating so many new players which in fairness is the biggest issue here. Around 34 players in/out in 8 months is pretty much unheard of and it has now left us with a group of very good individuals for this level but nothing like resembling a team on the pitch. That is where the stability that Wyness alluded to comes in. We will never see a team evolve if we keep changing managers and coaching staff as each will come in with different ideas and almost certainly want to change X number of players and we are again back to square one.

You can't just have stability for stability sake of course. You have to back the right man. The club it seems have gone all in on Steve Bruce with the CEO reaffirming that stance two days ago. They won't have done that on the back of the last two months of results. They have looked deeper than that. Taken into account what he inherited, taken into account his vast experience at this level and the success he has had, taken into account what they see that we don't behind the scenes and I'd also imagine they have looked at how Bruce has handled himself during this poor run and been impressed by how strong a character he is and the unflinching belief he has that he is the man to turn our club around. 

Whoever came in last October was going to need time and only time will tell if they were right in choosing Steve Bruce. Despite the recent poor run and the likely ups and downs we will see for the rest of this season, and despite it not really mattering what I think given the club have nailed their colours to the mast with Bruce, I have a feeling it will prove to be the right decision and we will reap the rewards of it next season.

Good post most of which I agree with particularly changing the team and formation too much which hasn't helped integrating the new players. That has been one of the most disappointing aspects of Bruce's reign so far for me due to his experience. I thought he would have identified his best team and formation by now and stuck to it which is backing his own judgement.

I sincerely hope your right about Bruce and that more time is needed but I haven't really seen it in the performances yet or more importantly the results.

The point of my previous post was that the step down in quality from the Premiership to the Championship should have compensated somewhat for the changes when you consider that most of the players brought in by Bruce were already accustomed to Championship football.

4 minutes ago, Eastie said:

There is still 45 points to play for - I fully expect to see a much better end to the season and a top half finish at worse.

there has been upheaval with a new manager and totally new coaching team and a host of new players - a top half finish is acceptable this season considering the changes at the club - next season we must hit the ground running in August and dominate games  - too soon to judge Bruce yet .

I still feel that if Bruce can settle tactically on his best team allowing them to play, win the next two games with results going our way Villa still have an outside chance of scraping into sixth.

Thats a big If though concerning Bruce because currently I feel tactically he is holding the team back.

I'm all for winning no matter how Villa do it. I'd prefer of course to watch Villa play free flowing football in the same way Brentford did but it's not always possible in a league where generally you have to grind out results to escape (see Newcastle recently).

Due to previously watching teams under Bruce I wasn't 100% happy with his appointment because his teams rarely play the type of football I want Villa to play but his CV said four previous promotions from the Championship so he was in my view a sensible short term appointment by Xia to get us promoted.

Since that appointment and the initial new manager bounce where I praised Bruce calling him Bruce Almighty I feel the board and Xia have moved the goalposts to accommodate the failure of the manager to produce the required results to at least challenge for the playoffs.

Think about that for a moment. Aston Villa even without the new additions in January were expected in some quarters to challenge for automatic promotion and at the very least expected by others to be in a position to challenge for those playoff places. The main reason being that the Championship is a rather large step down in quality from the Premiership and surely with Villa's squad and resources Villa should have been able to compete in the top 6 of a very poor division. Bruce's appointment was the glue to put all of that in place this season.

I do not think those appointed had stability in the Championship over promotion to the Premiership in mind when they appointed Bruce this season or indeed their club in free fall towards the relegation places.

This is why currently I feel the appointment of Bruce has been a mitigated failure where other appointments such as Monk at Leeds with less money to spend and on paper having to use an inferior squad has been an success.

Winning pretty or ugly will do but still a long way to go before I'm convinced that Bruce is the way forward for the Villa.

Villa were also playing better under RDM but he was sacked because the results were poor.

The second half performance against Newcastle was poor boardering on awful and I haven't seen much improvement in the previous two games either.

Hopefully that will change against Derby?