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Steve Bruce


Demitri_C

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We approach every game with either one of two basic plans, get the ball down the wings or to Kodjia and hope, a lot of that play involves hoofing it.

In quite a lot of games the tactics we set out with quickly fall short against teams that press hard and keep possession well. The issue is when that happens it's game over, we never have a plan B and I am not sure any subs Bruce has made in recent times has helped us win or draw a game.

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Also Bruce has signed 16 players in his 12 months here but he still hasn't been able to put together a cohesive team of 11 players who can put in consistent performances, he now wants to wheel and deal again in January. At what point do we as fans have the right to ask if he genuinely doesn't know how to achieve what he wants?

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 What we need ,is a manager, who is going to have us playing winning excitable football ,just like our neighbours, Wolves are doing . We haven't looked like a cohesive unit in a long time . Whatever the reasons are ,I honestly can't see this manager being able to get us playing in a consistent discernible, style . We're a slipshod team and the responsibility of that lies firmly with the manager.  He couldn't cope at Sunderland and became overawed by the situation. It seems to me he's finding the challenge that is ,Aston Villa ,just as ,if not more , difficult. I'm starting to believe he's out of his depth .

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Yesterday annoyed me.

 

I said in the pre-match thread that I don't like 4-4-2, or rather I don't like us playing it. 
Yes I know we got a few good results with it and there is obviously a time and a place for it, but generally we are a better team playing 4-5-1/4-3-3

Especially against a good team, you need to control the midfield. And Hourihane and Whelan aren't good enough to do that on their own. All that ends up happening is we isolate our two strikers and rely on long balls up to them. 

Yesterday exactly that happened. However, despite being 2 goals down, I didn't think we were THAT out of it when the second went in. So I was heartened when I saw Bruce's substitution before half time. I didn't agree with bringing Snodgrass off. It should have been Hogan. But the fact he shifted Hogan to the right and brought O'Hare on in midfield encouraged me that he had at least realised that 4-4-2 wasn't working.

Then lo and behold, we come back out after half time and 4-4-2 is back with Hogan back up front and O'Hare shifted out wide. 

That confused and annoyed me. I knew from then that we'd get nothing from that game.

 

I still defend Bruce more than attack him. And whilst I've been in the Bruce Out camp before, I still remain fairly confident that he can take us up this season.
But my god he has some blind spots.

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1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

Yesterday annoyed me.

 

I said in the pre-match thread that I don't like 4-4-2, or rather I don't like us playing it. 
Yes I know we got a few good results with it and there is obviously a time and a place for it, but generally we are a better team playing 4-5-1/4-3-3

Especially against a good team, you need to control the midfield. And Hourihane and Whelan aren't good enough to do that on their own. All that ends up happening is we isolate our two strikers and rely on long balls up to them. 

Yesterday exactly that happened. However, despite being 2 goals down, I didn't think we were THAT out of it when the second went in. So I was heartened when I saw Bruce's substitution before half time. I didn't agree with bringing Snodgrass off. It should have been Hogan. But the fact he shifted Hogan to the right and brought O'Hare on in midfield encouraged me that he had at least realised that 4-4-2 wasn't working.

Then lo and behold, we come back out after half time and 4-4-2 is back with Hogan back up front and O'Hare shifted out wide. 

That confused and annoyed me. I knew from then that we'd get nothing from that game.

 

I still defend Bruce more than attack him. And whilst I've been in the Bruce Out camp before, I still remain fairly confident that he can take us up this season.
But my god he has some blind spots.

At some stage you are going to need to beat one of the better sides in this division to seal promotion - I just don’t see him preparing a team that will do this. Wednesday are not the team of last year and we still could not get a result against them- Wolves was appalling 

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On 04/11/2017 at 18:02, DaveAV1 said:

You think Tommy Elphick, Chris Samba and Micah Richards constitute adequate cover?

Poster said we went into the season with 3 centre backs...we didn't, it was 5. Nothing like making stuff up to fit your argument.

