Steve Bruce

[bannedfromHandV]

21 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

But they are capable, more than capable in fact I was being a little facetious.

Players like Lansbury and Hourihane are perfectly capable of passing the ball as they showed before arriving at the club.

The issues in the pitch aren't about the individuals, although individual errors have been costly to us, the issues are collective.

The lack of goals is due to a lack of creativity and patterns of play, the impact of which is exacerbated by the lack of retention of the ball. The lack of possession is the result of a lack of movement off the ball. The lack of movement off the ball comes back to the training ground, training and coaching.

What happens on the pitch is the result of what happens in training. Sure it's down to the players once they get out there, the manager can only do so much but that is because they and their coaches do their job in the week.

The lack of movement in our side is about the only characteristic that you could point to as being a consistent element in our game.

Too frequently we are too deep, ball players are so far back they can do no damage and men ahead of the ball only really happens on opposition goal kicks.

Our players are often cautious or worse in possession because they are used to having few options when they lift their head.

We aren't brave on the ball and we aren't brave off he ball. We aren't, in my opinion, set up in a way that suggests we ever want to dominate games through the control of the ball and I can't see that the players training through the week isn't indicative of that.

I simply cant understand the logic of buying a player like Lansbury and then playing him so deep, or absolving Bruce of some of the blame allowing him to play so deep. However I struggle to understand why Lansbury would suddenly have decided to change his game having arrived at BMH.

I wholeheartedly agree there is something wrong at the club. It's been wrong since O'Neill just as it was wrong before he arrived, it's a lack of ambition.

I mean real ambition. Before O'Neill the club didn't have it and we lost it when he went. The Dr has tried to put it back but it's still not really evident within the club on or off the pitch.

But that is a much bigger discussion and one for another thread.

So far this summer Bruce seems keen to make us more solid yet it was a lack of goals scored that really cost us last season and I don't see that problem having been rectified. 

It's exceedingly early days so far but right now I expect us to have very similar shortcomings this season as last.

 

Wouldn't / can't argue with any of that.

 

I just don't think it's as simple as pinning the blame on one persons shoulders (in this instance, Bruce).

 

Much the same as I didn't think you could solely attribute our relative struggles under Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde and Di Matteo to those same individuals.

 

Maybe I'm entirely wrong (and I fully accept that it's very possible, we're all guessing) but I cannot see an average day playing out at BMH whereby Bruce is telling people not to move off the ball, not to bother with ball retention and to basically just kick it as far as possible half the time. Surely even the most vocal of the anti-Bruce society don't think this is actually happening?!

[VILLAMARV]

7 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Wouldn't / can't argue with any of that.

I just don't think it's as simple as pinning the blame on one persons shoulders (in this instance, Bruce).

Much the same as I didn't think you could solely attribute our relative struggles under Houllier, McLeish, Lambert, Sherwood, Garde and Di Matteo to those same individuals.

Maybe I'm entirely wrong (and I fully accept that it's very possible, we're all guessing) but I cannot see an average day playing out at BMH whereby Bruce is telling people not to move off the ball, not to bother with ball retention and to basically just kick it as far as possible half the time. Surely even the most vocal of the anti-Bruce society don't think this is actually happening?!

Same here, I think the reality is it's the boring middle of the road answer of a lot of factors combining at the same time. Chickens coming home to roost and all that.

I still maintain (even though I know I'm a beligerent so and so !) that Lambert did an amazing job for the majority of his time here. How he kept that squad in the premier league was beyond me....(it was Benteke). He wont go down as a villa great, nor should he. Judged against our highest highs his record is mediocre. But given the tools at his disposal it doesn't look too shabby now does it?

As far as Bruce is concerned, I genuinely find it hard to muster the willingness to criticise him too much while he's working with players I just didn't or don't rate. I think there was so much wrong at this club that realistically the last place we'll see the improvement is/was on the pitch. And, until we get rid of Richards, Hutton, Gardner, Bacuna and the like he'll still be somewhat hamstrung in my eyes. Likewise putting too much stock in last seasons results when so many of those have the likes of Gardner, Westwood, Gestede and Bacuna all over the team sheets and injuries to key players at key times, losing Kodjia to AFCON when he WAS our attack and integrating so many new players straight into the first team in the middle of the season. But this season is SO important financially and I think some people are truly only just properly realising we're a mid table championship team with SB as our manager.

