Steve Bruce

[VILLAMARV]

 

4 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

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

D

L

L

W

D

D

D

 

pedant alert 7 games =21 points

[VILLAMARV]

also that's 7 points we had after 7 games

[VILLAMARV]

13 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

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

L

W

W

W

D

D

L

D

L

12 points....

[Tommo_b]

2 hours ago, villabromsgrove said:

We beat Hull because they had an awful makeshift defence who'd never played together before. Three of our defenders scored. We scrambled a 94th minute win against Wigan who were more physical and better organised for much of the game. Two defensive players scored along with an own goal from Wigan. We beat Yeovil in an awful game in which we struggled to match Yeovil's strength and commitment for sections of the match. Hourihane scored a tap in after some individual excellence by Kodjia, ably supplied by Grealish.

You say we play sh*t football under Bruce, and then you say we should accept it for now because it's working, even though we've been lucky to squeak two of our three results. 

The "sh*t football" will stop working once we start playing decent teams instead of relegation contenders and lower league opposition.

Should we wait for that to happen before making our views on the subject crystal clear?

I believe that the right manager/head coach could get another couple of percent out of each of our players, by providing then with a properly coached system of play. The combined overall team improvement would demonstrate the fact that we usually have slightly better players than the opposition.

I expect us to find a way to beat Ipswich this weekend for another three points, I'm not sure how we'll do it but I expect a win. We shouldn't be bumbling along waiting for a couple of moments of individual skill and a bit of luck to do the job for us. That's the manager's job, and he isn't doing it. Trusting your older experienced players to find a way of winning points when they get out on the pitch is not "managing" .... it's amateur, unacceptable and avoiding responsibility!

I'm fed up of saying that Bruce is a decent guy .... He's a good bloke who happens to be a very limited manager, and in terms of football he annoys the hell out of me far too much of the time!

 

I respect your opinion, I think some points are subjective but that’s football.

And I think 3 defenders scoring in one game is bloody brilliantly! 

So what happens if in the next three games we end up playing with a “style” and win them 4-0, will that change anything... probably not.

[Keyblade]

@VILLAMARV

[sheepyvillian]

7 hours ago, Tommo_b said:

Top post.

The thing is if we keep playing this way we won’t start losing, we will continue on like we did last season when Bruce was in charge, so although the football will be crap I would imagine we will still be up the top end of the league the rest of the season regardless. 

And where's the progress in that ?

[TRO]

7 hours ago, Hoof hearted said:

When I took my FA coaching badges in the mid 90s the basic premise of the course was to get the ball as fast as possible from your goal to theirs, or the 7 pass method.

There was no mention of basics like pass and move or 'triangles' if you like, now I'm assuming Bruce took it (he would have to to become a professional manager) around the same time and has refused to budge on it's ethos.

It was the 'English way' of playing and the FA insisted on drilling it into our youngsters, I questioned the coaches at the time (Ex pros Paul Power of Man City and Burys Andy Welsh) about it and they just shrugged and said it was the way it was.

The Crux of the matter regarding Bruce is that he's firmly set in the early 90s with his play style and I don't think he'll ever change, regardless of the talent at his disposal.

We've had a good start results wise but I have this sneaking suspicion we'll be on the end of a battering sooner rather than later if it continues, if it's at Villa Park I hope he's ready for the wrath.

Managers, Football players, coaches, no matter how good or how bad have differences of opinion....In the main they are governed by the profile of their squad...i.e you play to the players strengths.

If the argument was that SB doesn't buy the right players, thats a different argument and one, I don't think is being put forward....its his coaching or lack of it that is being debated.

2 of the best managers in football Jose and Pep have a difference in the way their teams play.....Man U finished 2nd last season and the manager was questioned and analysed.....conversely, we would just like to get in the bloody league.

You say he will never change,even with better players.....thats your view and at present it can't be challenged, you could be right, but equally you could be wrong.....He has never been anywhere, where he can test that theory, because in the main he hasn't been able to buy real quality.

HH i honestly respect your view, but its no different from mine.....we both see fault in the football.......its only where we think the fault lies that we differ.

not to digress too much.....But I genuinely have my doubt if some fans of the present day would get the hump with RS's football style of 110% work rate.....Personally, I didn't like Martin O'Neills serving...its just that we won away from home and had individuals who could excite us....We have been very hit and miss in terms of playing team football in my life time, I guess Ron Atkinsons first 18 months was the closest i seen  to it.

[Keyblade]

42 minutes ago, bobzy said:

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?!

I think I've been misusing the term style, I don't mean tiki-taka, or hoofball or whatever. Essentially what I mean is a well-drilled team that knows what they should be doing at all times, and that clearly comes from the coaching staff.

All of the teams I mentioned are well-drilled but not all of them have a rigid style that they adhere to at all times. Brentford being a good example of one of those teams as you mentioned. Every time I see us play we play like the players are playing with each other for the first time. That should not be the case after almost 2 full seasons.

