Steve Bruce

[markavfc40]

I actually thought given the standard of the opposition last night was up there with Brighton as our best performance under Steve Bruce. Given the reaction of the crowd at full time I think most at the game would have agreed.

We started the game a lot quicker which was good to see and I think once again he made the right changes in terms of subs.

There is no doubt Bruce is hampered by the fact he inherited poor goalkeeping and midfield options so to have taken two points a game over 13 games is good going.

One of the things that has surprised me about him is his willingness to really gamble and go for it and I think there will come a time if we get to around a dozen games of the season to go and are still 5 or 6 points off top 6 where we are going to have to treat games as cup games and go all out from the get go for wins and I think Bruce will be prepared to do this. It promises to be an exciting end to the season especially as I expect him to improve the areas where we are glaringly weak. Roll on Monday.

[TRO]

13 hours ago, MikeMcKenna said:

 Clearly SB has improved us. But we do not have a 'team', whereas Leeds, Burton and others before them do. Too many of our players are 'fancy dans' acting as individuals when a simple ball to a team mate would be more effective. Our lack of teamwork allowed Burton to outplay us at times even though we got a result.

In the first half tonight I thought our passing improved significantly compared to the Burton game. But in the 2nd half we reverted to type again as 'individuals' either tried to dribble their way out or made stupid wayward passes.  At times it looked like Leeds had 1/2 extra players. They knew we were rattled, their confidence increased and so did their team play. 

We are not an affective 'team' but given the nature of some of our players I don't know whether SB can do anything about it. 

good concise post Mike, spot on

just to add:

I feel we are too easy to close down, this subsequently negates any notion of offensive work and makes us scrappy, we also lose the ball far too cheaply.

ps you mention Burton.....Blues and Wolves did the same.....It is a central issue IMO.

[Brumstopdogs]

One small thing I liked, should you be bored and didn't spot it, was on the 35th minute mark.

Leeds go to take a throw in and I love Bruce's reaction to Ayew who seemed to be daydreaming. 

Nice change from the likes of Garde/Black/RDM sitting in the dugout looking motionless.

In terms of the match I really enjoyed it and it's nice to see us scoring the odd late goal rather than always being the ones conceding them.

[TRO]

I think Leeds will be there or there abouts at the end.

They had several key players out, even if quite a few are loans.

[TRO]

When a team is as unbalanced as ours its sometimes difficult to get a true appraisal of the players, we have.

They seem to go in and out of form like a fiddlers elbow.

.....be glad when this window is open.....and fingers crossed we get the players in to improve it.

Edited December 30, 2016 by TRO

[Dr_Pangloss]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

I actually thought given the standard of the opposition last night was up there with Brighton as our best performance under Steve Bruce. Given the reaction of the crowd at full time I think most at the game would have agreed.

We started the game a lot quicker which was good to see and I think once again he made the right changes in terms of subs.

There is no doubt Bruce is hampered by the fact he inherited poor goalkeeping and midfield options so to have taken two points a game over 13 games is good going.

One of the things that has surprised me about him is his willingness to really gamble and go for it and I think there will come a time if we get to around a dozen games of the season to go and are still 5 or 6 points off top 6 where we are going to have to treat games as cup games and go all out from the get go for wins and I think Bruce will be prepared to do this. It promises to be an exciting end to the season especially as I expect him to improve the areas where we are glaringly weak. Roll on Monday.

A Leeds side full of no marks, hardly a 'high' standard. The performance wasn't very good but overall the result is hardly the end of the world but surely we have the 'quality' to beat a side like Leeds at home?

[Derryvillan]

4 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

A Leeds side full of no marks, hardly a 'high' standard. The performance wasn't very good but overall the result is hardly the end of the world but surely we have the 'quality' to beat a side like Leeds at home?

Leeds play well as a team.Sometimes we do but mostly our players seem to be on a different wavelength.

[Stevo985]

17 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

A Leeds side full of no marks, hardly a 'high' standard. The performance wasn't very good but overall the result is hardly the end of the world but surely we have the 'quality' to beat a side like Leeds at home?

We do have the quality. And we could have beaten them. But we didn't.

Just like Newcastle have the quality to beat every single team in the league. But they haven't got a 100% record.

Football.

[wazzap24]

1 hour ago, Brumstopdogs said:

One small thing I liked, should you be bored and didn't spot it, was on the 35th minute mark.

Leeds go to take a throw in and I love Bruce's reaction to Ayew who seemed to be daydreaming. 

Nice change from the likes of Garde/Black/RDM sitting in the dugout looking motionless.

In terms of the match I really enjoyed it and it's nice to see us scoring the odd late goal rather than always being the ones conceding them.

There was another moment when he must has been 15-20 yds outside of his TA, screaming at JK for not passing the ball quicker. Love it. 

Overall we are doing ok, the 'team' mentality will start to come through eventually. 

[markavfc40]

43 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

A Leeds side full of no marks, hardly a 'high' standard. The performance wasn't very good but overall the result is hardly the end of the world but surely we have the 'quality' to beat a side like Leeds at home?

I actually thought we played well but not sure if you watched it on the box and the performance came over differently when you aren't wrapped up in the atmosphere. You say Leeds is a team of no marks but they are on a great run and 4th in the table. I do think though given that Brighton, Leeds and Reading are some of the best this league as to offer and we have more than held our own in recent weeks against all of them then this league offers up nothing to fear.

We haven't got close to playing anything like we are capable of playing yet. Certainly up top. Once we fix the midfield issues, which I fully expect us to do in the next couple of weeks, then I think we will be flying.

Edited December 30, 2016 by markavfc40

[andym]

He really needs to sort out our passing, its amongst the worst in the league. Even the worst players technically can be improved to some extent with work on the training pitch.