We finally got rid of the owner that was screwing us and found one who cares. We can only hope from the outside that behind the scenes Little and Wyness et al have got our house in order after years of the press alluding to issues in that dept. Then comes the manager with his backroom team. We appointed one (rightly or wrongly..... 713 pages and counting....) who has the track record of delivering the relative success that is of AMAZING importance to us, the trade off we all knew at the time is the football is going to be mostly dour. I think it's hard to argue he didn't make us harder to beat and more organised. I would say a lot of people on here have such high expectations as they overlook the importance of that. But it's also fair to say he did the minimum required. We didn't get relegated again.

I think the most damning bit of Trent's post that is spot on is

23 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

The lack of movement in our side is about the only characteristic that you could point to as being a consistent element in our game.

Right on. People are right to be concerned about the way the season ended, they are right to worry about his substitutions or lack of them, they are right to wonder if we will actually score enough goals to get out of this league they are right to worry about the competence of the Goalkeeper. They are right to worry about the lack of movement, our extremely annoying inability to recycle possession from our own throw ins and the amount of players in our squad who are so easily muscled off the ball (Basics, right @TRO?) They are right to wonder whether being hard to beat is going to be enough for promotion. We all get to watch those issues unfold come 3pm on a Saturday and none of us are wrong to bring them up - we're seeing it with our own eyes. But I would say that seeing as this guy is the one who actually stopped the rot, don't we, the fans, owe him the respect of acknowledging that and therefore, hasn't he earnt the right to be given a bit of time? Something I would argue Sherwood and RDM should never have been given at all....

He has so far overseen bringing in Terry, Lansbury, Hourihane, Bree, Taylor, Hogan, Bjarnason, Johnstone and Bedeu and at the same time sold Gestede, Westwood, Ayew, Sanchez Calder and Mason and loaned out Gollini and Gil (as well as McCormack, Tshibola and Cissokho for the tail end of last season). I don't see much wrong in that transfer activity so far apart from the obvious question mark over the Goalkeeper saga, in fact if we discount Gollini/Johnstone then its pretty blooming good so far to be fair. He's bought more than he's sold though and the squad was already pretty big so no surprise we need to shift some people and that its all the usual suspects. He's almost bought a whole new first XI though. The players we've seen come in may not be "premier league ready" or good enough to be sold on to Barcelona in 3 years time for £20m profit, but they've made our first team better.

Expecting to see some progress in the attacking capability of our team after 8/9 months or so against Shrewsbury is hardly unrealistic expectations on the fans behalf don't get me wrong, but he's not had a year in the job and hasn't anywhere near built a squad he or we could call his own. He's improved the first team to an extent that even his fiercest of critics on here would be hard to argue against imo. And that means, however quickly or slowly it's happening, we're heading in the right direction.........AT LAST. Hopefully we will look back at this time and say remember when we bottomed out under RDM? But we are hoping a lot of things click still. Lots of those new players need to start showing what they did to earn their moves, our own academy graduates need to improve and step up to the mark, Kodjia/Chester/Baker/Jed/Adomah need to carry on doing the good things they do and stay injury free. Gabby needs to stay motivated. Johnstone needs to prove the fans wrong and the 'experts in the game' right. There's a lot of ifs there for this season to be plain sailing, something which some people on here along with too many of our players over the last few years seem to expect rather than accept the need to earn.

[Grasshopper]

39 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Same here, I think the reality is it's the boring middle of the road answer of a lot of factors combining at the same time. Chickens coming home to roost and all that...........etc 

a long post (love it)

I agree with the majority of points and can understand the thinking behind those I dont agree with.

But to get absolutely to the point.

Will Bruces methods work in getting promotion with who we have, who we can get in?

The arguement is mostly

Yes - he's done it before and needs xyz (time/preseason/playerX.....)

No - Player decisions, Tactics, goals scored, chances created and 13th position behind Cardiff et al

I personally go by the facts and what I've seen so far at AVFC under him

[praisedmambo]

50 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

a long post (love it)

I agree with the majority of points and can understand the thinking behind those I dont agree with.

But to get absolutely to the point.

Will Bruces methods work in getting promotion with who we have, who we can get in?

The arguement is mostly

Yes - he's done it before and needs xyz (time/preseason/playerX.....)

