Steve Bruce

[VILLAMARV]

All about the here and now for Bruce. We all know the lead up. We have different takes on it and 2000 pages stand testament to that. No one wants to start it all up again unless we're all stuck in a Lambert-esque go-again loop like some sort of evil Groundhog Day.

But while we're all a bit frustrated with yesterday and the way the game panned out on weds it's tempered a bit by the points. How very Bruce. And by his own admission the result yesterday condemned us to an 'OK' start as opposed to a 'good' one (11points was the 5 game target he said)

As has been said a win against Sheff Utd will set us back on track but we'll need to back that up with a little upturn in results - not a big one like last year - but it needs to come now before we allow the frontrunners to get too far ahead or miss the chance to set the pace ourselves.

The quality of play/style/tactics and all that is seemingly less important to me than some here and I'm happy with that. Rarely have I ever watched a Villa team turn up and blow teams away with amazing football. I have no issue with scrappy positive results. Sometimes it clicks (Wolves/Norwich/B.City last year etc).

My main gripe is the lack of a performance for 90 mins or how we blow so hot and cold.

But it's all about the points for Bruce. And this year he has to have us around the top2 at Xmas or he - along with all our best players - will be gone.

We haven't lost a game yet. No one's sacking an unbeaten manager.

[StefanAVFC]

5 games in, still no plan A, never mind a plan B.

[Tomaszk]

33 minutes ago, TRO said:

VC you could be right, like sheepy and the 2 Daves, remind me.

No one has had time to coach that in to McGinn, its intrinsic.....Our players could just as easily do that without being told.

Ah, but he has been coached... at his old club. How long will it be before he starts looking like a Bruce player?

[Tomaszk]

5 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

5 games in, still no plan A, never mind a plan B.

95* games in.

[foreveryoung]

As far as i'm concerned, he has the tools now, Mcginn, Bolasie, El gharzi, Grealish, Hourihane, Kodja, to name a few. Ain't many teams in the Championship with names like those, all Premiership players. Ok, defence is not great, but we should be scoring goals aplenty with the team we have.

I think we want to be seeing progress this season, top 3-4 by Christmas. If not I think we have to let Bruce go, as he has obviously reached his limit. Surely no one can argue with that?

[KJT123]

I’m seeing lots of fans on Twitter saying that we should be thankful that we’re in the current situation. Over the summer, we could’ve gone into administration and gone bust, we could’ve lost our best players like Grealish, Chester and Kodjia, Bruce could have even resigned and left us in the shit.

That’s all well and good. I am thankful that the new owners have come in and saved us and we still have a team that can be competitive in the division.

But, now that all the off-field stuff has been sorted, we have to judge the manager on the recent performances given the squad we have now.

Not much has changed since last season, really. Yes, we’ve lost Terry, but if you look at the rest of the team I think we have a squad that is even better than last year.

We have a much stronger midfield with McGinn. We have Bolasie and El Ghazi offering pace and quality in wide areas. Barring any serious injury, we have Kodjia back to his best on the evidence of his Brentford performance.

Given this, promotion has to be the target and it really ought to be through the automatic spots.

If we don’t see significant improvement in performances and with it convincing victories over the next month, Bruce has to be sacked as we can’t let Leeds and Boro open up a big margin at the top of the table.

Before we know it, we’ll be settling for a playoff spot again and we all know what the outcome of that will be.

[Uncle Albert]

12 minutes ago, KJT123 said:

I’m seeing lots of fans on Twitter saying that we should be thankful that we’re in the current situation. Over the summer, we could’ve gone into administration and gone bust, we could’ve lost our best players like Grealish, Chester and Kodjia, Bruce could have even resigned and left us in the shit.

That’s all well and good. I am thankful that the new owners have come in and saved us and we still have a team that can be competitive in the division.

But, now that all the off-field stuff has been sorted, we have to judge the manager on the recent performances given the squad we have now.