However, i think the bigger problem (and one that can lead to poor passing and ball retention) is movement off the ball to give options to the player in possession. Its non existent. There were a few moments in this regards that really stood out last night.

End of the first half Hutton was leading a break down the right. Now, he has a tendency to run himself down dead ends, but in this case it was his only option, because he looked up and the only player up with him was Kodjia and he was at least 30 yards away around the edge of the box and marked by 3 players. There were no other villa players even in the frame on tv. 

Second half Ayew was passed the ball on the left wing. He was immediately surrounded by 4 Leeds players. The nearest Villa player - 30 yards away. Nobody made an effort to support, they all just stood there expecting him to beat 4 opposition. This happens to Grealish, Kodjia, McCormack and Adomah regularly as well - they are basically expected to make something out of nothing.

And in addition to those examples, i include every single throw in we get. If the opposition want to get the ball back near our box, they should just boot it out for a Villa throw down that end of the pitch, because we will just stand there and throw it straight back to them.

The above leads to the frankly shit football like we saw for an extended period in the 2nd half, and have seen in a number of games recently, where we look like a team of pub players who can't do the basics and resort to hoofing the ball forward, only for it to come straight back.

 

[Woodytom]

The football is as dire as I've ever seen. It's masked by results, some of which have an element of luck to it but make no mistake about it we are a shocking team to watch.

 

[MuleAthon]

38 minutes ago, andym said:

He really needs to sort out our passing, its amongst the worst in the league. Even the worst players technically can be improved to some extent with work on the training pitch.

However, i think the bigger problem (and one that can lead to poor passing and ball retention) is movement off the ball to give options to the player in possession. Its non existent. There were a few moments in this regards that really stood out last night.

End of the first half Hutton was leading a break down the right. Now, he has a tendency to run himself down dead ends, but in this case it was his only option, because he looked up and the only player up with him was Kodjia and he was at least 30 yards away around the edge of the box and marked by 3 players. There were no other villa players even in the frame on tv. 

Second half Ayew was passed the ball on the left wing. He was immediately surrounded by 4 Leeds players. The nearest Villa player - 30 yards away. Nobody made an effort to support, they all just stood there expecting him to beat 4 opposition. This happens to Grealish, Kodjia, McCormack and Adomah regularly as well - they are basically expected to make something out of nothing.

And in addition to those examples, i include every single throw in we get. If the opposition want to get the ball back near our box, they should just boot it out for a Villa throw down that end of the pitch, because we will just stand there and throw it straight back to them.

The above leads to the frankly shit football like we saw for an extended period in the 2nd half, and have seen in a number of games recently, where we look like a team of pub players who can't do the basics and resort to hoofing the ball forward, only for it to come straight back.

 

I'd argue that the majority of this is down to the abysmal fitness and conditioning regime that's become the norm at BMH these past few years. They're just not consistently fit enough- they weren't last year and they didn't use pre season properly to fix it. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

28 minutes ago, Woodytom said:

The football is as dire as I've ever seen. It's masked by results, some of which have an element of luck to it but make no mistake about it we are a shocking team to watch.

 

If you are a big believer in the fact that alot of this is down to "luck", you should be cursing our "luck" at all the times we have been leading only to give away a goal in the end?

shouldn't it be balanced out then?

[Keener window-cleaner]

8 hours ago, darrenm said:

All of these players are better than they're showing. Westwood for example is excellent when we keep possession. Bacuna and to a lesser extent Gardner are fine passers of the ball. Jedinak I wouldn't have anywhere near the team personally.

In my opinion Bacuna is an awful passer. He can strike the ball quite hard now and then, but he is not a good passer. He doesn't pass the ball to his team mates - he kicks it to them.

[Woodytom]

13 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

If you are a big believer in the fact that alot of this is down to "luck", you should be cursing our "luck" at all the times we have been leading only to give away a goal in the end?

shouldn't it be balanced out then?

Where did I say a lot of it was luck?

[Mantis]

13 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

If you are a big believer in the fact that alot of this is down to "luck", you should be cursing our "luck" at all the times we have been leading only to give away a goal in the end?

shouldn't it be balanced out then?

But that's not the way it works.

If we don't play amazing but still win = we're lucky

If we play ok but lose/draw = we're shit

[TrentVilla]

2 hours ago, Woodytom said:

The football is as dire as I've ever seen. It's masked by results, some of which have an element of luck to it but make no mistake about it we are a shocking team to watch.

 

How many extra points do you get for artistic impression again?

In all seriousness though I don't really get your point. What is being masked from whom? I don't see anyone even the most ardent of Bruce fans lauding the way we are playing. Quite the opposite in fact, I think most people see our play is limited in its technical merit much like many of our players and largely as a result of them.

I don't see anything being masked from anyone.

As for 'elements of luck' just some have gone Bruce's way others have gone against him. This luck line is something you seem to keep referring to in a way to try and detract from the results he has achieved.

Not everyone has to be a fan of Bruce or indeed his football (although it's hard to label it that when he hasn't signed a single one of the players) it's a free world and everyone is entitled to their views. 

I do though think it's a little rich to try and imply people who think otherwise are some hoodwinked or blinded by results. 

I struggle to think of a period in which a Villa managers performance has been viewed quite so pragmatically by most fans.

[Dodgyknees]

2 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

If you are a big believer in the fact that alot of this is down to "luck", you should be cursing our "luck" at all the times we have been leading only to give away a goal in the end?

shouldn't it be balanced out then?

Plus there have been a lot of times where we could have scored but for the keeper making save off his chest, or the ball hits the post, or spins away from a player coming in for the rebound.

[Dodgyknees]

I actually think there are some who enjoy defeats more than wins this season. If that is the case, they should go watch the season review from last season.