No - Player decisions, Tactics, goals scored, chances created and 13th position behind Cardiff et al

I personally go by the facts and what I've seen so far at AVFC under him

But not the facts that he's done it before. Your facts also seem selective and twisting things a bit. For balance, which is all most people are trying to add when responding to the never-ending stream of posts, how about factoring into your interpretation that when he arrived the club was in the relegation zone and had won about four games in 50? How about factoring that up to his arrival last season we had won one in twelve, including losing to a League 1/2 side in the league cup? Our only win was against Rotherham. He must've done something right to get us to a further 15 wins against much better teams than Rotherham, the worst in the league by far. 15 wins in 36 vs about 4 wins in 50. 

I have another fact—he moaned about fitness levels being shit with the players. You can only address that in preseason, which is what we're in, by about a week and a half. Preseason games are completely irrelevant too. They are always shit. 

I'm not sure why you keep banging on about Cardiff either. Interestingly, they finished 8th the season before last, so had the makings of a decent Championship team. We the season before last were one of the biggest messes in all of football and were clearly in pretty much as bad a state as ever when Bruce took over. We're not any more but let's not give him any credit. 

We're still shit to watch though and again for balance I want to see much more from his team this season—promotion is the only acceptable outcome. I actually feel I'm a bit of a Bruce skeptic too, but jeeze, have some perspective! 

Edited July 18, 2017 by praisedmambo

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, Grasshopper said:

a long post (love it)

I agree with the majority of points and can understand the thinking behind those I dont agree with.

But to get absolutely to the point.

Will Bruces methods work in getting promotion with who we have, who we can get in?

The arguement is mostly

Yes - he's done it before and needs xyz (time/preseason/playerX.....)

No - Player decisions, Tactics, goals scored, chances created and 13th position behind Cardiff et al

I personally go by the facts and what I've seen so far at AVFC under him

Well if you're going off facts then last season he took us from 22nd to 13th, an improvement of 9 positions, if he replicates that again this season we'll finish 4th and in the playoffs, where would that leave your opinion?

[Villarocker]

1 hour ago, Grasshopper said:

a long post (love it)

I agree with the majority of points and can understand the thinking behind those I dont agree with.

But to get absolutely to the point.

Will Bruces methods work in getting promotion with who we have, who we can get in?

The arguement is mostly

Yes - he's done it before and needs xyz (time/preseason/playerX.....)

No - Player decisions, Tactics, goals scored, chances created and 13th position behind Cardiff et al

I personally go by the facts and what I've seen so far at AVFC under him

To be fair to both sides of that argument, you're right that the facts speak for themself but, also, time  and pre-season have yet to be had so that might turn out to be accurate too.

Let's just hope Bruce gets it together and takes us up this season. I can't bear the thought of another season like last season where it began with hope just to turn into yet another wasted season in the history books of AVFC. 

[Keener window-cleaner]

No matter what competition, what kind of match, formation or players, still looks the same. Dull. No movement and the players don't seem to know what to do except in defence, waiting for a 50/50 chance to score at some time of the game. Bruce better grind out results and get us promoted with this style of play this season...  

[Dave J]

2 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Well if you're going off facts then last season he took us from 22nd to 13th, an improvement of 9 positions, if he replicates that again this season we'll finish 4th and in the playoffs, where would that leave your opinion?

With the amount of money and games at his disposal - he should have made the play - offs  as a minimum imo - also how do you explain his logic in January?

Edited July 18, 2017 by Dave J
Missed something

[VILLAMARV]

 

33 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

a long post (love it)

I agree with the majority of points and can understand the thinking behind those I dont agree with.

But to get absolutely to the point.

Will Bruces methods work in getting promotion with who we have, who we can get in?

The arguement is mostly

Yes - he's done it before and needs xyz (time/preseason/playerX.....)

No - Player decisions, Tactics, goals scored, chances created and 13th position behind Cardiff et al

I personally go by the facts and what I've seen so far at AVFC under him

And therein lies the reason for 713 pages and the reason why us afflicted few can't wait to read what the next "mong on a message board" has written.

None of us know the answer eh? The only issue in framing the question in that way in boiling it down to a choice between A or B is that it totally ignores the utter complexity of the situation. And if the question isn't right in the first place, you'll never get the right answer. 

People go on about his 4 promotions a lot in this thread. I haven't seen much made of the fact that 2 of them were scraping through via the playoffs or that the other 2 were 2nd place finishes 2 points ahead of the teams in 3rd (Derby and Watford if anyone's bothered!) but thats probably because it doesn't fit any particular narrative.

