Steve Bruce

[Vive_La_Villa]

14 minutes ago, vreitti said:

Well I dunno either, but Birkir playing LW certainly isn't the answer. Also I've seen nothing from Onomah to suggest he's any better than Lansbury. I think one problem is though that Hourihane and Lansbury don't work well together. I'd be tempted to try O'Hare now, considering Snoddy is most likely out as well. 

I don't think Shef Wed will be anywhere near as good as Preston were today. We should have enough to beat them with Elmo and Snodgrass both back. I'd go with Onomah on the left and maybe start Grabban and Davis and drop Hogan. 

I've always said Our squad isn't as good as people think. Lose a few key players and we become pretty average. 

[AvfcRigo82]

10 hours ago, Fairy In Boots said:

I’ve been vocal in my criticism of Bruce. I find him limited despite our recent run which credit where it’s due has got us up challenging. I stopped criticising as it was getting results. 

Ill be honest though Bruce hasn’t changed, some of the players we’re masking the problem with their performances (Jack & Albert etc). 

He’s limited as a manager, he holds us back and there’s no plan B which gets found out against a top 8 team. Just look at our results we’d not beaten a top team till Bristol. A half decent manager could have this squad on Wolves heels but alas no we’re parking the bus at rivals home, playing players out of position continually after they’ve repeatedly failed in that position. Tactically attacking we’ve reverted to pumping it to Hogan because the 18 odd games in which we’ve done that already this season to no avail aren’t enough for a conclusive decision that it doesn’t work. 

It’s playoffs and we’ll get done by an organised side of inferior players. I’ve said it before but it’s so apt it’s unreal, it’s like watching a car crash in slow motion because his tactics work against the chaff sides he’ll get a win and the mob (which is how I see the vast majority of villa fans) will say “hey we won at the weekend how can you criticise. And the cycle will repeat.

Listen, we know all of this. It has been campaigned to Mars and back.

But seriously now, we need to put our thoughts of all of this negative stuff against Steve Bruce aside for now and just shelve it, store it, lock it in the cupboard, whatever! Just forget about it. Nothing will change by rocking the boat in this ocean any further.

We are sticking by Bruce and this team with the last 13 games remaining and that is all there is too that.

We need to remain focused. Yes I agree Bruce needs to have a word and seriously look at another setup starting XI and shuffle it around a little. We cannot now start to self implode and start another wave of hysteria when we need to stay on track in our goal.

The reality of it is that we are still sitting in 3rd place. We are still one point behind 2nd place. -We have to pray momentarily to the football gods in tonights games that the results fall nicely for our benefit in some ways or another, all is not lost.

Yes we nearly have lost 2 games now and valuble points slipped away, 1 pt in 4, equally if those results with teams around us keeps everything in the table unaltered then there is no real problem as such and all is not lost. 13 games still remaining. 

Let's just keep our minds set to how we where feeling only 10 days ago. It is how we pick ourselves up again and get it together. Bruce has a full backroom of staff and we know it all clicks through 7 games unbeaten.  He now has to do something to turn this around again and quickly.

Let's stick behind the manager and the players and focus, anything else right now is just absolute guffaw. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by AvfcRigo82

[Dodgyknees]

24 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Listen, we know all of this. It has been campaigned to Mars and back.

But seriously now, we need to put our thoughts of all of this negative stuff against Steve Bruce aside for now and just shelve it, store it, lock it in the cupboard, whatever! Just forget about it. Nothing will change by rocking the boat in this ocean any further.

We are sticking by Bruce and this team with the last 13 games remaining and that is all there is too that.

We need to remain focused. Yes I agree Bruce needs to have a word and seriously look at another setup starting XI and shuffle it around a little. We cannot now start to self implode and start another wave of hysteria when we need to stay on track in our goal.

The reality of it is that we are still sitting in 3rd place. We are still one point behind 2nd place. -We have to pray momentarily to the football gods in tonights games that the results fall nicely for our benefit in some ways or another, all is not lost.

Yes we have lost 2 games now and it is 6 valuble points slipped away, equally if those results with teams around us keeps everything in the table unaltered then there is no real problem as such and all is not lost. 13 games still remaining. 