Not much has changed since last season, really. Yes, we’ve lost Terry, but if you look at the rest of the team I think we have a squad that is even better than last year.

We have a much stronger midfield with McGinn. We have Bolasie and El Ghazi offering pace and quality in wide areas. Barring any serious injury, we have Kodjia back to his best on the evidence of his Brentford performance.

Given this, promotion has to be the target and it really ought to be through the automatic spots.

If we don’t see significant improvement in performances and with it convincing victories over the next month, Bruce has to be sacked as we can’t let Leeds and Boro open up a big margin at the top of the table.

Before we know it, we’ll be settling for a playoff spot again and we all know what the outcome of that will be.

Spot on.

[villalad21]

We do have a decent Championship team.

We just need a half decent manager to manage them well.

[sheepyvillian]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

In my view, we are doing fine, and will average the necessary 2 points per game we need.

Performances, from players and Manager, are up and down, and mostly below what we are capable of, but thars football, it’s the Championship.

I watched every game in the World Cup and didn’t see any team play consistently to their level.

For many, many games now Bruce has got all but 2 points per game on average out of this side, and, in my view, we will get better and better.

I ain’t debating it, as it’s all been said, but thats my thoughts.

Ever the optimist. Can't really knock you for that. If there's  one thing you're  not, it's " fickle "/.

[terrytini]

4 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Ever the optimist. Can't really knock you for that. If there's  one thing you're  not, it's " fickle "/.

Thank you. Let’s hope I’m right !

But I’m not sure whether I can be called not fickle.....this time last year Id have welcomed a defeat against Norwich if it had meant Bruce would be sacked ! I’m sort of fickle in reverse lol

 

[Taxahunter]

3 hours ago, jacketspuds said:

For those that saw the game yesterday. How many clear cut chances did we create? Only reason I ask is because we had a lot of the ball in the Brentford game, attacked with purpose, and then had no variation to our tactics outside of Kodjia's bit of individual brilliance for the first goal. I fear that we are too predictable and just wanted to know if this was the case yesterday?

Yeah, I pointed that out after the Brentford game, but as laughed at. We are not creating enough chances, looking at how much possesion we have got.

[AntrimBlack]

1 hour ago, KJT123 said:

I’m seeing lots of fans on Twitter saying that we should be thankful that we’re in the current situation. Over the summer, we could’ve gone into administration and gone bust, we could’ve lost our best players like Grealish, Chester and Kodjia, Bruce could have even resigned and left us in the shit.

That’s all well and good. I am thankful that the new owners have come in and saved us and we still have a team that can be competitive in the division.

But, now that all the off-field stuff has been sorted, we have to judge the manager on the recent performances given the squad we have now.

Not much has changed since last season, really. Yes, we’ve lost Terry, but if you look at the rest of the team I think we have a squad that is even better than last year.

We have a much stronger midfield with McGinn. We have Bolasie and El Ghazi offering pace and quality in wide areas. Barring any serious injury, we have Kodjia back to his best on the evidence of his Brentford performance.

Given this, promotion has to be the target and it really ought to be through the automatic spots.

If we don’t see significant improvement in performances and with it convincing victories over the next month, Bruce has to be sacked as we can’t let Leeds and Boro open up a big margin at the top of the table.

Before we know it, we’ll be settling for a playoff spot again and we all know what the outcome of that will be.

Good post.

[briny_ear]

4 minutes ago, Taxahunter said:

Yeah, I pointed that out after the Brentford game, but as laughed at. We are not creating enough chances, looking at how much possesion we have got.

I’ve tried to raise the same concerns but have been similarly brushed aside.

Looks in the last  two games like Bruce is going for an attacking, high possession approach but we are not creating clear cut chances and don’t have many with a killer instinct in front of goal. Kodjia can score but usually from moments of individual brilliance, not as part of collective attacking play.

High possession is OK as an approach but you need to score when dominating because you are always vulnerable to a counter attack, particularly because it is tiring to play that way . I question whether we have the players to deliver this approach effectively. We have been a counterattacking side for so long, it’s a big change, and other managers have floundered when trying to introduce it. Wish we had brought in a straight forward goal poacher during the window.

