Steve Bruce

[markavfc40]

16 minutes ago, eholm said:

Cannot agree with this fabled notion that ‘we are playing nothing like we are capable’. This implies that any moment now we will see more of a game plan, more of a system and more basic passing football.....none of which I have seen from Bruce in the 21 months he has been here!

The fable is that we play like we did yesterday week in week out. We don't. We are usually very strong defensively for a start.

We had a good season last year just not quite good enough and the squad never reached the heights it was capable of achieving which was automatic promotion so we fell short but not by much. I also thought last season we had some very good games. Three weeks ago the challenge was to maintain our position in this league and ride out the financial storm it is now to build on last season and that is what I expect.

Football under Bruce is never going to be easy on the eye week in week out and there will be plenty of games where we grind out results. No one for a second would suggest that we will play free flowing attacking football and I personally have zero issue with that as it is all about results for me in this league but we will more often than not play better than we did yesterday.

[sheepyvillian]

Did anyone see the Leeds performance against Derby ? Boy, that was some scintillating football.

[penguin]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

Every time I watch Villa with my dad, it really highlights his inadequacies as a manager and how I feel he's really holding us back.

My dad, who's not really an Aston Villa fan and so only watches a few games here and there makes observations of us that I struggle to retort to. Every time he watches us he says we just don't look like a "team" out there on the pitch, we're just really disjointed. He says we don't have any skillful players in midfield or anywhere really apart from Grealish as we can't really put passages of play together.

I try to tell him we have some of the best players in the league and he's just not having it...they wouldn't play like that then he says. He watched Leeds' first 2 games and he tells me "see, this is how a football team plays" (he said the same about Fulham after the playoff final arghh). "Those are what you call skilled players". When I tell him it's pretty much the exact same team as the one who finished 13th last season.

He asks me what changed then, and I say they have a new coach with a very well defined philosophy and strategy. It makes me realize that we really need someone like that here to push us on, as for all of Bruce's great man and team management skills...he just isn't that kind of coach.

Absolutely nailed it here.

For me he’s a footballing dinosaur. More of a man-motivator than a manager. I can imagine the team talks consist of a lot of “desire”, “passion”, “organisation”, “fighting for the shirt” and devoid of any real progressive tactical instruction or philosophy.

To be fair to him he has “stopped the rot” and we finally have some team sprit. But with the budget and the players he’s had at his disposal the performances has not been good enough, we all too frequently lack any fluency, are set-up reactively and look so disjointed.

He will continue to grind out results by bringing the matches down to the lowest common demonitator and playing the percentages. Likely doing just enough to keep the promotion dream in sight, and his job, but we are going nowhere fast under him and I can’t foresee him having an epiphany and changing any time soon.

[Reivax_Villa]

I was watching MOTD last night and the array of talent and the style of play that these teams had.

Teams like Watford, Palace, Bournemouth. 

Teams you would consider to be average at that level looking miles ahead from where we are.

If Bruce managed to get us promoted.

I would dread to think how we would look as a premier league team. 

 

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

31 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Did anyone see the Leeds performance against Derby ? Boy, that was some scintillating football.

It was. They started last season in similar fashion so hopefully drop off again.

Definitely a different mold of manager to Bruce. 

[PompeyVillan]

I must be in the minority that think he's doing an excellent job? 

He's dragged us kicking and screaming for a team that lost habitually, the players didn't seem to care, the fans were disillusioned and embarrassed and angry at the players. I got used to hearing boos at half time and full time. It was desperate. 

We're now in a position where we get good crowds, there is a connection between the fans and the players and we tend to win more than we lose. 

Villa is a pressure cooker, my god I'm so happy with how Bruce deals with it all. He's genial, but firm, he's well respected and gets a shift out of everyone. He's honest and doesn't make excuses. I think the 'behind the scenes' aspect of being Villa manager is underplayed. You just have to read Villa Talk to get a sense of it, the fans feel entitled to be in the Premier League, they look at other successful clubs and say 'we should be doing that'.

Thing is, we've had no continuity in how we've been administered off the pitch. We've had feast and then famine over and again, no clear transfer strategy or 'Villa way'. It's been madness. 