Let's just keep our minds set to how we where feeling only 10 days ago. It is how we pick ourselves up again and get it together. Bruce has a full backroom of staff and we know it all clicks through 7 games unbeaten.  He now has to do something to turn this around again and quickly.

Let's stick behind the manager and the players and focus, anything else right now is just absolute guffaw. 

Spot on.

[AJ]

I think the mistake Steve made was sticking to the formation that has been tried and true during the winning streak. We had the players to make it work then, and work well. We don't have another player that can do what Jack does, so we cant expect Conor, or definitely not Odomah, to totally replace Jack in his role. The same for Albert. Green could do a fine job, but he is out too. Anybody else is just a stop gap solution.

I think in this current situation with injuries to key players, we need to adapt to the strengths of the players we have available, and tinker with the formation to ensure we get the best out of them, rather than having to play them in positions just to preserve the formation. Until Jack gets back, I would like us to try 4-4-2, where we can at least offer something more in attack. As for the backline and all things defensive, that doesn't need to change, so there is no need to adopt a more defensive formation.

I would rather see Villa score more goals than the other team, than revel in keeping a clean sheet.

[Lerner's Driver]

4 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Listen, we know all of this. It has been campaigned to Mars and back.

But seriously now, we need to put our thoughts of all of this negative stuff against Steve Bruce aside for now and just shelve it, store it, lock it in the cupboard, whatever! Just forget about it. Nothing will change by rocking the boat in this ocean any further.

We are sticking by Bruce and this team with the last 13 games remaining and that is all there is too that.

We need to remain focused. Yes I agree Bruce needs to have a word and seriously look at another setup starting XI and shuffle it around a little. We cannot now start to self implode and start another wave of hysteria when we need to stay on track in our goal.

The reality of it is that we are still sitting in 3rd place. We are still one point behind 2nd place. -We have to pray momentarily to the football gods in tonights games that the results fall nicely for our benefit in some ways or another, all is not lost.

Yes we have lost 2 games now and it is 6 valuble points slipped away, equally if those results with teams around us keeps everything in the table unaltered then there is no real problem as such and all is not lost. 13 games still remaining. 

Let's just keep our minds set to how we where feeling only 10 days ago. It is how we pick ourselves up again and get it together. Bruce has a full backroom of staff and we know it all clicks through 7 games unbeaten.  He now has to do something to turn this around again and quickly.

Let's stick behind the manager and the players and focus, anything else right now is just absolute guffaw. 

Well said, but whilst last night had the look and feel of another loss, it was actually draw. We stole a point, so things are even rosier!

[Eastie]

Needs to make a few changes on Saturday - too many players not doing enough for us last night.

[VillanousOne]

9 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I agree with all of this. 

Is Grealish definitely out? Also Snodgrass could be out too. 

You agree changes but you Don’t agree with changes

[VillanousOne]

8 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Nah the last time was Millwall. 

My point is Bruce sees these players everyday in training so he is in a better position to know if the change could work or not. He could have thrown them both in and we could have lost.  

Not sure what you have against o’hare, but my point was even if we do make changes either to the formation or starting eleven and it doesn’t work it is better than doing the same thing again and failing. Also no one wants to see midfielders or defenders play out of position or a defensive approach which we are back to.

Edited February 21, 2018 by VillanousOne

[Eastie]

7 hours ago, vreitti said:

Well I dunno either, but Birkir playing LW certainly isn't the answer. Also I've seen nothing from Onomah to suggest he's any better than Lansbury. I think one problem is though that Hourihane and Lansbury don't work well together. I'd be tempted to try O'Hare now, considering Snoddy is most likely out as well. 

Snoddy should be fit , he was ill last night not injured .

grealish is close but Bruce is worried in case he comes back too soon and is then out for several weeks as a result - I would start o hare without doubt but I think he should at least be an option from the bench as he offers something different .

lansbury should be in for hourihane who has been poor recently , may be harsh but I’d drop Hutton and bring back Taylor as we need someone who can cross with the left foot rather than getting into decent positions and cutting back on his right . 

Elmo needs to be right back where he links well with snoddy - switch tuanzebe into midfield . 

[Dave J]

My thoughts on SB are well documented so I am not launching into another salvo of Bruce out - I will only say he didn't suddenly become some tactical guru - moreover he was benefiting from some good form of a couple of players notably Jack Grealish- in SB's defence most clubs at this level Miss an on form Grealish.

