Steve Bruce

[mykeyb]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I agree with both yours and Dem's post.

If he'd have gone 1 up top and 5 in the middle then he'd have been slated for giving them too much respect and the mighty Aston Villa should not be going to Wolves so defensive, same old Bruce defensive first etc. He plays 2 up top and he still gets the same treatment. Wolves looked great in the final third, it was unfortunate we caught them on a very good day. I think they'd have beaten a lot of premier league teams on that performance.

Agree with the above, but most fans could see what was happening in that game and really Bruce should have reacted and made a substition to change it after 30 minutes, definitely at half time and he didnt. Wolves made the change at half time and while it didnt change the game it did change the result, Bruce waited until the 2nd goal before he made the change and by then the game was gone.

[BG_Villa_Fan]

12 hours ago, terrytini said:

IMO he doesn’t lack courage. He just genuinely believes his way works. And of course in his many seasons of management it has sometimes worked ( also in many others it hasn’t).

I struggle to think of any Managers, past or present, who change their overall approach......part of management especially in football is ego.....they have to have it.......and it means that they all usually try to impose their “way” on every group. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails, most times it’s between the two.

 

 

Somehow Lambert managed to do this overnight. 

Edited October 16, 2017 by BG_Villa_Fan

[Vive_La_Villa]

I wrote on here that this was a game where Bruce would be in his element where he can shutup shop and play on the break. Many also said the same.  

Yet rather than doing what he does best he decided to go with the same 442 and we were completely open in the middle. He didn't even attempt to change it!  So why change your philosophy against a team where it's crying out for your style to contain them? Surely it's not to try and please the fans? 

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the result would have been different had we played a more defensive formation. I just don't think Bruce sets up or plans his teams based on the opposition.  

[Grasshopper]

2 hours ago, Lord Willard said:

I was playing golf all weekend but I’m glad I missed the game. Going by the highlights we had one chance when Snodgrass hit the bar. Apart from that moment the other 4.30 mins of highlights were of us 18 yards away from our goal. 

 

Very dissappointing 

I was playing golf Tue, Wed & Thu. But worked all weekend.

Bro, we have it tough?

[Demitri_C]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

Because what works against the weakest teams may not work against the better teams?  Because as he apparently said (haven't seen the remarks myself but others have reported them here) he acknowledged that 442 wasn't suited to playing Wolves?

His comments after the game were dismissive of tactics and formations having anything to do with it. (Here)

So just down to the players then, nothing to do with him.  Right. 

It's been remarked several times that he doesn't try to apply tactics or change formations to suit a particular match. 

If he had changed the system, could explain why, if we had put up a decent performance and lost, I think most people would accept that.  The feeling persists that he sticks to a formation on the same basis that some people prefer to wear a lucky pair of underpants, while other managers seek to plan, adapt, and anticipate.

I disagree completely people would be more angry had we lost after changing a successful formula. I don't see other than adding another cm what Bruce could have done to win this. But that would mean dropping kodjia or Davis and none should have been dropped for this performance.

i think we would have lost regardless of tactics because a lot of the players were poor. How many players actually had a good game? You can't have poor games like that against arguably the best team in the league.

i think it was more the instructions that annoyed me, it seemed to me Bruce instructed a more cautious approach in this game.

also I'd like to add that people keep dismissing the teams we beat but this was the same Barnsley that boro couldn't beat and if you look at some of the sides we beat they gave had some impressive results against good sides.

if we don't have positive results in. Ext two then Bruce will have a lot to answer for

[Demitri_C]

4 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Bruce would have got slaughtered regardless.

I'd rather he got slaughtered for doing something that would help us perform better.

But that's arguable that would have ended in a more positive response. In fact I think 5 in the middle makes us more negative than what we were so don't see how that would have worked.

i think formula was correct but the approach was wrong, we didn't get at them enough

[Grasshopper]

Would somebody please explain the logic to the following:

Why spend a year getting a set of players to play shyte football (which only gets shyte-ier) when you can spend a year getting them to play good football?

Cos this shyte wont get us promoted?