Like I said in another post, we go on amazing winning runs but then follow it up with runs of poor form. The reason why we're so inconsistent in my opinion is down to poor coaching, I can't see any other reasons why after 2 seasons. I'd love to hear your opinion on why we're like this. 

[bannedfromHandV]

47 minutes ago, Tommo_b said:

I respect your opinion, I think some points are subjective but that’s football.

And I think 3 defenders scoring in one game is bloody brilliantly! 

So what happens if in the next three games we end up playing with a “style” and win them 4-0, will that change anything... probably not.

Also, we beat Hull because we scored 3 times and they scored once. 

[bannedfromHandV]

14 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I think I've been misusing the term style, I don't mean tiki-taka, or hoofball or whatever. Essentially what I mean is a well-drilled team that knows what they should be doing at all times, and that clearly comes from the coaching staff.

All of the teams I mentioned are well-drilled but not all of them have a rigid style that they adhere to at all times. Brentford being a good example of one of those teams as you mentioned. Every time I see us play we play like the players are playing with each other for the first time. That should not be the case after almost 2 full seasons.

Like I said in another post, we go on amazing winning runs but then follow it up with runs of poor form. The reason why we're so inconsistent in my opinion is down to poor coaching, I can't see any other reasons why after 2 seasons. I'd love to hear your opinion on why we're like this. 

So being one of the highest scoring and best defensive teams (last season) doesn't equate to good coaching for you then? 

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

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.

There would be grumbles, but nobody can really argue with success. I've said it, and many others have too but as long as we get promoted I don't care if we play a potent mixture of Warnock-Pulis-Allardyce ball. It might be hard to watch but we'll at least reach our goal.

That's actually why our current predicament stings so much. Everybody knew Bruce wasn't exactly Pep Guardiola, but nobody could argue with his track record in this league. We all knew the football wouldn't be great, but we thought he was going to get us out of this league so it was worth it. 2 years later and we're still here. The football's still shit mind, but we're still **** here, that's the main point here.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Keyblade

[bobzy]

11 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Like I said in another post, we go on amazing winning runs but then follow it up with runs of poor form. The reason why we're so inconsistent in my opinion is down to poor coaching, I can't see any other reasons why after 2 seasons. I'd love to hear your opinion on why we're like this. 

I don't think we are that inconsistent compared to any other side.  Form is something that happens in football; sometimes teams will be on great winning streaks (Fulham last season) sometimes teams will be on terrible winless streaks (Fulham last season).  The huge disappointment last season was that, after being in great form and beating Wolves 4-1, we then somehow didn't turn up against QPR, Bolton and... was it Norwich?  I'm not even sure that comes down to Bruce's lack of style/coaching, the players just seemed to think "oh, well we've hammered Wolves - job done".  Perhaps this was the message behind the scenes too, I don't know, but it was all very odd.

You say about amazing winning runs and follow them up with poor form, but this rarely happened last season - certainly not outside the norm anyway.  Aside from that blip after Wolves (1 win, 1 draw, 3 losses - hardly completely horrific) our main error was a really poor start to the season (1 win, 4 draws and 2 losses in the opening 7).  Perhaps that was down to poor coaching or not being setup well to start the season - if I'm honest, I can't remember those games at all - but otherwise.... I dunno, teams just sometimes beat other teams in football?

[TRO]

22 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I think I've been misusing the term style, I don't mean tiki-taka, or hoofball or whatever. Essentially what I mean is a well-drilled team that knows what they should be doing at all times, and that clearly comes from the coaching staff.

All of the teams I mentioned are well-drilled but not all of them have a rigid style that they adhere to at all times. Brentford being a good example of one of those teams as you mentioned. Every time I see us play we play like the players are playing with each other for the first time. That should not be the case after almost 2 full seasons.

Like I said in another post, we go on amazing winning runs but then follow it up with runs of poor form. The reason why we're so inconsistent in my opinion is down to poor coaching, I can't see any other reasons why after 2 seasons. I'd love to hear your opinion on why we're like this. 

There are times you are absolutely right.....and there are times in a game you are not....IMO

so for me that statement is not consistent.

I was watching the game on Saturday and up until we gifted them a goal, we looked well drilled and organised and a coaching deficiency never entered my head .....after that they ( Wigan)grew in confidence battered us with their superior physicality, we started feeling sorry for ourselves and for a period resembled a shambles....They started playing, we stood off in customary ( feeling sorry for ourselves) fashion and they seized the initiative.

How we got back in, I don't know, that was credit it to us, because I thought we was dead.

Too many unforced errors is the problem, its dragging the confidence out of the team.....I am not sure how you coach that away.

Edited August 16, 2018 by TRO

[Keyblade]

3 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

So being one of the highest scoring and best defensive teams (last season) doesn't equate to good coaching for you then? 