For what it's worth I truly do not believe he is capable of galvanising the club as a whole - you only have to look at the reaction on here to a defeat and a loss to be aware of this

imagine if we do go up and are flirting with a relegation battle the football will revert to type and all of the negativity will come flooding back again much like the Mcleish/Lambert eras.

This said - he is and should not be going anywhere- this ship has sailed and although in my view he should have gone last December at the latest, he now represents our best chance of going up and despite my reservations of him as a manager I will be supporting him and the club to get over the line - I am expecting him to test this resolve to the maximum mind.

[Vive_La_Villa]

27 minutes ago, VillanousOne said:

Not sure what you have against o’hare, but my point was even if we do make changes either to the formation or starting eleven and it doesn’t work it is better than doing the same thing again and failing. Also no one wants to see midfielders or defenders play out of position or a defensive approach which we are back to.

I see where you are coming from must their must be a reason he doesn't fancy O'Hare and Lansbury. 

[Demitri_C]

8 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

He has got us into a great position but I think he needs to be braver.

I know it isn't going to be easy to replace two of our best attacking/creative players but he has better options than the ones he has chosen. Bjarnason is a very decent holding midfielder but you can't play him out wide as part of a front three or as part of a midfield three with Jedinak as he did Saturday. It tips the balance to being too defensive.

If Grealish is still out on Saturday then he needs to bring Grabban in to play out wide as he did tonight and play O'Hare in the advanced midfield role behind Hogan. Or do as he did tonight and go with two up top and go more direct. You can't get the best out of Hogan unless you put someone alongside him or have someone who can link up play as Grealish does as he becomes too isolated and starts to come deep as he did tonight to get involved.

It has been a disappointing couple of games but at the moment it is just a blip. The next two games will either prove that to be the case or show it as something more damaging. The manager now has to ensure it is the former.

For me lansbury is ahead of o hare. O hare though should definitely be on the bench for this. I am not convinced with Davis either starting. 

I think yesterday could have killed off our chances for 2nd. cardiff will win tonight meaning 5 points above us and derby will probably win also meaning we slip to 4th. pretty poor. bruce set us up far too negativity last night if he does that against Wednesday we wont have a chance

[Vive_La_Villa]

3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

For me lansbury is ahead of o hare. O hare though should definitely be on the bench for this. I am not convinced with Davis either starting. 

I think yesterday could have killed off our chances for 2nd. cardiff will win tonight meaning 5 points above us and derby will probably win also meaning we slip to 4th. pretty poor. bruce set us up far too negativity last night if he does that against Wednesday we wont have a chance

It will mean 4 points. Where do you keep getting the extra point one. 

Also I don't think it's as simple as being set up defensive or attacking which leads to poor performances. Sometimes you just have to accept the opposition out fought us, out through us, and were just the better team all round. 

[Demitri_C]

Just now, Vive_La_Villa said:

It will mean 4 points. Where do you keep getting the extra point one. 

Also I don't think it's as simple as being set up defensive or attacking which leads to poor performances. Sometimes you just have to accept the opposition out fought us, out through us, and were just the better team all round. 

It was in our own hands and yet again we get ourselves in a good position and bottle it. fulham yeah you can understand its a tough away game but yesterday we need to be winning that.. its not easy without your better players but we were setup too defensive. how many balls were we trying to get forward and then the cross would go in and you would have one or no players at all. he waits until we go behind before changing it. 

we needed a menace/pest in CM and this would have been a great opportunity to bring lansbury in  but bruce didnt. i know davis won the pen (but it was never a pen) but he really was pretty poor. 2nd to most balls and looked lazy at times

i thought preston were better no quetsion but we were inviting pressure on and were so poor with the ball 

[tomav84]

8 hours ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

Listen, we know all of this. It has been campaigned to Mars and back.

But seriously now, we need to put our thoughts of all of this negative stuff against Steve Bruce aside for now and just shelve it, store it, lock it in the cupboard, whatever! Just forget about it. Nothing will change by rocking the boat in this ocean any further.

We are sticking by Bruce and this team with the last 13 games remaining and that is all there is too that.

