Steve Bruce

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

Ithink people sometimes get confused about "top half" as it's now 24 team instead of 20.

Had to do a double take myself a couple times.

[osmark86]

50 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

How are we on track for a top half finish? We're not in the top half and our form is getting worse. It's not impossible, we may achieve it but to say he's on track is not true. 

wait what? we're 12th out of 24 teams. 1-12 = top half and 13-24 bottom half.

[DCJonah]

Sorry complete brain fart. I had top 10 in my head. 

[bobzy]

58 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Sorry complete brain fart. I had top 10 in my head. 

Don't worry - even though you're wrong, Top 10 is actually all that matters.  No-one has ever cared about a "Top 12".

[osmark86]

5 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Don't worry - even though you're wrong, Top 10 is actually all that matters.  No-one has ever cared about a "Top 12".

I hold Top 8½ to ❤ quite dearly meself.

[bobzy]

1 minute ago, osmark86 said:

I hold Top 8½ to ❤ quite dearly meself.

Well sure, I mean... who wouldn't?!

[dn1982]

14 hours ago, TRO said:

Totally agree and may I add.

He has on many occasions pointed out that the business of "taking care of the ball " was absent.

Now by my deduction, that does not suggest it's part of the plan......Its suggests to me it's something we have to work on and correct.

The thing I find puzzling at times is......The business of blaming the manager  for every mortal thing that happens on the pitch.There are certain aspects of play that the players themselves have to be responsible for.

I see things during a game and say to myself......How's that down to the manager.

Good players take responsibility for themselves.

 

 

The manager is the one who picks the team. He is also the one who is in charge of what they're coached in the week. I'm sure you're aware of this. If you train day in day out to look after the ball you tend to do that in matches. You train a pattern of play if shows up in matches. Individual mistakes happen. You can't train for that but individually I think our players are better than most in this league as I've said countless times yet we are not playing good football or showing any signs of getting there. Bruce talks a good game I can talk a good game but talking about it and getting players to do it on the pitch are big difference. People are crying out for stability yet if this season is to go by we will be in for another massive overall in the summer if it is down to the players not being able to pass the ball and not Bruce being able to coach them. Personally I don't think Bruce is getting the best out if this group. Do you think Bruce is doing a good job? 

Edited April 20, 2017 by dn1982

[dn1982]

21 hours ago, BOF said:

We risk going over old ground here, but my answer still ties into my earlier response that it depends on what you've taken over and what it was going through at the time.  Remember he had no central midfield unit until he managed to sign Lansbury and Hourihane to play alongside the solitary Jedinak.  That alone is 15 league games that were essentially an exercise in bypassing an important part of any team.  January was terrible as we all know, but again, that was his first transfer window to try and get things right, while being without Kodjia.  We had great individuals (relative to the league) before that, but we were massively unbalanced.  Think about our strike force this season.  In the Championship.  We had Ayew, Gestede, McCormack, Kodjia and Adomah.  All goal machines at this level (Ayew in theory).  Two or three of whom had to sit on the bench each week.  Our resources were abused for a long time and he has now gone about getting a squad together, all while getting results that would put us in the playoffs over the course of a season.  So my answer would be that yes I think he has done well under very trying circumstances.  We are not there yet but we're closer than we were under RDM.  The summer should be the next evolution of the side and ball retention is next.  And those who doubt Bruce can 'do' ball retention should remember that it was only 1 season ago that he went up with Hull averaging the 3rd highest possession stats in the league and higher than the other 2 who went up, so he has done it in the not-so-distant past.

Ball retention is important but for me it's what you do with it. I think by now Bruce should have a pattern of play or at least when I turn up on match day I've an idea what side I'm likely to see and how we are going to attack the game. Fulham was just another game where team selection and formation was wrong. Bruce stumbled back to 433 when Hogan got injured hopefully Sunday he stumbles back to it as Kodija is out. anyway this season is all about Sunday now win and Bruce will be a hero till next Xmas lose though and play as bad as we have been I think he'll have to be inch perfect at the start of next season or he'll be in trouble. I hope Im wrong and in the summer he adds a few players and gets us playing some cracking stuff to storm the league. Time will tell. 

[bannedfromHandV]

5 hours ago, BOF said:

We are literally in the top half right now and have been since March 11th.  24 teams remember.  Not 20.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It's not for me to judge but seriously, people need to gen up before kicking off.

[PaulC]

7 hours ago, Godders said:

I've just had a look at the 'where will we finish?' poll that was run right at the start of the season, mainly as I was interested to remind myself what our expectations were at the start of the season, before a ball was even kicked.

The overwhelming expectation was playoffs, but a not insignificant number of folks here thought we'd be top half but miss out on the playoffs.