People will say our first two results are papering over the cracks in performance. I'd suggest that Steve Bruce has been papering over the cracks behind the scenes since he came in. 

I get that Bruce's style of football can be alienating when it doesn't work. I think it makes sense to support Bruce because I think he's done a good job, and hopefully with the Dr Tony saga behind us we can build a team capable of being promoted. Perhaps not this season, but who knows? 

I don't know, football changes quickly, 5 games without a win and I think I could understand the calls for him to be sacked. 

I think what sums this situation up for me is the gushing praise for McGinn and how good a signing this appears and how Bruce seems to have been given little credit for helping making it happen. 

Edited August 12, 2018 by PompeyVillan

[sheepyvillian]

3 minutes ago, Reivax_Villa said:

I was watching MOTD last night and the array of talent and the style of play that these teams had.

Teams like Watford, Palace, Bournemouth. 

Teams you would consider to be average at that level looking miles ahead from where we are.

If Bruce managed to get us promoted.

I would dread to think how we would look as a premier league team. 

 

 

I was thinking exactly the same thing. How we would cope in the Premier league with Bruce as manager.

[M_Afro]

37 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Did anyone see the Leeds performance against Derby ? Boy, that was some scintillating football.

Agreed. They have got a top, top manager. I think they will do very well this year. Early days but they could yet do a Wolves

[Reivax_Villa]

1 minute ago, sheepyvillian said:

I was thinking exactly the same thing. How we would cope in the Premier league with Bruce as manager.

We wouldn't cope.

He would outthought which would result in us being outplayed.

Cardiff are similar to us and they will be the team that would go down because of their limited style. 

[villalad21]

Bruce teams has never been known for playing great football. His style works well in this league and at the end of the day, results is all that matters if we wanna get promoted.

The alternative is to gamble on a manager that play attractive football, but that means another rebuilding process. We need to back Bruce right now.

[Guest av1]

28 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

I must be in the minority that think he's doing an excellent job? 

 

I think even those that support Bruce wouldn't call it "an excellent job".

29 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

I think he's done a good job, and hopefully with the Dr Tony saga behind us we can build a team capable of being promoted. Perhaps not this season, but who knows? 

 

So you would be happy to go into our 4th season in the championship with Bruce still in charge?

If we go into our 4th season as a championship club with a team Bruce built, it will be because of Steve Bruce's limitations as a Manager. The idea that anyone could still support that, even discribe his work as "excellent" is extraordinary.

[villa4europe]

38 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

Agreed. They have got a top, top manager. I think they will do very well this year. Early days but they could yet do a Wolves

early days but they could yet do a leeds...

 

[villa4europe]

the idea of bruce building a team after that line up yesterday 

if you take the utility player comment about axel, meaning he's going to play some games at RB, meaning we have 4 RBs at the club, 3 of which Bruce bought and the 4th he re-signed when he could have left for free....McGinn signing is going to push hourihane, thor and lansbury further down the pecking order, he's been here 18 months and he's replacing his own signings!!

the idea of Bruce building a squad is scary, the thought of him getting us promoted and being handed £100m of TV money is terrifying 

[Reivax_Villa]

Either way its not going to end well.

He will either get sacked this season or he will get us promoted waste millions and then get sacked..

 

 

[Guest av1]

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

he's been here 18 months and he's replacing his own signings!!

 

You couldn't make it up.

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

the idea of Bruce building a squad is scary, the thought of him getting us promoted and being handed £100m of TV money is terrifying 

Terrifying indeed. 

[weedman]

7 hours ago, AVTuco said:

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

Touché 

[sheepyvillian]

16 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Bruce teams has never been known for playing great football. His style works well in this league and at the end of the day, results is all that matters if we wanna get promoted.

The alternative is to gamble on a manager that play attractive football, but that means another rebuilding process. We need to back Bruce right now.

As Villa fan's we all want Villa to win, that goes without say, but you can still be critical about the football that's on offer and rightly so. The fact is, the more poorly you play, the more game's you're likely to lose. I've said it before, that cliche of winning when you're playing poor and it being a sign of a good team is a myth. Two years this manager has had and still no cohesive pattern to our football.

