Steve Bruce

[TRO]

2 minutes ago, villarocker said:

TRO, say what you want about the players mate but, truth is, Bruce has worked with the vast majority of them long enough to grow some backbone and spirit into them.

Also, why has he not addressed, as a matter of priority, the replacement of John Terry? You cannot lose a player of his standing and simply hope that Elphick becomes decent again or Jedinak will cut out the mistakes. Jedinak doesn't work at CB and Bruce needs to learn that before he costs us games. 

I think that so far Leeds look like last season's Wolves (pressing fancy football with foreign manager) and Middlesbrough look like last season's Cardiff (journeyman British manager grinding out results). Villa look like last season's Villa - the manager is the same and doing the same things. 

Bruce needs to adapt to the modern Championship otherwise we will waste another season in our history. 

I can't argue VR.

i think the swift transformation of Leeds, has posed questions for me, to think about...its early days of course.

never the less good start for us in terms of results ,compared with last season.

[holteend1982]

59 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

To me, we seem to have the players, but yet again not the manager. We may moan at Kodja but we just need a manager to wake him up, an play a few others in there rightful positions.

Its probably more to do with the broken ankle he suffered than needing a manager to "wake him up" 

Some of the stuff Bruce gets criticised for is more than understandable but stuff like blaming him for kodjias form just makes me laugh. 

[Villarocker]

The changes Bruce made from Monday night surprised me. Steer and Elphick did enough for me to justify staying in the team. I can understand Hutton for Taylor but that should have been the only change to the back five. I can understand Thor for Whelan, to be a bit more energetic there. I can understand McGinn coming in for Hourihane. I'd have left Albert in the team as he deserves longer than one game before being dropped. 

I think overall he made too many changes too soon. 

[Villarocker]

3 minutes ago, TRO said:

I can't argue VR.

i think the swift transformation of Leeds, has posed questions for me, to think about...its early days of course.

never the less good start for us in terms of results ,compared with last season.

Mate, that high pressing game may come back to haunt Leeds later in the 46 game season - I certainly hope so. But, Wolves largely played the team team last season and they sustained it. 

Can't argue with the results but I think we all agree that the performances aren't good enough and will be punished by better sides. 

[El Zen]

He really is making it difficult for himself, isn’t he? 

I really, really want him to do well and appreciate the good he’s done in creating a good, professional attitude around the team. But some of his selections and the lack of any clear, discernable plan about our football really puzzles me. The back four today made absolutely no sense.

[Tommo_b]

2 hours ago, M_Afro said:

Just cannot get excited about his teams. He just seems to muddle his way through, hanging on, in spite of his inadequacies! I genuinely think that a better manager could get us to play much better with exactly the same resources.

Anybody who genuinely thinks we have played well in more than a handful of games since Brucie took over does not understand football. We will not get promoted this season if he remains in charge. I have said the same in each of the past two seasons and I was right. Nothing has changed now.

Hope he proves me wrong.........but he won’t 

Came pretty close to be fair to Bruce. 

[ciggiesnbeer]

13 minutes ago, villarocker said:

Mate, that high pressing game may come back to haunt Leeds later in the 46 game season - I certainly hope so. But, Wolves largely played the team team last season and they sustained it. 

Can't argue with the results but I think we all agree that the performances aren't good enough and will be punished by better sides. 

Cant argue with that. 

 

Edited August 11, 2018 by ciggiesnbeer

[terrytini]

Santo, spent a fortune, only drew at Home to 10 men.

Jokanovic, spent a fortune, lost, to Palace.

Warnock, spent about 30m net, lost to Bournemouth.

Bruce, spent a couple of million, 6 points out of 6 

...........yes I’m aware of one or two mitigating circumstances, (such as an entire League separating us, and it being early days) but it’s still an enjoyable observation to make at the end of a pleasant day !

 

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, Michelsen said:

He really is making it difficult for himself, isn’t he? 

I really, really want him to do well and appreciate the good he’s done in creating a good, professional attitude around the team. But some of his selections and the lack of any clear, discernable plan about our football really puzzles me. The back four today made absolutely no sense.

Well, Chester and Hutton made sense, played the same positions as they’ve been doing..... so at most it’s 2 of the back 4 that made no sense isn’t it ? That’s my view anyway. Then, of the 2, there’s no obvious, better, alternative at CB, so whilst a poor option, one could argue it made as much sense as anything else. Which leaves Axel, and again, in my view, it’s not as if there was a clearly better alternative.

Add to that Bruce has made it clear he thinks - and I agree - that he didn’t rotate the squad enough last season, I’d say the back 4 made sense, in my view.

I understand if people have views as to alternatives they’d have preferred, but that’s not the same as it making no sense.

[penguin]

1 hour ago, weedman said:

On the selection of Jedinak, according to sky sports we made 21 headed clearances in the game and won nearly 60% of the aeriel duels. That's why he was put in the defence, he is by far our most commanding player in the air, he was put in to deal with the long balls. 

He screwed up the back pass for sure, but that's not down to him being out of position, it's a mistake. He makes 758 back passes a match regardless of his position (stat may not be 100% accurate) 

Oh for fairness, Wigan made 3 headed clearances all game by comparison...Bruce ball eh? 

If we played Benteke at CB he’d probably have won a shit load of aerial duals too.

[El Zen]

19 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Well, Chester and Hutton made sense, played the same positions as they’ve been doing..... so at most it’s 2 of the back 4 that made no sense isn’t it ? That’s my view anyway. Then, of the 2, there’s no obvious, better, alternative at CB, so whilst a poor option, one could argue it made as much sense as anything else. Which leaves Axel, and again, in my view, it’s not as if there was a clearly better alternative.

