Steve Bruce

[DaveAV1]

49 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

There is no Gabby thread so this is now the only focus we have. It truly is mental, how many times the same things can be said every single day. I am all for coming in after a game and having a debate on the wrongs or rights, but holy **** christ this is the definition of madness.

 

I think the number of repetitive posts both for and against Bruce is now being rivalled by the number of posts repeatedly complaining about the number of repetitive posts! 

Edited August 16, 2018 by DaveAV1

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Tommo_b said:

Thing is if Bruce won the first ten games in a row he would still have the same arguments, we get it, he plays sh*t football, but if it’s working you don’t change it, otherwise you end up doing a Birmingham City. 

Also what I find annoying is a lot of the people who want Bruce out act like they are in the minority on here, you’re not! No one is a Bruce defender, we all accept he is a nice guy and we don’t like his style but IMO he’s done a good job in getting us back competing, I think it’s forgotten what a shambles we were in or it’s brushed over as something that wasn’t as bad as it actually was. 

Then this summer there was another massive shambles hat has caused massive uncertainty around many aspects of the club considering ownerships, players, manager, I think let’s just accept the football is not the best at the moment but let’s continue this thread after 10 games. 

I think the problem is some posters think that if they allow Bruce any credit for anything, it'll somehow weaken their Bruce Out position. Like we all suddenly won't believe them or it'll make their argument less valid.

It's absolutely fine to want bruce out, or to think we could do better, or to criticise him when it's deserved.

But it's when people start admitting that "he failed last season so I won't give him any credit on anything" (I@m paraphrasing) it gets infuriating.

It's ok to be anti-Bruce and still acknowledge things he does right.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Stevo985

[sne]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I think the problem is some posters think that if they allow Bruce any credit for anything, it'll somehow weaken their Bruce Out position. Like we all suddenly won't believe them or it'll make their argument less valid.

It's absolutely fine to want bruce out, or to think we could do better, or to criticise him when it's deserved.

But it's when people start admitting that "he failed last season so I won't give him any credit on anything" (I@m paraphrasing) it gets infuriating.

It's ok to be anti-Bruce and still acknowledge things he does right.

Fair enough.

I've given Bruce props for giving Johnstone another season that turned out to be a good call despite my doubts, getting team spirit back, bringing in Terry and doing slightly better overall than I thought he would last season a bunch of other stuff.

I do however don't feel the need to add them as a caveat in every post every time I have some critique to bring up.

"That was a terrible performance but Terry was a good signing last season" seems a bit pointless.

 

[Dodgyknees]

19 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I think the problem is some posters think that if they allow Bruce any credit for anything, it'll somehow weaken their Bruce Out position. Like we all suddenly won't believe them or it'll make their argument less valid.

It's absolutely fine to want bruce out, or to think we could do better, or to criticise him when it's deserved.

But it's when people start admitting that "he failed last season so I won't give him any credit on anything" (I@m paraphrasing) it gets infuriating.

It's ok to be anti-Bruce and still acknowledge things he does right.

I'm always happy to praise Bruce when it is deserved. Doesn't change my mind on thinking he isn't the right man for the job.

- His work with Grealish

- Changing the mindset so we don't lose when we go behind

- Last season, the work on the defence meant we looked less shaky

- This season, sticking with us when he could have walked, I respect that.

- 7 game winning streak was so much fun, will live with me for years

Just a few positives I am more than happy to credit him for. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

3 hours ago, LakotaDakota said:

and yet they finished 14 points behind us last year, Won 6 fewer games, Scored less goals and conceeded more. But they're brilliant because they pass the ball around a lot...

We already have more points than them this season after only 2 games.

Hmmm, I really can't be arsed going into the glaringly obvious differences, advantages and disadvantages of us vs. Brentford because i'm almost certain you already know them but acknowledging them would take away from the effect you are trying to have.

Carry on.

 

 

[Lord Willard]

I still think Bruce is the currently the right man for the job. In 10 games time and we arent where we need to be points wise we may have to re-evaluate. We have won 3 on the trot, you can only beat what's infront of you. 

I really don't think there are many managers avalible/gettable that's an improvement on Bruce in our current situation. We do need to remember our hands are still tied with FFP. The team spirit and man management is his strongest attribute. We are so much more resilient.