Ideally we  would have kept baker and flogged richards but ffp saw to that. How many centre backs do you think we need?

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5 hours ago, TRO said:

No,no,no....I blame both, they are in it together.....what I am saying its not All wholly and soley manager in a direct sense.

I accept that he is responsible for the football side of things, but when they cross the white line, there are things that he cannot be directly responsible for, the players must take that.

I hope i have been able to make my position clear.

However, Sheff Wed and their manager collectively did well yesterday.

I understand what you are saying but for me it all comes back to the Manager. Players play well when they are clear what is required of them, when they are in the right positions, when they are properly motivated, when they have tactics that suit them and that they understand. 

If course you can’t legislate for an individual error here and there but in the main the Manager takes credit for good performances and takes the flack for bad ones

I don’t have confidence in Bruce and I think a number of the players probably don’t either - under a different manager I think we could see a whole different performance

We are not going up under Bruce

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3 hours ago, peterms said:

I'd have thought his job as a player was organising the back four, not determining the tactics for the team and the match.

As a manager, as we've discussed, he has made comments suggesting he places less importance on tactics than many other managers, and many people here have commented that this is an example of an approach which may have been ok some time ago, but looks out of place today (or to use the shorthand expression, "dinosaur").

If he does have the comprehensive understanding of tactics that we would like, then the question is why he doesn't seem able to deploy a large and pretty good squad effectively, on a consistent basis.  I think that's why some people feel that when something goes right, it's not necessarily been part of a plan, and when something goes wrong, he doesn't always seem to show a response that addresses the problem.

Well, your first paragraph made me chuckle.....are you seriously expecting me to believe as captain of a successful team his breadth of knowledge was just confined to the back four.....come on.

He has made is comments and i guess they would have been discussed in his interview.

i have already made my comments in earlier posts, i am not convinced they cover all our ills.

i accept your comments of more significant today, but still think they are over used in set backs.

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37 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

I understand what you are saying but for me it all comes back to the Manager. Players play well when they are clear what is required of them, when they are in the right positions, when they are properly motivated, when they have tactics that suit them and that they understand. 

If course you can’t legislate for an individual error here and there but in the main the Manager takes credit for good performances and takes the flack for bad ones

I don’t have confidence in Bruce and I think a number of the players probably don’t either - under a different manager I think we could see a whole different performance

We are not going up under Bruce

I understand your position on this and i can see we won't agree.....albeit a technicality imv

finally....if players find themselves in or out of form, there is not much the manager can do either way.....except remove them if they are out of form.

ps i don't think this team in its present form will go up auto, particularly with no JT.

pps we are experiencing too many injuries to key players.....funny how the not so good ones rarely get injured.

Edited by TRO
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2 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Yesterday annoyed me.

 

I said in the pre-match thread that I don't like 4-4-2, or rather I don't like us playing it. 
Yes I know we got a few good results with it and there is obviously a time and a place for it, but generally we are a better team playing 4-5-1/4-3-3

Especially against a good team, you need to control the midfield. And Hourihane and Whelan aren't good enough to do that on their own. All that ends up happening is we isolate our two strikers and rely on long balls up to them. 

Yesterday exactly that happened. However, despite being 2 goals down, I didn't think we were THAT out of it when the second went in. So I was heartened when I saw Bruce's substitution before half time. I didn't agree with bringing Snodgrass off. It should have been Hogan. But the fact he shifted Hogan to the right and brought O'Hare on in midfield encouraged me that he had at least realised that 4-4-2 wasn't working.

Then lo and behold, we come back out after half time and 4-4-2 is back with Hogan back up front and O'Hare shifted out wide. 

That confused and annoyed me. I knew from then that we'd get nothing from that game.

 

I still defend Bruce more than attack him. And whilst I've been in the Bruce Out camp before, I still remain fairly confident that he can take us up this season.
But my god he has some blind spots.