Add to that Bruce has made it clear he thinks - and I agree - that he didn’t rotate the squad enough last season, I’d say the back 4 made sense, in my view.

I understand if people have views as to alternatives they’d have preferred, but that’s not the same as it making no sense.

The overall composition of the back four made no sense. It almost seemed designed with the intention of shoe-horning Jedi in at CB, playing three (or at least two, given Hutton is amazing wherever) players out of position when he really didn’t have to. 

But, hey, we won, so I won’t keep insisting on criticism when really I am quite happy with the three points. 

[mikeyp102]

The one thing that annoys me about Bruce’s tactics is having everyone back for set pieces. Leave one up it stops the opposition putting more people up, plus gives you a target to clear the ball to. McGinn had the ball one time, looked for a pass but ended up pumping the ball towards the corner as no one up. It’s made even worse when RHM comes on as what’s he going to defend?

[Adam2003]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

I can't argue VR.

i think the swift transformation of Leeds, has posed questions for me, to think about...its early days of course.

never the less good start for us in terms of results ,compared with last season.

Leeds always look amazing at this time of year and never end up anywhere at the end. That won’t change this season

[srsmithusa]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

Well, Chester and Hutton made sense, played the same positions as they’ve been doing..... so at most it’s 2 of the back 4 that made no sense isn’t it ? That’s my view anyway. Then, of the 2, there’s no obvious, better, alternative at CB, so whilst a poor option, one could argue it made as much sense as anything else. Which leaves Axel, and again, in my view, it’s not as if there was a clearly better alternative.

Add to that Bruce has made it clear he thinks - and I agree - that he didn’t rotate the squad enough last season, I’d say the back 4 made sense, in my view.

I understand if people have views as to alternatives they’d have preferred, but that’s not the same as it making no sense.

So you see it as rotation after one match?

[Kiwivillan]

Jedi did well enough covering at CB in parts last season. I think Jedi at CB AND Thor at CDM is asking for trouble though 

[AVTuco]

6 hours ago, weedman said:

On the selection of Jedinak, according to sky sports we made 21 headed clearances in the game and won nearly 60% of the aeriel duels. That's why he was put in the defence, he is by far our most commanding player in the air, he was put in to deal with the long balls. 

He screwed up the back pass for sure, but that's not down to him being out of position, it's a mistake. He makes 758 back passes a match regardless of his position (stat may not be 100% accurate) 

Oh for fairness, Wigan made 3 headed clearances all game by comparison...Bruce ball eh? 

Not from the bench he doesn't, so they're not unavoidable.

[villan-scott]

8 hours ago, villarocker said:

The changes Bruce made from Monday night surprised me. Steer and Elphick did enough for me to justify staying in the team. I can understand Hutton for Taylor but that should have been the only change to the back five. I can understand Thor for Whelan, to be a bit more energetic there. I can understand McGinn coming in for Hourihane. I'd have left Albert in the team as he deserves longer than one game before being dropped. 

I think overall he made too many changes too soon. 

On this point, Adomah has been pretty woeful for most of 2018, going back into last season. Imo Bruce was right to drop him for Green, who had a great pre season. 

With the amount of changes it almost seems he will have a home team and an away team. 

I can’t argue with the rotation, as so many of us complained last year it didn’t happen enough. 

Hopefully with a more youthful approach and more rotation we can be firing on all cylinders for 46 games. 

[PieFacE]

The rotation was fine. 

I actually thought before the game the first 11 was fine and more than adequate to beat Wigan at home.

Our style of football is shocking though. It's percentages football fighting for the second ball. We'll have days when this works well, we'll have days where this doesn't work at all. It's why Bruce will never do what Wolves or Newcastle have done in this league, there's no identity to our plan, there's no real way of moving the ball from back to front, we're constantly letting the opposition have the ball when trying to go forward. 

It's such an outdated way of playing. 

 

[M_Afro]

9 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

Came pretty close to be fair to Bruce. 

Did he though? The goal at the start of the season, as stated by him, was two points per game and automatic promotion. We fell reasonably short on both of those. 

Warnock achieved this with a much worse squad and lower budget. He maximised his asset. Bruce has fallen well short of doing the same with us. He is the King of inventing arguments to lower expectation. He is now using what happened over the summer to dampen expectations again. It’s as if he is a new manager taking over a crisis club! He conveniently ignores the fact that he has signed a load of players who he does not play because he has no faith in them, for example, Lansbury, Hogan, Bjarneson, Bree and Taylor. How much did that lot cost? More than Cardiff have spent in the previous 5 years probably 

[Mazrim]

We have 4 or 5 credible options at right back but we put one of the two best centre half options there, deciding to play Jedinak at centre half there who cost us goals yet again as he did the last time he played there. He is NOT a centre half. Being a centre half is about more than being good at heading balls 30 yards back up the pitch.

His back pass was pathetic and his famed aerial power didnt stop him letting a ball float a foot above his head for their 2nd. Basically becuase hes very slow and needs time to line up his defensive headers.

That's on Bruce and symptomatic of why he drives people nuts. The back 4 was out of kilter and didn't have to be as we had players that were more natural in their postions available. I'm hoping thats the end of the Jedi centre half saga now.

The rest of the stodgy, clumsy, disconnected play is just typical of Bruce's teams but we'll get a few more players, settle down and play better. Which is also typical of Bruce's Villa. I'm not bothering wishing for liquid football anymore. It's just not going to happen. In my opinion, the best we can hope for is to blunder and barge our way into the Premier League, after which NSWE will totally overhaul the club. So Bruce for now, but please don't make it hard for yourself / ourselves with daft tinkering Steve.