Bruces team selection frustrate and piss me off but he gets results some how. As a team our results have improved every year he's been in charge. Got us to 13th with 62 points then 4th with 83 points. We need 90 points this year. 

We don't have a particular style of play but as it's been said before a professional should be able to control the ball. Regarding pass and move, kids are taught that from an early age Bruce doesn't coach that out of people... 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

28 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I think the problem is some posters think that if they allow Bruce any credit for anything, it'll somehow weaken their Bruce Out position.

Sorry can't agree with this AT ALL.

Myself, and people even more aggressive than myself have given Bruce credit every time it is due.

Edited August 16, 2018 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[Dodgyknees]

1 minute ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Sorry can't agree with this AT ALL.

Myself, and people even more aggressive than myself have given Bruce credit every time it is due.

I've definitely seen positive comments from others, including you.

[Keyblade]

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

We're winning games but the way in which we're winning is unsustainable.

We don't have a pattern or style of play.

I'll be delighted if we keep winning, but the issue is that we could easily slip into a bad run if things start going against us.

This is it. This is what everyone is saying, yet some people are twisting the criticisms of him as "derision", "moaning", "pathetic" etc.

This is the most respectful opposition to a manager I can remember. Seriously, do people even remember this place under Houllier, McLeish and Lambert etc? It was pure vitriol. 

Now people are saying "I'm concerned about our chances of promotion because we don't have a defined style of play after 2 years of failure" and people are losing their shit .

[villa89]

51 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It's ok to be anti-Bruce and still acknowledge things he does right.

Well I think it's clear that he has plenty of positives. He's a good "man manager", thoroughly nice fellow and he definitely has a good reputation and influence with the media. Because of that he keeps the club at a higher profile and enables us to attract players (McGinn maybe) who might have gone to another club (Celtic) if we had a less high profile manager. Based on his transfers, and the people we are linked with, he seems to have a decent eye for a player too. He's also got loads of experience and doesn't get carried away when we win or too down when we lose. So overall everything would seem to be okay.

Then you watch us play...

Edited August 16, 2018 by villa89

[Stevo985]

30 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Sorry can't agree with this AT ALL.

Myself, and people even more aggressive than myself have given Bruce credit every time it is due.

Sorry JV, but they haven't.

YOU might have. There are a handful of posters who don't, or hardly ever do. If anything good happens it's a coincidence or it's the minimum you'd expect from a manager.

Biggest win percentage of any Villa manager? Oh well we have loads of money and a good squad.
Got the best form of his career out of Grealish? Well Grealish is good so he'd have come good under any manager
Score loads of goals? Yeah but that's because we have good players, it's all in spite of Bruce's tactics
Signed some good players? They're all too old
Signed some young players? Well that wasn't his decision
Players say good things about him? Well they would say that, he's their manager
Have a good team spirit? Coincidence

 

I think most posters acknowledge a middle ground. Bruce is a good football manager. He hasn't been good enough so far, and he won't be good enough this season (if that's your opinion).
But that doesn't mean the guy is a buffoon who has no clue what he's doing, which is what a select few posters seem to believe.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Stevo985

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I reckon you could count on one hand how many teams have a well developed style of play in the UK.

This obsession with style has no real substance given that there's no real measure of it.

Without even getting into the PL, from the second tier in the last few seasons:

Wolves

Cardiff

Fulham

Brentford

Leeds

Bournemouth

Huddersfield

Sheffield United

Last season Wigan won League One playing attacking football (that we caught a glimpse of on Saturday) under Paul Cook. Tony Pulisn for example has made a name for himself as a coach who instills a very well defined system into his players to achieve success. It's ugly but it works. Ditto for Sam Allardyce.

Notice a pattern? All of those teams have been successful in their goals, with some of them like Brentford and Sheffield United punching above their weight.

We're most comparable to Manchester United. Spent a truckload on good players, but can't seem to put a consistently good run of form together. We go on extended winning runs followed by matching winless runs, rinse repeat. Both teams will always be there or there about due to the sheer quality of their teams but will likely not achieve their goal (ours is considerably easier to achieve I should add) precisely because they play a haphazard style of football.