[praisedmambo]

29 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I disagree completely people would be more angry had we lost after changing a successful formula. I don't see other than adding another cm what Bruce could have done to win this. But that would mean dropping kodjia or Davis and none should have been dropped for this performance.

i think we would have lost regardless of tactics because a lot of the players were poor. How many players actually had a good game? You can't have poor games like that against arguably the best team in the league.

i think it was more the instructions that annoyed me, it seemed to me Bruce instructed a more cautious approach in this game.

also I'd like to add that people keep dismissing the teams we beat but this was the same Barnsley that boro couldn't beat and if you look at some of the sides we beat they gave had some impressive results against good sides.

if we don't have positive results in. Ext two then Bruce will have a lot to answer for

They had poor games because we were outclassed and clueless. It's no coincidence these poor games happen whenever we play the better sides. Its no coincidence too when they suddenly look better against relegation candidates. With the amount of money we've spent and the players we have there's no excuse to be completely outclassed by wolves, Cardiff and reading – and all the teams that did so last year too. I can accept losing but it's the way we're non-existent and clueless looking that gets me. We barely have shots on goal in these games beyond a couple of lucky breaks. 

[Grasshopper]

100% this^

[srsmithusa]

5 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I agree we should have had a extra man there but could you imagine if davis was dropped and we lost? Bruce would have got slaughtered

curiously, I did not think his job description was to avoid harsh criticism.  I thought his job description was to win matches.  Failing to win he should by criticized and harshly.  Being a manager of such experience, you would think he would know that.

[TheStagMan]

I think anyone saying that Bruce was considering the fans reactions when planning for this game is giving him far too much credit. 

 

I'm sure he does not give a sh*t about the fans reactions and more likely has no clue how to get this team performing against the better teams in this league.

Edited October 16, 2017 by TheStagMan

[Demitri_C]

32 minutes ago, praisedmambo said:

They had poor games because we were outclassed and clueless. It's no coincidence these poor games happen whenever we play the better sides. Its no coincidence too when they suddenly look better against relegation candidates. With the amount of money we've spent and the players we have there's no excuse to be completely outclassed by wolves, Cardiff and reading – and all the teams that did so last year too. I can accept losing but it's the way we're non-existent and clueless looking that gets me. We barely have shots on goal in these games beyond a couple of lucky breaks. 

It's not really true though us it is? We beat Sheffield wed derby, drew twice with Brighton last year. We also beat reading last year. I think it's more the away grounds we find it trickier than the quality of opposition. 

We are a upper top championship team we are going to lose games that's the way it is. But it's how we bounce back after the defeats and the volume of defeats that will determine Bruce position in my view. 

[DaveAV1]

12 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

It's not really true though us it is? We beat Sheffield wed derby, drew twice with Brighton last year. We also beat reading last year. I think it's more the away grounds we find it trickier than the quality of opposition. 

We are a upper top championship team we are going to lose games that's the way it is. But it's how we bounce back after the defeats and the volume of defeats that will determine Bruce position in my view. 

If we find playing away so difficult then we have a big problem, given that they make up half of the matches. Of course most, if not all teams do better at home, but we seem to have a problem with the mind set. We expect to struggle and the manager doesn’t know how to overcome this. As a team we are not comfortable in our own skin, because we don’t really know who we are, as others have said, we lack a footballing identity. Therefore in situations in which we are less than comfortable, we don’t have that bedrock of a familiar identity to fall back on.

Bruce’s footballing identity is to tough it out and struggle on, picking up results by being obdurate. This has worked for him in the past, but the football world has and is continuing to move on. Steve Bruce won’t just reinvent himself and so should move aside, or be moved aside, for a much more forward thinking manager who is comfortable in the brave new world. The worry is of course that this won’t happen, because we have a CEO who isn’t ready for the brave new world either. But that’s for a different thread.

[flashingqwerty]

2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I wrote on here that this was a game where Bruce would be in his element where he can shutup shop and play on the break. Many also said the same.  

Yet rather than doing what he does best he decided to go with the same 442 and we were completely open in the middle. He didn't even attempt to change it!  So why change your philosophy against a team where it's crying out for your style to contain them? Surely it's not to try and please the fans? 

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the result would have been different had we played a more defensive formation. I just don't think Bruce sets up or plans his teams based on the opposition.  

Or the squads strengths

Or the players available for selection

Or the form of individuals

Or any logical reasoning really

[Demitri_C]

57 minutes ago, DaveAV1 said:

If we find playing away so difficult then we have a big problem, given that they make up half of the matches. Of course most, if not all teams do better at home, but we seem to have a problem with the mind set. We expect to struggle and the manager doesn’t know how to overcome this. As a team we are not comfortable in our own skin, because we don’t really know who we are, as others have said, we lack a footballing identity. Therefore in situations in which we are less than comfortable, we don’t have that bedrock of a familiar identity to fall back on.

