Steve Bruce

[bobzy]

2 hours ago, DCJonah said:

But the opposite is true. If kodjia hits that shot an inch lower, his individual moment of brilliance gets 3 points and Bruce would get the credit for the 3 points and the win. 

I don't think he can be responsible for every individual action that happens on the pitch, but as manager and coach he is responsible for how they mainly perform over a 90 minute game. 

Apart from that we all know the credit would be given to Kodjia 100% of the time.

 

If players do something well, they get the credit (plenty of comments on here recently about current form being despite the current manager rather than because of), if they don't it's down to the manager.

I also remember when Ranieri "lost the dressing room" and people on here were saying how disgusting it was that the players didn't perform for him.  However, if it happens to Villa, Steve Bruce should just do better.

 

Strange world, football  

[briny_ear]

5 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

The issue I have is that the last 15 minutes of the first half we were doing nothing going forward and Onomah was totally anonymous. The brave thing to do, or at the least the attacking thing to do, would have been to bring Davis on for Onomah and go with a 4-4-2 and really take the game to Sha.

Instead we waited until over an hour before making a change and that was hardly a positive one despite Jedinak making a decent impact.

I'd have loved to have seen how Sha would handle Davis and Kodjia through the middle as personally I don't hink they woudl have coped.

That game was there to be won and with more positive substitutions we'd have given ourselves a much better chance of wining it.

Be interesting to see what he does tomorrow now. If Kodjia is out does he simply replace him with Davis and keep the rest of the front 6 the same or does he drop Onomah and go with Davis and Hogan up top and really try to exploit Prestons problems at centre back. 

We are on a very good run at the moment but due to a poor start we are still playing catch up on the top 2 which is where we have to be. The only way we are going to catch them is to win games and when that chance presents itself, as it did on Sunday, we have to be positive and really go for it.

 Hardly positive? We were being overrun and looked extremely likely to concede as they piled on their attacks. Jedinak came on and that turned around instantly. Within 5 minutes of him coming on we had 4 decent shots and in that last half hour we had 8 and nearly scored a couple of times.

If that’s not seen as positive, I wonder if expectations are unrealistically high?

Maybe switching to 442 with Davis and Kodg up front would have succeeded despite having failed so woefully against Wolves. I don’t know. I can sort of sympathise with Bruce for maybe being a bit wary about trying it given the pressure of the derby situation.

But ignore me. I am a bit out of step these days with the general view tha Bruce is a coward, fool and dinosaur, so I may tend to give him more credit than he is due.

 

[dn1982]

Hourihane's back pass for the Jota chance has become his stock ball. He was in acres yet his first thought was to pop it off to the defence instead of turning and trying to go forwards. That's got to be from coaching as he's shown in home games he can attack and create. In away games he hardly shoots or gets into the box. If we are to have any chance we need to improve our away form and that means showing more attacking intent. I'm not sure if Bruce is that way inclined though. 

[bobzy]

3 minutes ago, dn1982 said:

Hourihane's back pass for the Jota chance has become his stock ball. He was in acres yet his first thought was to pop it off to the defence instead of turning and trying to go forwards. That's got to be from coaching as he's shown in home games he can attack and create. In away games he hardly shoots or gets into the box. If we are to have any chance we need to improve our away form and that means showing more attacking intent. I'm not sure if Bruce is that way inclined though. 

He attempted 29 passes against Blues - 7 of them went backwards.

For the avoidance of doubt, that's just under 25% of passes going backwards.  "Stock ball" indeed.

 

[dn1982]

3 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

 Hardly positive? We were being overrun and looked extremely likely to concede as they piled on their attacks. Jedinak came on and that turned around instantly. Within 5 minutes of him coming on we had 4 decent shots and in that last half hour we had 8 and nearly scored a couple of times.

If that’s not seen as positive, I wonder if expectations are unrealistically high?

