briny_ear Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, Vive_La_Villa said: Bof spreadsheet has got me a little worried. We have looked poor in the 6 games against teams around us and now we've got 4 of them in the next few weeks. This could make of break our season. Well the next game is at home to Ipswich who haven't won a single game against a top 10 club yet. So maybe see how that goes before worrying too far ahead? Edited November 22, 2017 by briny_ear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post villa89 Posted November 22, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted November 22, 2017 2 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said: Bof spreadsheet has got me a little worried. We have looked poor in the 6 games against teams around us and now we've got 4 of them in the next few weeks. This could make of break our season. It's just telling us what we already know. Against the weaker teams we can overpower them with the talent in our squad but against the better teams we get outplayed. It's not a mystery but our manager isn't able to fix it. 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villan_of_oz Posted November 22, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted November 22, 2017 My views are known, but it is very pleasing sitting here having my coffee to see us in 4th and safely inside the top 6. Bruce is doing enough, despite my concerns, he deserves some slack. A bit of objectivity from someone who apparently hates Bruce (ludicrous comment BTW) UTV 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrytini Posted November 22, 2017 Share Posted November 22, 2017 1 hour ago, villa89 said: It's just telling us what we already know. Against the weaker teams we can overpower them with the talent in our squad but against the better teams we get outplayed. It's not a mystery but our manager isn't able to fix it. On the other hand if you just reverse our results against the top 2 - who we have played away from home - we would be top....so perhaps we are not really much worse than them ? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post terrytini Posted November 22, 2017 Popular Post Share Posted November 22, 2017 Another thing.....I don’t think even ardent Wolves fans think they can get even better, whereas pro- Bruce, anti - Bruce, and Bruce neutrals probably ALL agree we certainly CAN. I also can’t help wondering what a fresh Kodja might do in the last third of the season..... 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post romavillan Posted November 22, 2017 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted November 22, 2017 Reading the last few pages I really don't think the argument is about style, it's not like the critics of Bruce are saying we want tippy tappy Guardiola brilliance, or Brazil '70 or anything. What we are worried about is the total lack of ability to maintain any kind of control of the football and manage the game. It's not for the sake of it, it's not about pretty vs ugly, it's not about practical vs aesthetic. There's nothing more practical than having the ball, our problem is Bruce and his coaching team look totally incapable of coaching the required off the ball movement, pattern of play etc. to let us take the sting out of a game when our talented squad do get us in front. Against the worst team in teh league by a mile at home we let them have the run of Villa Park whilst we sat back and just gave them the ball back every time we had it. That's the worry. I couldn't give monkeys about pretty, I could give a monkeys abotu needlessly and recklessly letting teams have a go at us. 13 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 15 hours ago, AntrimBlack said: I don't think any non-VTer's pay any attention to us, if they have even heard of us. And I doubt if they would be influenced by us. If they were, they would be very silly. I would suggest we are only important in our own heads, and I don't think we even influence each other. I disagree sorry, social media (which this essentially has to fall into) is highly influential and highly destructive under certain conditions. Anyway, highly subjective and non-quantifiable so no point discussing any further 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 11 hours ago, terrytini said: On the other hand if you just reverse our results against the top 2 - who we have played away from home - we would be top....so perhaps we are not really much worse than them ? I don't understand this logic, if we hadn't been beaten by the top two teams in the league (both of whom comprehensively outplayed us and embarrassed us) then we would be better? I supposed you're correct in that if we had been good enough to beat both of those sides then we would be top and should be considered the best team in the league. However unfortunately it's not what actually happened so I don't get what point you are trying to make at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 11 hours ago, terrytini said: Another thing.....I don’t think even ardent Wolves fans think they can get even better, whereas pro- Bruce, anti - Bruce, and Bruce neutrals probably ALL agree we certainly CAN. I also can’t help wondering what a fresh Kodja might do in the last third of the season..... I think the anti-Bruce folk (of which I am one) don't agree that we can get better with him as our manager and that's the important point as he's not going to be sacked unless we plummet down the league. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sexbelowsound Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 44 minutes ago, villa89 said: I think the anti-Bruce folk (of which I am one) don't agree that we can get better with him as our manager and that's the important point as he's not going to be sacked unless we plummet down the league. We've been moving up the table steadily all season. Is that not classed as getting better? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 It's a results business. Aside from VT where it's results, performances, goals scored, chances created, tackles made and what colour tie Bruce wears 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 11 hours ago, romavillan said: Reading the last few pages I really don't think the argument is about style, it's not like the critics of Bruce are saying we want tippy tappy Guardiola brilliance, or Brazil '70 or anything. What we are worried about is the total lack of ability to maintain any kind of control of the football and manage the game. It's not for the sake of it, it's not about pretty vs ugly, it's not about practical vs aesthetic. There's nothing more practical than having the ball, our problem is Bruce and his coaching team look totally incapable of coaching the required off the ball movement, pattern of play etc. to let us take the sting out of a game when our talented squad do get us in front. Against the worst team in teh league by a mile at home we let them have the run of Villa Park whilst we sat back and just gave them the ball back every time we had it. That's the worry. I couldn't give monkeys about pretty, I could give a monkeys abotu needlessly and recklessly letting teams have a go at us. Sunderland did not “have a go at us”. It was incredibly comfortable, despite a poor performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted November 23, 2017 Visiting Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2017 21 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: After 7 years of mostly turgid shite on the pitch and problems with ownership off it making us the laughing stock of English football I am amazed that anyone isn't totally buzzing with the way things are progressing this season. It's not perfect and I want us to push on and win the division but Jesus, we're winning football matches. Regularly. The very last thing I'm interested in right now is whether the football is pretty enough. At the root of that concern over performances is whether the inability of Villa to keep possession consistently especially when under the cosh or just inviting more pressure will take it's toll by the end of the season. I think it's certainly a valid concern if your players are, in almost every game, having to constantly track back and chase the ball due to losing possession which is going to mean a lot of your players hitting burn out before the season ends. Moreover if you are constantly giving the ball away to better teams they will hurt you. If Villa fail to obtain automatic promotion then they will most cerainly play one of those better teams in the playoffs on a more expansive sapping pitch. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 2 minutes ago, striker said: At the root of that concern over performances is whether the inability of Villa to keep possession consistently especially when under the cosh or just inviting more pressure will take it's toll by the end of the season. I think it's certainly a valid concern if your players are, in almost every game, having to constantly track back and chase the ball due to losing possession which is going to mean a lot of your players hitting burn out before the season ends. Moreover if you are constantly giving the ball away to better teams they will hurt you. If Villa fail to obtain automatic promotion then they will most cerainly play one of those better teams in the playoffs on a more expansive sapping pitch. If you only focus on the negative aspects then I see where you are coming from. Yes, there are games where we're not very good and having to grind it out, but then there are others where we are dominant and win comfortably. This idea that we are riding our luck every week, as per last season to a degree, is total nonsense IMO. Don't you have to be able to do both to win things? Win pretty and win ugly? Isn't that the hallmark of a good football team? Fair enough though, our possession stat sits at 48.1% (17th). Pass completion - 75.3% (9th). So the argument seems to centre around you not thinking we are fit enough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 (edited) 2 hours ago, sexbelowsound said: We've been moving up the table steadily all season. Is that not classed as getting better? It depends on how you look at it. In my opinion we should have been in the top 2/3 all season but due to a poor start we are now slowly moving back up the table. You can take the view that Bruce is getting the team to where were should be and we are on course for automatic promotion or you can take my view that we will continue to be inconsistent and end up in the playoffs at the end of the season. As an example have there been any games in a row so far this season where we have put in 2 or 3 really good performances back to back? I don't think so. It's only occasionally we play well an it's never sustained. We should have dominated a terrible Sunderland team at home after beating QPR and instead we fell over the line to scrape a win. We'll probably do well against Ipswich and then come unstuck against Leeds. Edited November 23, 2017 by villa89 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dn1982 Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 12 hours ago, terrytini said: Another thing.....I don’t think even ardent Wolves fans think they can get even better, whereas pro- Bruce, anti - Bruce, and Bruce neutrals probably ALL agree we certainly CAN. I also can’t help wondering what a fresh Kodja might do in the last third of the season..... But can we under Bruce? I don’t think we can. We had a fresh Kodija last year and the football was awful but the results were decent. That’s a all we will get with Bruce. This is as good as it gets. Let’s hope it’s enough. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
striker Posted November 23, 2017 Visiting Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2017 (edited) 22 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: If you only focus on the negative aspects then I see where you are coming from. Yes, there are games where we're not very good and having to grind it out, but then there are others where we are dominant and win comfortably. This idea that we are riding our luck every week, as per last season to a degree, is total nonsense IMO. Don't you have to be able to do both to win things? Win pretty and win ugly? Isn't that the hallmark of a good football team? Fair enough though, our possession stat sits at 48.1% (17th). Pass completion - 75.3% (9th). So the argument seems to centre around you not thinking we are fit enough? No don't think it's anything due to fitness at the moment. More so that if villa keep losing possession eventually that will catch up with the team at the business end of the season. Thats what i think some posters are worried about. As to the cause of poor possession it might well be a lack of movement (options) around the player in possession or the way in which Villa are set up to play. Both those explanations ( only my opinion) would therefore reflect on the manager and coaches. Maybe reason enough to explain why Bruce isn't endearing himself to all the Villa faithful despite recent results? Edited November 23, 2017 by striker 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romavillan Posted November 23, 2017 VT Supporter Share Posted November 23, 2017 44 minutes ago, bobzy said: Sunderland did not “have a go at us”. It was incredibly comfortable, despite a poor performance. They were allowed the freedom of Villa Park to do as they pleased, luckily they are shit. They still scored though. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dn1982 Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 44 minutes ago, bobzy said: Sunderland did not “have a go at us”. It was incredibly comfortable, despite a poor performance. Because they were low on confidence and with out 7 players? but I don’t think he was just on about this game. It’s what we do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terrytini Posted November 23, 2017 Share Posted November 23, 2017 1 hour ago, villa89 said: I don't understand this logic, if we hadn't been beaten by the top two teams in the league (both of whom comprehensively outplayed us and embarrassed us) then we would be better? I supposed you're correct in that if we had been good enough to beat both of those sides then we would be top and should be considered the best team in the league. However unfortunately it's not what actually happened so I don't get what point you are trying to make at all. I was responding to your assertion that we are “ “ okay against the weaker teams” but get “ outplayed by better teams” by pointing out that the only thing that separates us from the top 2 is our results at their grounds....the fact that had we reversed just those 2 games we would be top suggests the rest of our results must actually be even better than theirs. I’m no great Bruce fan I just don’t see the gulf some do and I think that the above shows this. Just my view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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