So no, it's not an obsession with style for styles sake. it's the difference between success and possibly stumbling over the line but likely not. Think of any successful team in any league. They are all very well coached. Very rarely to teams stumble into success. It's early doors yet, but I expect Leeds will drive the point home for us this season.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Keyblade

[Vive_La_Villa]

6 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Without even getting into the PL, from the second tier in the last few seasons:

Wolves

Cardiff

Fulham

Brentford

Leeds

Bournemouth

Huddersfield

Sheffield United

Last season Wigan won League One playing attacking football (that we caught a glimpse of on Saturday) under Paul Cook. Tony Pulisn for example has made a name for himself as a coach who instills a very well defined system into his players to achieve success. It's ugly but it works. Ditto for Sam Allardyce.

Notice a pattern? All of those teams have been successful in their goals, with some of them like Brentford and Sheffield United punching above their weight.

We're most comparable to Manchester United. Spent a truckload on good players, but can't seem to put a consistently good run of form together. We go on extended winning runs followed by matching winless runs, rinse repeat. Both teams will always be there or there about due to the sheer quality of their teams but will likely not achieve their goal (ours is considerably easier to achieve I should add) precisely because they play a haphazard style of football.

So no, it's not an obsession with style for styles sake. it's the difference between success and possibly stumbling over the line but likely not. Think of any successful team in any league. They are all very well coached. Very rarely to teams stumble into success. It's early doors yet, but I expect Leeds will drive the point home for us this season.

 

 

This is a good post. The most worrying thing about Villa for me is even though the team is relatively settled now after playing with each other for a while I still have no idea how they will perform. A lot of it may boil down to too many players that are not good enough. 

[bobzy]

36 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

This is it. This is what everyone is saying, yet some people are twisting the criticisms of him as "derision", "moaning", "pathetic" etc.

This is the most respectful opposition to a manager I can remember. Seriously, do people even remember this place under Houllier, McLeish and Lambert etc? It was pure vitriol. 

Now people are saying "I'm concerned about our chances of promotion because we don't have a defined style of play after 2 years of failure" and people are losing their shit .

"Losing their shit"    

"2 years of failure"    

[bannedfromHandV]

30 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Without even getting into the PL, from the second tier in the last few seasons:

Wolves

Cardiff

Fulham

Brentford

Leeds

Bournemouth

Huddersfield

Sheffield United

Last season Wigan won League One playing attacking football (that we caught a glimpse of on Saturday) under Paul Cook. Tony Pulisn for example has made a name for himself as a coach who instills a very well defined system into his players to achieve success. It's ugly but it works. Ditto for Sam Allardyce.

Notice a pattern? All of those teams have been successful in their goals, with some of them like Brentford and Sheffield United punching above their weight.

We're most comparable to Manchester United. Spent a truckload on good players, but can't seem to put a consistently good run of form together. We go on extended winning runs followed by matching winless runs, rinse repeat. Both teams will always be there or there about due to the sheer quality of their teams but will likely not achieve their goal (ours is considerably easier to achieve I should add) precisely because they play a haphazard style of football.

So no, it's not an obsession with style for styles sake. it's the difference between success and possibly stumbling over the line but likely not. Think of any successful team in any league. They are all very well coached. Very rarely to teams stumble into success. It's early doors yet, but I expect Leeds will drive the point home for us this season.

 

 

That's just not true is it? 

The need to exaggerate things to make a point is tiresome. 

 

 

Edit - and also, you reference Tony Pulis as an example of what we should/could be doing - I lived in Stoke between 2002-2015, I watched Stoke on a number of occasions (largely against us but occasionally others too), everyone at the Bet365 stadium hated the football under Pulis - everyone.

So you can keep referencing him and Warnock etc as though they're some form of shining light of effective coaching but the reality is that if they were here, the exact same (and in my opinion, to a much worse degree) conversations would be ongoing.

The grass is not greener just because it's on the other side, I know it's really difficult for some to grasp.

Edited August 16, 2018 by bannedfromHandV

[Keyblade]

3 minutes ago, bobzy said:

"Losing their shit"    

"2 years of failure"    

Didn't realize we were in the PL, my bad

[bobzy]

22 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Without even getting into the PL, from the second tier in the last few seasons:

Wolves

Cardiff

Fulham

Brentford

Leeds

Bournemouth

Huddersfield

Sheffield United

Last season Wigan won League One playing attacking football (that we caught a glimpse of on Saturday) under Paul Cook. Tony Pulisn for example has made a name for himself as a coach who instills a very well defined system into his players to achieve success. It's ugly but it works. Ditto for Sam Allardyce.