Bruce is currently on track to deliver a top half finish, and probably not too far off the playoffs. This is arguably broadly in line with preseason expectations, despite giving the rest of the league a quarter of a season head start. Regardless of what is said about style of play, I don't think this can be overlooked.

I'm sure if that poll was rerun when RDM was sacked, the expectations would have been lower, which makes a top half finish even more impressive IMO considering pre-season expectations and where we were when Bruce took over.

sorry but 15 pts adrift  with 3 games to go is nowhere near the playoffs. We have massively underachieved this season.

Edited April 20, 2017 by PaulC

[Godders]

1 hour ago, PaulC said:

sorry but 15 pts adrift  with 3 games to go is nowhere near the playoffs. We have massively underachieved this season.

Well if you were expectating us to be comfortably in the playoffs, then I can see your disappointment. 

Most predictors/media at the start of the season look like they had us playoffs, or top-half but outside the playoffs. The sky fan predictor, where people vote a team up or down had us finishing 9th.

So, like I said, we're not a million miles away from where the general expectations were at the start of the seasonm, and we've done it under Bruce even after being a quarter season off the pace.

[sne]

6 minutes ago, Godders said:

Well if you were expectating us to be comfortably in the playoffs, then I can see your disappointment. 

Most predictors/media at the start of the season look like they had us playoffs, or top-half but outside the playoffs. The sky fan predictor, where people vote a team up or down had us finishing 9th.

So, like I said, we're not a million miles away from where the general expectations were at the start of the seasonm, and we've done it under Bruce even after being a quarter season off the pace.

Was this before or after we bought players for £72m ?

Genuine question because Kodija was bought on the 30th of August, Adomah on the 31st, De Laet 23rd and Jedi & Chester mid August.

Finishing this far from the play off spots is a massive failure any way you (or I at least) look at it.

[PaulC]

19 minutes ago, Godders said:

Well if you were expectating us to be comfortably in the playoffs, then I can see your disappointment. 

Most predictors/media at the start of the season look like they had us playoffs, or top-half but outside the playoffs. The sky fan predictor, where people vote a team up or down had us finishing 9th.

So, like I said, we're not a million miles away from where the general expectations were at the start of the seasonm, and we've done it under Bruce even after being a quarter season off the pace.

I expected a  minimum of a playoff position yes after the money we spent.

[Godders]

12 minutes ago, sne said:

Was this before or after we bought players for £72m ?

Genuine question because Kodija was bought on the 30th of August, Adomah on the 31st, De Laet 23rd and Jedi & Chester mid August.

Finishing this far from the play off spots is a massive failure any way you (or I at least) look at it.

It's a fair point to make. The ones I briefly looked at were generally from early to mid August, so up to the Chester deal really. Some specifically reference the McCormack deal, which at the time was a record transfer. So, doubt I'm looking at anything that was done after all the summer transfers, but certainly would include judgements made after signing a prem player or two and the Championship player of the season for the previous two seasons (if memory serves).

[DaveAV1]

He is being given some leeway by many posters by using the assumption that he had a lot of stuff to put right from years of failure. Surely most of the stuff that needed sorting about was about behind the scenes infrastructures and nothing to do with day to day 1st team matters. Managers no longer get involved much with really running the club, certainly not at clubs the size of Villa, which is why they are now often referred to as head coaches. 

Getting the mentality and culture of the club turned round is part of the manager's remit, but he has a lot of help with that behind the scenes. His main job is to get the 1st team playing well and achieve good results in a sustainable way. At the very least for me, the jury is out on whether he's making sustainable progress in this respect. He's had 32 games now, which surely is enough to workout what the best set up is, but we are still jumping from, 442, 433, 352, 532, you name it we've tried it. 

To say it takes time to turn the club around is true, but that's not his job. To say it takes more than 32 games to turn the team around is very debatable and that is his job. If it takes that much time then why do clubs swap managers and appoint blokes like Fat Sam with reputations for quickly turning round teams and keeping them up?

I hope that other posters are right and he has had more problems than we as fans understand and he is working through them. So that next season we hit the ground running without any behind the scenes distractions. But for me the actual stuff on the pitch that we can all see is miles away from a consistent winning team with a consistent plan. I want Steve Bruce to succeed because then Villa succeed and I actually like the bloke. But I'm a little worried right now.

[markavfc40]

32 minutes ago, PaulC said:

I expected a  minimum of a playoff position yes after the money we spent.

I agree with the sentiment but it assumes the money was spent wisely and in hindsight much of it wasn't. Last summer we had a massive overhaul but it left us with an unbalanced squad lacking in midfield. Again also in hindsight but you'd have to say that the combined 25 mill on McCormack, Tshibola, Gollini and Elphick could have been spent much better.