[AntrimBlack]

In his post game interview Bruce was talking of big changes for Tuesday.

Does he perhaps not give this management thing enough thought.

I think the last thing that team needs is big changes; the team is confused enough without that.

Could we perhaps just try a little tweaking.

[DaveAV1]

50 minutes ago, terrytini said:

Thank you. Let’s hope I’m right !

But I’m not sure whether I can be called not fickle.....this time last year Id have welcomed a defeat against Norwich if it had meant Bruce would be sacked ! I’m sort of fickle in reverse lol

 

You’re not not fickle, we just like you 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

Quote

"We are not getting carried away. We know there will be plenty of ups and downs this season and the quality of the football in the Championship has only increased in recent years." -

 

Key sentence from the owners in the matchday program, and a fact alot of people seem to ignore when trying to downplay why good football and almost NO margin of error matters.

ALSO, why because "he has done it 4 times" matters for sod all in the grand scheme of things.

This is a different era.

Edited August 26, 2018 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[A'Villan]

1 minute ago, briny_ear said:

I’ve tried to raise the same concerns but have been similarly brushed aside.

Looks in the last  two games like Bruce is going for an attacking, high possession approach but we are not creating clear cut chances and don’t have many with a killer instinct in front of goal. Kodjia can score but usually from moments of individual brilliance, not as part of collective attacking play.

High possession is OK as an approach but you need to score when dominating because you are always vulnerable to a counter attack, particularly because it is tiring to play that way . I question whether we have the players to deliver this approach effectively. We have been a counterattacking side for so long, it’s a big change, and other managers have floundered when trying to introduce it. Wish we had brought in a straight forward goal poacher during the window.

I like your post because I appreciate you taking the time to dissect how we are playing. However I don't agree with all of it.

High possession play is the best method for energy conservation. You let the ball do the work by tapping it about and forcing the opposition to chase. When played effectively, short passing possession play requires intelligent moving and sound passing technique above exuberant displays of running. The better the movement, the better the openings created. I have found that for all our individual ability on the ball we lack a cohesive approach in attack. This is something Bruce can remedy by building rapport at training.

There's a saying in sport that has become quite famous, "Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships". This is because defense requires resolute doggedness, hard work and sheer effort. You can anticipate that pass or run all you like, but if you're not busting a gut to intercept it, you're redundant. Defense is where energy expenditure is at its highest.

Our front half is littered with killer instincts. Even Hourihane ended up with 11 goals last season, and I would put him behind Kodjia, Grealish, Adomah, Bolasie, El Ghazi and McGinn for technique. As you say our inability to play the team game negates our ability to create clear cut chances more frequently, relying on individual bravado to open up the defense.

 

 

[foreveryoung]

Its no surprise Espirito got Wolves up first bash. He, like us, had good players who could walk into the Premier League. But unlike us, he was playing Premier league football, we still play Championship football, reason being we have a Championship manager who can't, an will never adapt.

We would get destroyed playing these tactics in the Premier league.

[gilbertoAVFC]

Yesterday we were rubbish. Reading were also rubbish, but we should never have let them anywhere near the game.

The first-half we were unbelievably passive and lacked aggression off-the-ball. May have been fatigue - in which case rotate a bit more. We were too far apart and every pass left the receiver isolated. The amount of times we got it to Kodjia's feet in the first-half only for him to pass it back or try and shrug off his defender with some strange trick was frustrating - we need more runners off him.

Bruce is trying to play more football on the ground but I don't think he knows how to make it effective.

Decision-making by attacking players, fitness and attacking work-rate all need to improve from a coaching perspective.

Edited August 26, 2018 by gilbertoAVFC

[Dodgyknees]

3 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

5 games in, still no plan A, never mind a plan B.

Plan A was scrapped after pre-season, we are now looking like a team of lost boys.