We finished 4th, I would be amazed if we weren't among the highest scores and the best defensive teams.

The point is we finished 4th and not 1st or 2nd. Crucially, you'll find we weren't in the top 2 highest scorers or best defenses.

Not that I believe goal difference is an indicator of good or bad coaching, but since you brought it up, there's you go.

[bobzy]

23 hours ago, DaveAV1 said:

<a good long post>

Holy crap, big apologies needed here - I've only just realised I've gotten you mixed up with another poster of similar name  .  Your posts aren't that negative on the whole - may be why you became defensive after me saying you were.

Sorry Dave!

Edited August 16, 2018 by bobzy

[Vive_La_Villa]

So I wonder what team Bruce will pick on the weekend. 

Last season we dealt with Ipswich easily twice.  We could handle long ball teams. It was the teams that tried to play football and pressed we couldn’t handle. 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Vive_La_Villa

[A'Villan]

3 hours 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.

As with everything in life, people think the grass is greener on the other side.

I think it would be a real wake up call for those people if they took the time to actually watch other teams - and I'm not talking about Man City, or Liverpool, 2 of the handful of sides who do appear to have a well honed style (no coincidence they're also the 2 most expensive squads), I'm talking about Stoke, Ipswich, Burton, Middlesboro etc, teams that are actually in some way comparable with us and our current situation.

 

Again, I repeat, our biggest problem in my opinion is culture. We still have too many players who are afraid to be on the ball, they're more afraid of making a mistake than they are excited about doing something great - this comes from playing in a pressure cooker like Villa where every mistake and defeat is rounded upon with such hostility.

The culture has gotten better throughout SB's tenure, seemingly so at least. I have confidence it will continue to improve and in turn, so will we.

 

While I think you make some good points, I'm going to disagree with three.

One being there's no measure of style. Style in this context is implicit of tactical approach. Measurable by the observed outcomes of a game and season.

Two being that you could count on one hand teams with a developed style of play in England, I could count 3 from the Championship alone who were superior to Villa's approach under Bruce, and if I actually watched a team like Derby or Bristol it would not surprise me to find evidence of a greater tactical approach and therefore style, given their resources of course. A developed style of play is not about winning games, which is ephemeral, rather the process of preparation and application.

Three, you mention players being hesitant to express themselves on the ball, I agree that's a potential problem because without confidence our game is nullified.

However I saw Grealish, McGinn, Kodjia, Green and Hourihane all contribute a decent amount of effort in attack, each one has either forced a decent save,  scored, hit the cross bar or assisted someone multiple times this season. I'd say five players showing a bit of ability in attack is perhaps enough.

I would suggest our biggest cultural problem is in part congruent with your idea, but rather a lack of sequential passing ability rather than fear of making a mistake.

I think we've been fortunate to come away with three victories so far, if we invite the sort of pressure and allow teams to find their stride like we did against Hull and Yeovil in particular we could easily find ourselves on the wrong side of the result,

 

[ciggiesnbeer]

11 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

So I wonder what team Bruce will pick on the weekend. 

Last season we dealt with Ipswich easily twice.  We could handle long ball teams. It was the teams that tried to play football and pressed we couldn’t handle. 

Aye should be interesting. They have weakened significantly since last season (lost some of their best players)  though their keeper remains excellent. I am a bit worried to be honest Ipswich are desperate for a win and well, I support Aston Villa so I always expect the worst

[Vive_La_Villa]

5 minutes ago, ciggiesnbeer said:

Aye should be interesting. They have weakened significantly since last season (lost some of their best players)  though their keeper remains excellent. I am a bit worried to be honest Ipswich are desperate for a win and well, I support Aston Villa so I always expect the worst

I’m not confident.

[TheStagMan]

15 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Hmm, ask yourself this.

Are the "some on here's" just angry because they are shit fans who are just looking for something to moan about?

OR

Are they pleased for the 2 league wins (and progression in the cup) but acknowledge and are worried about the poor style of play, tactics and performances mirroring the past 2 seasons of failure?

Ya know, because shite football eventually turns into losing football, especially against better teams, and/or lesser teams with fight and a sound manager?

Aside from common football sense dictating that better football and tactics will always eventually prevail and be more sustainable towards progress and future success?

Have you seen some of the Football Brentford play, a team with a fraction of our resources and who lose their best players almost every year?

Cue "But we spanked Wolves 4 - 1 , were 90 minutes away from promotion, and have had our best start to a season (In the Championship) in a trillion years"

Bruce produces "There or thereabouts" not because of expertise, but because of some of the pure quality we have in the team.

Stop lying to yourself and making it seem that if we thought we could guarantee promotion with this tripe we would not accept it for the greater good.

But Nah, we just want our team to lose so we can be right.

Football has moved on, and it seems some of you belong back there with Bruce.

 

Thank you, saved me from having to reply. Well said.