I think we did much better business in January than we did last summer. Lansbury, Hourihane, Bree for pretty much what we sold Gestede for was great business. Taylor looks a really solid signing and the best left back we have had in years. Although the jury is out on Hogan I think he has something about him and will be a crucial player for us next season.

Unfortunately though I think the business we did in January was too late to save our season. The number of changes meant trying to integrate too many players into a squad already getting used to each other after the huge changes last summer. It has meant for pretty much the whole season, despite the odd exceptions, we have for the most part looked disjointed and looked exactly what we are -  a group of good individuals on paper but due to the amount of changes a squad that had not evolved into a team.

That won't be the case next season. I expect minimal changes over the summer and after a full pre season together what looks like a great squad at this level on paper to start consistently reflecting that on the pitch and one getting the results to get us automatic promotion.

[TRO]

13 hours ago, mykeyb said:

That's a little nieve, you need to play a system, where players know their roles, you coach them through the week so on match day the players can do what Fulham did with their little passing triangles, you coach the pass and move that I would suggest Hourihane and Lansbury where doing before they came here, you coach them to make runs of the ball and you coach players to look for those runs, I see nothing on a match day to suggest this is happening.

But it's easier to blame the players when you are trying to absolve the manager of poor performances which to be honest every one has looked worse under him.

How many more players is he going to need to sign to allow us to be more careful with the ball, and if that doesn't improve us how many more until we eventually point the finger at him.

So its naive to expect a player to be responsible for first touch, passing the ball, etc.....there are so many things the manager relies on the player to do.

He is there to coach the team and set up systems,but he can't player for them.

They will all tell you that.

Edited April 20, 2017 by TRO

[TRO]

9 hours ago, dn1982 said:

The manager is the one who picks the team. He is also the one who is in charge of what they're coached in the week. I'm sure you're aware of this. If you train day in day out to look after the ball you tend to do that in matches. You train a pattern of play if shows up in matches. Individual mistakes happen. You can't train for that but individually I think our players are better than most in this league as I've said countless times yet we are not playing good football or showing any signs of getting there. Bruce talks a good game I can talk a good game but talking about it and getting players to do it on the pitch are big difference. People are crying out for stability yet if this season is to go by we will be in for another massive overall in the summer if it is down to the players not being able to pass the ball and not Bruce being able to coach them. Personally I don't think Bruce is getting the best out if this group. Do you think Bruce is doing a good job? 

Yes, like the curates egg, good in parts.

Shankly once said, when asked what he looks for in a new player.....he said " if he can't pass the ball he is no good to me"

so are you suggesting shanks would sign a player with poor passing ability and coach it in to him?

I think not.

The manager of any club can only do so much.

I have seen things on matchday, thats not manager related, it's player related.

[TRO]

9 hours ago, dn1982 said:

The manager is the one who picks the team. He is also the one who is in charge of what they're coached in the week. I'm sure you're aware of this. If you train day in day out to look after the ball you tend to do that in matches. You train a pattern of play if shows up in matches. Individual mistakes happen. You can't train for that but individually I think our players are better than most in this league as I've said countless times yet we are not playing good football or showing any signs of getting there. Bruce talks a good game I can talk a good game but talking about it and getting players to do it on the pitch are big difference. People are crying out for stability yet if this season is to go by we will be in for another massive overall in the summer if it is down to the players not being able to pass the ball and not Bruce being able to coach them. Personally I don't think Bruce is getting the best out if this group. Do you think Bruce is doing a good job? 

I am aware of the role of the manager  and agree that he is responsible for the system of play.

However, the best managers around have to have the best players and as their reputation is enhanced I.e  Poccetini  from Southampton to Spurs.....they gravitate to those better players as well as signing them, once they get to a better club.

you can have all the tactics nailed down and a system to boot, but if the players can't play it or feel uncomfortable it's no good.

managers can not help all players, they have to help themselves.

[dn1982]

34 minutes ago, TRO said:

I am aware of the role of the manager  and agree that he is responsible for the system of play.

However, the best managers around have to have the best players and as their reputation is enhanced I.e  Poccetini  from Southampton to Spurs.....they gravitate to those better players as well as signing them, once they get to a better club.

you can have all the tactics nailed down and a system to boot, but if the players can't play it or feel uncomfortable it's no good.

managers can not help all players, they have to help themselves.

What things have you seen on match day? Do Brentford have better footballers than us? They play far better football. Our team is littered with Internationals so are you telling me they can't pass a ball? Bruce has been in charge 32 games surely he knows what system suits this squad? He changes personal and formations at a whim still. If you're quoting Shankly this one seems to fit 

Football is a simple game complicated by idiots.