Maybe switching to 442 with Davis and Kodg up front would have succeeded despite having failed so woefully against Wolves. I don’t know. I can sort of sympathise with Bruce for maybe being a bit wary about trying it given the pressure of the derby situation.

But ignore me. I am a bit out of step these days with the general view tha Bruce is a coward, fool and dinosaur, so I may tend to give him more credit than he is due.

 

Jedinak came on and nullified their aerial threat in the big lump who was bullying Whelan. Bringing Jedinak on was the right thing to do but it's who he takes off that shows it wasn't that positive. It was to stop them more than to get us on the front foot. Is it unrealistic to think we can try to give teams something to think about rather than nullifying their threat all the time. Bruce has a history of not backing his team and changing to counteract lesser ones. Bristol away being a classic example of going 3 at the back which doesn't suit us after a good win with a buoyant side. We've enough good players players to let the majority of teams this league worry about us rather than the other way around. 

[Lerner's Driver]

4 hours ago, Grasshopper said:

I agree with this^

You do realise that you've just agreed with someone who said I was talking sense when criticising your inability to discuss Bruce with a sense of balance?

And yes, I realise that isn't what you intended, but it is what you've done, which is amusing.

[dn1982]

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

He attempted 29 passes against Blues - 7 of them went backwards.

For the avoidance of doubt, that's just under 25% of passes going backwards.  "Stock ball" indeed.

 

 29 passes? How many in final third? How many shots? You're so keen on stats I tend to just watch the game and it's infuriating the amount of times he pops it off instead of using the space he has. For the Jota one there wasn't anyone within 10 yards hence the stock ball he does it without thinking. In some games he ends up deeper than a Whelan!  

[ender4]

19 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

 Hardly positive? We were being overrun and looked extremely likely to concede as they piled on their attacks. Jedinak came on and that turned around instantly. Within 5 minutes of him coming on we had 4 decent shots and in that last half hour we had 8 and nearly scored a couple of times.

If that’s not seen as positive, I wonder if expectations are unrealistically high?

 

I don’t think expectations are that high.

Simply expect Villa to win games against relegation candidates, and be in the top two positions in the league for the season.

[Grasshopper]

4 minutes ago, Lerner's Driver said:

You do realise that you've just agreed with someone who said I was talking sense when criticising your inability to discuss Bruce with a sense of balance?

And yes, I realise that isn't what you intended, but it is what you've done, which is amusing.

I was refering to „the quarter“ that talks sense

[srsmithusa]

5 hours ago, lapal_fan said:

Then you must have a pretty shit memory! 

I’m trying to figure out when insults became reasonable discussion.  

[lapal_fan]

Just now, srsmithusa said:

I’m trying to figure out when insults became reasonable discussion.  

lol

[Lerner's Driver]

4 minutes ago, Grasshopper said:

I was refering to „the quarter“ that talks sense

Right, of course you are because there can only be one correct view can't there? Yours. 

[Eastie]

3 hours ago, striker said:

Starting off on a positive note concerning Bruce he has made some astute signings for not a lot of money and improved Villa defensively. I was against Villa signing Terry and didn’t think due to his age he would be able to stand up to the rigours of the Championship nor play enough games to warrant his mooted wages. I was wrong on both counts due to Terry proving to be one of the main reasons why Villa have improved defensively.

That being said I still feel, watching Villa, that there is so much more to Villa’s squad than we’re actually seeing at the moment. For instance when Bruce played Hourihane further forward in his correct position there was a stark improvement in performance and goal return.That has been nullified once again by Bruce reverting to ultra defensive mode against a very poor Birmingham City side. When OHare was given his chance he excelled yet dropped back into the U21s. Davis should have started against Birmingham and that was highlighted by how much Villa improved when he finally came on and should have scored.