Notice a pattern? All of those teams have been successful in their goals, with some of them like Brentford and Sheffield United punching above their weight.

We're most comparable to Manchester United. Spent a truckload on good players, but can't seem to put a consistently good run of form together. We go on extended winning runs followed by matching winless runs, rinse repeat. Both teams will always be there or there about due to the sheer quality of their teams but will likely not achieve their goal (ours is considerably easier to achieve I should add) precisely because they play a haphazard style of football.

So no, it's not an obsession with style for styles sake. it's the difference between success and possibly stumbling over the line but likely not. Think of any successful team in any league. They are all very well coached. Very rarely to teams stumble into success. It's early doors yet, but I expect Leeds will drive the point home for us this season.

Of the teams on there, I'd only say that Brentford have a clearly defined system and purchase players to fit that system.  Fulham possibly have a style, but that's more from being settled.  They still mixed it up by bringing in Mitrovic as a target man figure to hold the ball up field.

Wolves spent big on big name players at this level and made it, have now signed Adama Traore for a club record fee.  They didn't utilise wide forwards last season at all - in fact, their wing backs were a huge part of their success (I'm surprised they let Douglas go).  They don't have a style, they had a well assembled (Neves and Jota in the Championship was ridiculous) squad.  Cardiff were assembled well and became a sum greater than their parts, but their style of play varied massively over the season.  Maybe they were generally physical - Warnock side after all - but at times they dominated sides, other times they broke with loads of pace up front.  I don't know what you'd have called their style?   Leeds have been well coached and drilled for 3 games this season, but were all over the place last time out.  Huddersfield are a very well drilled side defensively, probably not really a style thing, but certainly good coaching.  They surprised everyone by being so solid (crew) and used the loan market well.  Again, not sure what style they had.  Counter-attacking?  Maybe.  Sheffield Utd are often cited as some example of great things to happen as they punched above their weight so to speak, but, again, I have no idea what you'd class their style as.  They played quite direct football last season and Clarke and Sharp worked well together, coupled with David Brooks who is an exciting prospect (interesting to see how he does at Bournemouth).  They didn't last the pace, unfortunately, and have lost to Wigan this season (who we beat... maybe they aren't so bad?).

On the bit in bold, I'm pretty sure we were the most in form team in England over a 2 or 3 month spell at some point last season?!

[Keyblade]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

That's just not true is it? 

The need to exaggerate things to make a point is tiresome. 

Last season, first run: 1 win in 7 - 6 points out of 27

D

L

L

W

D

D

D

Followed by 1 loss in 8 - 19 points out of 24

W

W

W

W

L

W

D

W

Followed by 3 wins in 9 - 11 points out of 27

L

W

W

W

D

D

L

D

L

 Followed by 1 loss in 8 and 7 wins: - 21 points out of 24

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

L

We finished the season earning a respectable, but not-quite-enough 24 points out of 42, but on the whole we play in boom-bust cycles like it's trickle down economics :lol: . I remember 2016/2017 being similar in that regard too. So no, I'm not exaggerating.

[bannedfromHandV]

1 minute ago, Keyblade said:

Last season, first run: 1 win in 7 - 6 points out of 27

D

L

L

W

D

D

D

Followed by 1 loss in 8 - 19 points out of 24

W

W

W

W

L

W

D

W

Followed by 3 wins in 9 - 11 points out of 27

L

W

W

W

D

D

L

D

L

 Followed by 1 loss in 8 and 7 wins: - 21 points out of 24

W

W

W

W

W

W

W

L

We finished the season earning a respectable, but not-quite-enough 24 points out of 42, but on the whole we play in boom-bust cycles like it's trickle down economics . I remember 2016/2017 being similar in that regard too. So no, I'm not exaggerating.

Well correct me if I'm wrong but I find it hard to imagine that a team with as many losses as wins could finish 4th in the division. 

[sne]

22 minutes ago, bobzy said:

 

"2 years of failure"    

Failure to get promoted and losing so much money that we almost went into administrationen. 

But we had fun while doing it (from time to time)?