Agree with most of that....in the case of Hogan, he is moving him around to try and get it to work....I think irrespective of the formation Hogan looks less an less likely to succeed.

He even had to scream to him to get further forward on saturday.

i also think if we have to play 5 in midfield ( and i get what you say) individually they are not  good enough......we cannot afford to overload one dept at the expense of another.

its just sweeping the dirt under the mat.

ps but the whole thing annoyed me too.

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14 hours ago, TRO said:

So why did he leave?

Resigned after poor start to following seasons Then managed Porto for 2 years. 

So yes he may not have won much as a manager but he has managed some pretty big clubs. A lot bigger than clubs managed by any other Championship manager.

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9 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Yesterday annoyed me.

 

I said in the pre-match thread that I don't like 4-4-2, or rather I don't like us playing it. 
Yes I know we got a few good results with it and there is obviously a time and a place for it, but generally we are a better team playing 4-5-1/4-3-3

Especially against a good team, you need to control the midfield. And Hourihane and Whelan aren't good enough to do that on their own. All that ends up happening is we isolate our two strikers and rely on long balls up to them. 

Yesterday exactly that happened. However, despite being 2 goals down, I didn't think we were THAT out of it when the second went in. So I was heartened when I saw Bruce's substitution before half time. I didn't agree with bringing Snodgrass off. It should have been Hogan. But the fact he shifted Hogan to the right and brought O'Hare on in midfield encouraged me that he had at least realised that 4-4-2 wasn't working.

Then lo and behold, we come back out after half time and 4-4-2 is back with Hogan back up front and O'Hare shifted out wide. 

That confused and annoyed me. I knew from then that we'd get nothing from that game.

 

I still defend Bruce more than attack him. And whilst I've been in the Bruce Out camp before, I still remain fairly confident that he can take us up this season.
But my god he has some blind spots.

Agree with this. Against better teams we will get completely over run in midfield with only Whelan and Houriane. The same happened against Wolves. 

I said after that game i wonder how much homework Bruce does on our opponents. Looks like he failed to do any again. 

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10 hours ago, VillanousOne said:

We approach every game with two plans, get the ball down the wings or to Kodjia and hope, a lot of that play involves hoofing it.

In quite a lot of games the tactics we set out with quickly fall short against teams that press hard and keep possession well. The issue is when that happens it's game over, we never have a plan B and I am not sure any subs Bruce has made in recent times has helped us win or draw a game.

I don't think hoofball is a tactic as such (I hope not anyway) It's more because of the lack of moment and options for a player. More often then not there is no outlet so defenders or deep midfields are forced to go long. 

If you watched Shef Wed when they would win the ball back they would always have a nice spell of possession. It was quite frustrating to watch. 

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8 hours ago, TRO said:

i also think if we have to play 5 in midfield ( and i get what you say) individually they are not  good enough......we cannot afford to overload one dept at the expense of another.

 

Sorry TRO, I usually agree with a lot of what you say but this doesn't make any sense.

We're not overloading one department at the expense of another. We are loading the midfield to allow us to control it. That then allows players like Adomah and Snodgrass to push on and support Davis/Kodjia in attack. We effectively end up with 3 attackers so it's doing the opposite of isolating the striker.

This is why I always say I despair when people demand we play 4-4-2 because it's more attacking.
It isn't more attacking. We are a more attacking team when we play 4-5-1/4-3-3 with the two wingers supporting the striker. 

Especially with a striker like Davis, he can hold the ball up and play in those kind of players.

Both Fulham and Preston saw us use that formation very effectively, and I think it should be our default unless we are playing a weaker side or the situation dictates we move away from it.

Edited by Stevo985
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Two things to address there OBE.

Firstly, if we were not in the playoff spots but playing a nicer brand of football, I certainly would not be happy and I think a lot of people would feel the same way. I might be odd because I actually enjoying watching players defend well, almost as much as good attacking play but in any case, results come first. Every time. 