I also don’t think it was the right decision to start Kodjia so quickly. Clearly Kodjia is still struggling for fitness and should have been given more time coming on from the bench rather than starting games. I’m also not sure with the current squad available that Kodjia’s maverick style fits into Bruce’s team. He’s been shoe horned with other players dropping out or changing position to accommodate him. Kodjia isn’t and never will be a team player.

For me Bruce is still struggling to find his best team and formation. Considering other teams in the Championship Bruce has an embarrassment of riches available and maybe therein lies the problem? Bruce didn’t have that at his other promotional sides where generally the team picked itself. Many times I have thought to myself this season that there are better players on the bench than actually on the pitch or not even chosen in the match day squad.

For many of the reasons stated above I don’t think Villa will achieve automatic promotion this season which is scandalous considering the quality available to Bruce but I do feel despite Bruce’s negative playing style Villa will probably scrape into the lottery of the playoffs.

Whether that’s going to be good enough to get Villa back into the Premiership only time will tell?

Good post  , however I still feel we can get automatic promotion with Bruce at the helm and will be interested if Davis and Hogan are paired together to see how they do - could well be the missing piece of the jigsaw .

with grealish and o hare as well there is a lot of quality and we have a very strong squad compared to others in this league - we’ve yet to really hit top form and if we do then I think we will take some stopping . 

I think we look better balanced with Davis up front and am looking forward to tomorrow night 

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

This would leave Steve Bruce out of a job though as he's more of a (man) manager and not a coach.

Okay, despite continued perceptions I would not lose sleep over this, if it was beneficial for the club.

 

[vreitti]

8 minutes ago, Eastie said:

we’ve yet to really hit top form...

I keep reading this every other week.This seems to be an ongoing thing with Bruce. More than a year in, and we're still waiting...

Fact is, it's beginning to look highly unlikely we'll ever hit anything resembling "top form" with him in charge. 

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, dn1982 said:

 29 passes? How many in final third? How many shots? You're so keen on stats I tend to just watch the game and it's infuriating the amount of times he pops it off instead of using the space he has. For the Jota one there wasn't anyone within 10 yards hence the stock ball he does it without thinking. In some games he ends up deeper than a Whelan!  

lol. 

[markavfc40]

2 hours ago, briny_ear said:

 

But ignore me. I am a bit out of step these days with the general view tha Bruce is a coward, fool and dinosaur, so I may tend to give him more credit than he is due.

 

Mate I don't think any of those things I just think he could have been a little braver on Sunday. I hear what you are saying that two up top didn't work against Wolves but it worked very well in away games against Barnsley and Burton and I'd probably put Sha on more of a par with them than Wolves.

We need to keep up the two points a game average of the last 5 or 6 weeks and to do that we need to win games, we all know that and obviously Bruce does. That game was there for the taking on Sunday and I think we could have pushed for the win more by being more positive, certainly with the substitutions.

Let's see what tomorrow brings now but hopefully we will set up and play on the front foot.

[striker]

2 hours ago, Eastie said:

Good post  , however I still feel we can get automatic promotion with Bruce at the helm and will be interested if Davis and Hogan are paired together to see how they do - could well be the missing piece of the jigsaw .

with grealish and o hare as well there is a lot of quality and we have a very strong squad compared to others in this league - we’ve yet to really hit top form and if we do then I think we will take some stopping . 

I think we look better balanced with Davis up front and am looking forward to tomorrow night 

Sincerely hope you are right.

[bannedfromHandV]

2 hours ago, ender4 said:

I don’t think expectations are that high.

Simply expect Villa to win games against relegation candidates, and be in the top two positions in the league for the season.

FFS a local derby, particularly this local derby makes league position all but irrelevant.

It was a decent point from a difficult match, I'm losing the will on here, really am.

 

I wish my life was more fulfilling so that I didn't feel the need to come and read all this utter crap.

[vreitti]

24 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I wish my life was more fulfilling so that I didn't feel the need to come and read all this utter crap.

Me too. Especially since you haven't just restricted yourself to reading...