Likewise, we can all look at his record and judge him on it. Like I said in my very longwinded rant that there's plenty to be concerned about. Only any stats for competitive games are a little skewed with things like Westwood. So the data is a bit flawed imho. And therein lies the argument for the effectiveness of using stats in football too. It's too complicated to boil down to simple formulae. We all see different things in the same numbers.

Mostly I don't think people should EXPECT him to be delivering a first place finish. We all want that for AVFC. We all know the importance of this season in financial terms. Nothing on his CV or what Ive seen of him so far suggest it's remotely possible. But then nothing I've seen from the players suggests it either. As others have said he might be a dinosaur tactically and all that but he doesn't tell them to wander around aimlessly pointing at things like Richards or stroll back like you can't be arsed from yet another pointless foray a la Hutton or hand over possession at a throw in. And if a team can't even take a throw in successfully.....

The flip side of that is under his tenure the quality of players in the first team and the results have improved. They're both facts.

I can't blindly follow him under the assumption that we're going to click against Hull, set a record for goals scored and go up as champions any more than I think sacking him is the right thing to do. There's a lot more at stake here than our style of play. Or to borrow from Shakespeare:

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "

[Johnnyp]

Mate of mine who's at the game tonight text me to say villa are awful. I remember the wise heads here who said "wait till he has a full pre season with the squad ". Dear oh dear.

[villa89]

On 7/17/2017 at 15:36, TrentVilla said:

What happens on the pitch is the result of what happens in training. Sure it's down to the players once they get out there, the manager can only do so much but that is because they and their coaches do their job in the week.

I didn't quote your whole post but most of the issues at the club are down to poor managers not getting the best out of the players they have at their disposal. If we appointed a good manager then the good ship Aston villa wouldn't be very long in turning around. 

As for Bruce, I think he's a dinosaur who believes that defending well amd working hard with passion and heart is how you succeed in football. It's not, it's usually having a possession based style of play and especially so when you have much better individual players than the opposition. I don't think he is able coach possession football and so I expect us to be poor to watch next season with Bruce eventually getting the sack. He's just not a good manager. It's that simple. 

Edited July 18, 2017 by villa89

[villa4europe]

Serious question, how do Steve Bruce's Aston Villa play football?

i honestly don't know what the answer is, we've got nothing

[bannedfromHandV]

40 minutes ago, Dave J said:

With the amount of money and games at his disposal - he should have made the play - offs  as a minimum imo - also how do you explain his logic in January?

Which 'logic' are you referring to?

[rodders0223]

Just now, villa4europe said:

Serious question, how do Steve Bruce's Aston Villa play football?

i honestly don't know what the answer is, we've got nothing

Pass it around the middle for 20 minutes. Run out of ideas. Look for Kodjia. If Kodjia is on, hope Kodjia does something. If Kodjia is not on, check back and pass it to your CB. Wait until the 70 minute mark and then just launch it and hope for the best.

[villa89]

Just now, villa4europe said:

Serious question, how do Steve Bruce's Aston Villa play football?

i honestly don't know what the answer is.

The answer is badly. But your point is valid I don't think Bruce himself knows how to set the team up to get the best out of the players. It was a farce last season when he kept changing formations hoping to stumble into something that worked. That's not good management and it has to affect the players when the manager has no conviction in what he is doing. Expect more of it this season. We'll have another formation lucky bag every week with random players being dropped. 

[StefanAVFC]

Much like 95% of Bruce's reign.

Dour.

[Reivax_Villa]

Sadly, I don't think he'a going to last. 

It's not even because we do not play attractive football. It's because we are so ineffective as a team. 

The players have been so poor tonight. But Bruce is unable to make us into an effective team. 

 

 

[AshVilla]

Where is this massive improvement people were saying was coming?

I just see the same 11 sheep from last season who are terrified to do anything with the ball other than pass it sideways and backwards.

Edited July 18, 2017 by AshVilla

[Johnnyp]

It was a shit appointment.  He's a poor manager, end of. What's worse is that Wyness and Round will probably bring the next guy in too if and when Bruce goes. They got this one wrong. Badly.

[sidcow]

I am starting to get the wobbles. 

2 friendlies against league opposition and we have nothing whatsoever to offer. 

Yes it's only pre season etc but things should be starting to come together.  We look so much like we did last season it's worrying. 

Need a big improvement next match or those wobbles may well turn into the jitters.