Bruce’s footballing identity is to tough it out and struggle on, picking up results by being obdurate. This has worked for him in the past, but the football world has and is continuing to move on. Steve Bruce won’t just reinvent himself and so should move aside, or be moved aside, for a much more forward thinking manager who is comfortable in the brave new world. The worry is of course that this won’t happen, because we have a CEO who isn’t ready for the brave new world either. But that’s for a different thread.

I agree if thats the case we wont go up. We need to win at the big grounds if we have aspirations of going up. The away form has been a problem for years now from.the lambert days.

I agree Bruce needs to adapt to the times if he wants to be a success here.  The quality of the teams here isnt great. But i do feel there has been progress since last year. But it needs to be consistent. If we go on to win and be unbeaten in another 8 games then we are heading in right direction. 

We will soon see as the opposition is alot better in next few games 

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

But that's arguable that would have ended in a more positive response. In fact I think 5 in the middle makes us more negative than what we were so don't see how that would have worked.

i think formula was correct but the approach was wrong, we didn't get at them enough

I couldn't disagree more. 

Less strikers doesn't mean more negative. That's an over simplification.

5 in midfield would have meant we might have held onto the ball for more than 3 passes, as well as being able to close down the opposition more and win the ball back. 

As it was we had two men up front doing nothing the whole game while our midfield got bypassed again and again. 

[Villarocker]

Last season we shopped at Barnsley, Brentford, Bristol City, Forest etc. This season, we took a Chelsea retiree, a relegated right-sided player, a utility attacker that was hardly getting a game at West Ham and, a sluggish DM from Stoke. Wolves did their shopping at top teams in Porto, Benfica, Athletico Madrid. You shop in the right places and you get quality!

Years ago we would take players that have been at top team. Now we shop in lower leagues and getting what we (over)pay for.

Edited October 16, 2017 by villarocker

[TRO]

8 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

We were really poor on Saturday. Wrong setup for me.

I know he would have got slaughtered for it on here because everybody wants us to attack everyone for some reason, but I said before the game we should be loading the midfield for this one. We should have dropped an extra man in midfield and gone with Kodjia on his own up front.

With Wolves' possession game they were always going to pass it through us, and with a two man central midfield we didn't have much hope of stopping them.

 

Not to take anything away from our performance, which was definitely poor, but Wolves did look a very good side. The best side I've seen us play this season by an absolute mile.

I would have gone with 4-2-3-1....but no matter what system you play, the players have to be at it, I don't think they was.....for whatever reason.

[mykeyb]

28 minutes ago, villarocker said:

Last season we shopped at Barnsley, Brentford, Bristol City, Forest etc. This season, we took a Chelsea retiree, a relegated right-sided player, a utility attacker that was hardly getting a game at West Ham and, a sluggish DM from Stoke. Wolves did their shopping at top teams in Porto, Benfica, Athletico Madrid. You shop in the right places and you get quality!

Years ago we would take players that have been at top team. Now we shop in lower leagues and getting what we (over)pay for.

There werent too many fans last january complaining about signing Bree, Lansbury, Hourihane & Hogan. Had they continued in their respective forms then there wouldnt be much complaining now either. The bigger question is why did Bruce buy them? only 1 out of that 4 is a starter for us, add Thor on that list too and it looks like Bruce completely f'd up.

[TRO]

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I disagree completely people would be more angry had we lost after changing a successful formula. I don't see other than adding another cm what Bruce could have done to win this. But that would mean dropping kodjia or Davis and none should have been dropped for this performance.

i think we would have lost regardless of tactics because a lot of the players were poor. How many players actually had a good game? You can't have poor games like that against arguably the best team in the league.

i think it was more the instructions that annoyed me, it seemed to me Bruce instructed a more cautious approach in this game.

also I'd like to add that people keep dismissing the teams we beat but this was the same Barnsley that boro couldn't beat and if you look at some of the sides we beat they gave had some impressive results against good sides.

if we don't have positive results in. Ext two then Bruce will have a lot to answer for

Thats where i am with this.

Just picking out one aspect of our games.....we rarely win a header in the centre of the park.....that to me smacks of an uncompetitive approach/nature, its half hearted, no conviction......and thats what I saw against Wolves.....why, I don't know......its not going to (directly )win or lose you games, but its an indicator of the lack of conviction and combative spirit.

Edited October 16, 2017 by TRO