Secondly, there are times when expectations hamper a team something rotten. The 'critical mass' of this is when the best a manager can realistically do is the minimum possible requirement from the fanbase. Pressure is often a killer and we haven't finished in the top half of a table since 2010/2011. I think a lot of people underestimated the turnaround process and just quite how fragile the mentality of the team was and still sort of is. Expecting too much is a dangerous game to play because it'll often leave you disappointed and your team under too much pressure. 

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1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I don't think hoofball is a tactic as such (I hope not anyway) It's more because of the lack of moment and options for a player. More often then not there is no outlet so defenders or deep midfields are forced to go long. 

Absolutely this.

I think people forget that managers do actually have brains sometimes. People actually think Bruce sends the team out with the instruction to just hoof it long at every opportunity.

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44 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

A results business, isn't it?

It's interesting that results have us in and around the play off positions, something that would ordinarily be judged as 'okay', not brilliance, but not bad enough to put a manager under any serious pressure. That's how things feel at the ground and in the press. But every fan site or place where people discuss football has more than a smattering of critics and criticism of Bruce and more than a handful of those who would be happy to see him go. 

I think it's changed a little , I'm not sure it's only about results. Since the leagues changed and became a closed shop at the top, fans of anyone except the top six have been asked to reset their ambitions, to change the way they dream about football, to accept that winning things is no longer for them and their teams and to find satisfaction elsewhere.

This is exacerbated because fans are always one notch above where the team is, and in our case, our hopes are a full three or four notches above where we are today (and rightly so). Take the team up the hill; West Brom have wanted to be an established Premier league team for years; they now are. This has been achieved by a pretty dour manager playing terrible football. For Albion fans, one step ahead of their team, this isn't enough. They can't win anything that's a given, but they now see Premier league survival as a right, not an achievement - it leaves them in a strange limbo, that limbo can only be filled with performances. When you can't win, you need to be average in a beautiful way. That'll get Tony Pulis the sack in the end, not results - results aren't the be all and end all any more for Albion. (They will be when they've sacked him and go down - but that's a different topic).

For Steve Bruce, as a Villa fan, I expect my team to be in the top flight, in fact, I'd expect them to be in the top half of the top flight - I know we're not, but it doesn't change that idea that lives in my head. Therefore, being in the top six in the Championship isn't a huge achievement - in order for results to be enough on their own, we'd need to be in the top two and looking like a team that can stay there. So sixth for me needs a little something else - it's a cake that needs icing. What we have instead is an un-iced cake that doesn't taste too good.

Results are massively important, don't get me wrong, but for any manager now who falls anywhere near short of the results demanded by a fanbase, there needs to be something else - we could be eighth with a young team playing progressive, attacking football and I'd be happy, I'd have something to attach my emotional reaction to the football team to; beauty, a bright future, all those sorts of things. We're not, we're a one shot ageing team playing ugly football that's designed to get results.

 We're not far off making it work - the team has my head, it can win games. we're hard to beat, we came amass points and a playoff finish is definitely on. That's almost enough to stir the emotions, and it might be enough at the exciting end of the season - but it's a risky game. If those results aren't quite enough, if we're seventh, if we hit a bumpy road, then the football hasn't done enough to grab my heart, or the heart of the fanbase - that's dangerous for a manager - it'll get him trouble.

It is a results business, but the results demanded by the fanbase will always be one notch up, there's then a line that we're teetering along where results fall into the category of 'acceptable' to remain in place whilst walking that line you have to win the battle for hearts, not just minds - you have to show that 'acceptable' results are tempered with beauty and hope. If you don't you'll be on the edge of trouble, an uncomfortable seat. I think that's where Bruce is, he needs results to keep him in the job before performances put him under pressure.

 

 

 

Some good points there but I think majority of Villa fans have accepted we will not see a decent style of football under Bruce. For the most part that's fine as long as we keep getting the results. But the reason the fans are sceptical even though the position is ok is we see the football week in week out. We know that there are still a lot of problems which will be exposed sooner or later. Hopefully Saturday wasn't the start of them.

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