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, PompeyVillan said:

I must be in the minority that think he's doing an excellent job? 

He's dragged us kicking and screaming for a team that lost habitually, the players didn't seem to care, the fans were disillusioned and embarrassed and angry at the players. I got used to hearing boos at half time and full time. It was desperate. 

We're now in a position where we get good crowds, there is a connection between the fans and the players and we tend to win more than we lose. 

Villa is a pressure cooker, my god I'm so happy with how Bruce deals with it all. He's genial, but firm, he's well respected and gets a shift out of everyone. He's honest and doesn't make excuses. I think the 'behind the scenes' aspect of being Villa manager is underplayed. You just have to read Villa Talk to get a sense of it, the fans feel entitled to be in the Premier League, they look at other successful clubs and say 'we should be doing that'.

Thing is, we've had no continuity in how we've been administered off the pitch. We've had feast and then famine over and again, no clear transfer strategy or 'Villa way'. It's been madness. 

People will say our first two results are papering over the cracks in performance. I'd suggest that Steve Bruce has been papering over the cracks behind the scenes since he came in. 

I get that Bruce's style of football can be alienating when it doesn't work. I think it makes sense to support Bruce because I think he's done a good job, and hopefully with the Dr Tony saga behind us we can build a team capable of being promoted. Perhaps not this season, but who knows? 

I don't know, football changes quickly, 5 games without a win and I think I could understand the calls for him to be sacked. 

I think what sums this situation up for me is the gushing praise for McGinn and how good a signing this appears and how Bruce seems to have been given little credit for helping making it happen. 

Excellent post. 

When we don't win Bruce is shit cos we didn't win.

When we do win its often in spite of Bruce cos he's shit. 

Football is about moments of joy, fleeting as they are, winning a game in the 94th minute, irrespective of who the opposition may be, is pure elation. 

I've enjoyed far more moments of elation under SB than I have disappointment.

[weedman]

To all those concerned with the performances, remember the off season we've had? You know, from 2 weeks ago? Every player for sale, possible administration, manager that doesn't know if he's coming or going, no signings until the absolute last minute, big players leaving? We were in complete turmoil. Remember that?

It was always going to be a tough start to the season as the preparation for it was totally ruined by all the off field issues, the fact that we're still winning is a huge positive, we'll naturally improve as the season goes on as everything settles down somewhat and a few new players are brought in (we're desperately needing a striker to take some pressure off Kodjia. He may well be finished after the injuries but he may just need someone to take the burden off him a bit) so I'm feeling cautiously optimistic at the moment 

[weedman]

1 hour ago, PompeyVillan said:

I must be in the minority that think he's doing an excellent job? 

He's dragged us kicking and screaming for a team that lost habitually, the players didn't seem to care, the fans were disillusioned and embarrassed and angry at the players. I got used to hearing boos at half time and full time. It was desperate. 

We're now in a position where we get good crowds, there is a connection between the fans and the players and we tend to win more than we lose. 

Villa is a pressure cooker, my god I'm so happy with how Bruce deals with it all. He's genial, but firm, he's well respected and gets a shift out of everyone. He's honest and doesn't make excuses. I think the 'behind the scenes' aspect of being Villa manager is underplayed. You just have to read Villa Talk to get a sense of it, the fans feel entitled to be in the Premier League, they look at other successful clubs and say 'we should be doing that'.

Thing is, we've had no continuity in how we've been administered off the pitch. We've had feast and then famine over and again, no clear transfer strategy or 'Villa way'. It's been madness. 

People will say our first two results are papering over the cracks in performance. I'd suggest that Steve Bruce has been papering over the cracks behind the scenes since he came in. 

I get that Bruce's style of football can be alienating when it doesn't work. I think it makes sense to support Bruce because I think he's done a good job, and hopefully with the Dr Tony saga behind us we can build a team capable of being promoted. Perhaps not this season, but who knows? 

I don't know, football changes quickly, 5 games without a win and I think I could understand the calls for him to be sacked. 

I think what sums this situation up for me is the gushing praise for McGinn and how good a signing this appears and how Bruce seems to have been given little credit for helping making it happen. 

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