We need to remain focused. Yes I agree Bruce needs to have a word and seriously look at another setup starting XI and shuffle it around a little. We cannot now start to self implode and start another wave of hysteria when we need to stay on track in our goal.

The reality of it is that we are still sitting in 3rd place. We are still one point behind 2nd place. -We have to pray momentarily to the football gods in tonights games that the results fall nicely for our benefit in some ways or another, all is not lost.

Yes we have lost 2 games now and it is 6 valuble points slipped away, equally if those results with teams around us keeps everything in the table unaltered then there is no real problem as such and all is not lost. 13 games still remaining. 

Let's just keep our minds set to how we where feeling only 10 days ago. It is how we pick ourselves up again and get it together. Bruce has a full backroom of staff and we know it all clicks through 7 games unbeaten.  He now has to do something to turn this around again and quickly.

Let's stick behind the manager and the players and focus, anything else right now is just absolute guffaw. 

spot on apart for the slightly inaccurate bit highlighted

[Taxahunter]

F****d it up for the second game in a row, both his starting line up and his substitutions...

Why change a RB for a RB with 10 minutes to go, when we should be going for a winning goal, just baffles me...

Nothing more to say

[Vive_La_Villa]

11 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

It was in our own hands and yet again we get ourselves in a good position and bottle it. fulham yeah you can understand its a tough away game but yesterday we need to be winning that.. its not easy without your better players but we were setup too defensive. how many balls were we trying to get forward and then the cross would go in and you would have one or no players at all. he waits until we go behind before changing it. 

we needed a menace/pest in CM and this would have been a great opportunity to bring lansbury in  but bruce didnt. i know davis won the pen (but it was never a pen) but he really was pretty poor. 2nd to most balls and looked lazy at times

i thought preston were better no quetsion but we were inviting pressure on and were so poor with the ball 

I don't think we invited pressure but I do agree we were poor on the ball. Playing a so called attacking style wouldn't change that. 

First half we effectively had 10 men.  Snodgrass was clearly not with it. 9 men if you include Hourihane who huffed and puffed all half. 

Onomah is getting loads of stick but from what I could see he was coming deep to pick up the ball and there would be no movement around him. The one time there was Thor managed to break free and get a shot off. 

second half we made changes and as poor as Davis was he offered more than what Snodgrass and Hourihane did. We had 11 players again and he showed. 

Say what you want about how we set up. It doesn't chance the fact that we were just very poor. 

[Eastie]

30 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

For me lansbury is ahead of o hare. O hare though should definitely be on the bench for this. I am not convinced with Davis either starting. 

I think yesterday could have killed off our chances for 2nd. cardiff will win tonight meaning 5 points above us and derby will probably win also meaning we slip to 4th. pretty poor. bruce set us up far too negativity last night if he does that against Wednesday we wont have a chance

Lansbury should replace hourihane and o hare in the Grealish role .

[Taxahunter]

9 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

You want to see them because it's a change. But it doesn't mean it will work. Lansbury played against Millwall and we got completely over ran. O'Hare did nothing special against Sheff Wed. I didn't see him against Peterborough but I didn't hear he was a world beater. 

I understand why everyone wants change. But I'd bet money if Bruce made the changes it wouldnt be long because you are all shouting for change again. 

I can't remember who was playing CM with Lansbury in the Millwall game, but it can't be all his fault? Lansbury is miles better than Thor or Onomah in the CM/ACM role.

O'hare didn't do much in The Wednesday game, but who did? He improved as soon as Grealish came on, running the channels, showing he wanted to have the ball and actually set up our goal at the end

[Vive_La_Villa]

2 minutes ago, Taxahunter said:

I can't remember who was playing CM with Lansbury in the Millwall game, but it can't be all his fault? Lansbury is miles better than Thor or Onomah in the CM/ACM role.

O'hare didn't do much in The Wednesday game, but who did? He improved as soon as Grealish came on, running the channels, showing he wanted to have the ball and actually set up our goal at the end

From what I remember Lansbury didn't have the legs and we got overrun in the middle. Can't remember who he was playing with though. Could have been Hourihane. 

In the Shef wed game Samba scored our goal so we may as well whack him up front.

Seriously though I haven't seen enough of O'Hare to comment on him and think he can make that much difference. It seems many of you have so you must think he is more than capable. Clearly Bruce doesn't.