Steve Bruce

[Keyblade]

16 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

I think where we stand with Bruce/New owners is that this is the make or break season for him. As long as we are in with a mathematical shout of promotion or a play off place then he will remain, if it goes completely tits up by Christmas or earlier and it’s just clear we aren’t pushing to go up then he will be gone. Failure to get promoted come the end of the season and he will be gone. He’s here for a few months at least so we may as well calm down and hope for the best. Like I’ve always said, after the next few months if he remains in the job it’s because we are on course for promotion, if he is our manager next season then it’s because we in the PL. I’m not a fan of Steve but I’m relatively content with the above if that’s what the new owners are going with.

Or we stay within a shout for promotion all season but end up falling short in the end just like last season. That's my worst fear, and I feel is a likely scenario given the way we are/play  

[srsmithusa]

Maybe fickle is better than loyally wrong.   

Edited August 29, 2018 by srsmithusa

[sheepyvillian]

The 7 games in a row didn't fool me in to a false sense of security like it did some. I distinctly remember posting that 7 wins on the bounce won't mean diddly squat if we don't get promoted, and sadly, so it turned out to be.

[NeilS]

21 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

I think where we stand with Bruce/New owners is that this is the make or break season for him. As long as we are in with a mathematical shout of promotion or a play off place then he will remain, if it goes completely tits up by Christmas or earlier and it’s just clear we aren’t pushing to go up then he will be gone. Failure to get promoted come the end of the season and he will be gone. He’s here for a few months at least so we may as well calm down and hope for the best. Like I’ve always said, after the next few months if he remains in the job it’s because we are on course for promotion, if he is our manager next season then it’s because we in the PL. I’m not a fan of Steve but I’m relatively content with the above if that’s what the new owners are going with.

That is more or less how I see it as well. Bruce needs to get us promotion or he will be gone in the summer, there will be no more chances for him after this season.

Even with promotion They may not like what they see and make changes anyway, but it is best to take stock of what you have before ripping it all up to start again.

[Ingram85]

15 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Or we stay within a shout for promotion all season but end up falling short in the end just like last season. That's my worst fear, and I feel is a likely scenario given the way we are/play  

Then he’ll be gone.

[Keyblade]

17 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Then he’ll be gone.

Well yes, but it will be too late for me. We'd have wasted a whole year just waiting for the Steve Bruce project to inevitably peter out.

I just want to get out of this **** league. Honestly tired of ****ing around aimlessly, being within touching distance but ultimately failing. Those willing to wait it out and see how it goes are made of stronger stuff than me I guess

[Tayls]

I don’t know if this should be in this thread or not, so feel free to delete as appropriate Mods. 

Has anybody seen the All or Nothing: Man City documentary? If you haven’t, can I suggest that you do. I watched it last week in 4 days (8 episodes). I was hooked. 

Its very hyped up, I don’t know how much of it is just for the cameras or whatever, but my god, what a club. It gives you a real insight into the winning mentality that EVERYONE associated with the club has. It’s all about Win Win Win. 

I watch that I wonder how much of that happens at Villa. Does Steve have a way of engaging with the team in the dressing room that is similar to how Pep does it? Does Chester engage with the team in the same way the Komoany does? My guess is, probably not. Hell, even Delph pops up from time to time to give his input into the teams performances. 

I want to know what drives the players and the staff to want to be the best. Or do they just turn up every day because they have to and just collect wages. After the past few games, I don’t believe there is much by way of drive to succeed, to want to go out there and destroy whatever team is in front of them.

ive been in the ‘Bruce in’ (it was probably more about maintaining some consistency) for a while, but i want to see a major change in attitude, determination, drive pretty quickly or I’ll be up for a change in management. 

Edited August 29, 2018 by Tayls

[Dave J]

10 hours ago, imavillan said:

This is a good post and does not smack of good management. I don't think he has helped himself here

Players are not stupid and will be talking to one another behind the scenes. What happens now to any of these who end up on the bench and have to come on?

In any form of management in any industry if your manager gives you a public bollocking you go into a shell. The relationship falls down, you only do the bare minimum and you dont go the extra mile. Thats basic man management.

He could be applauded for being so frank and open....on the other hand it could back fire on him big time. Time will tell !!!

With modern footballers I suspect it more likely to backfire on him - it did wear a bit thin to hear the advocates of Bruce talk up his man management abilities - I for one suspected last season was a lot more down to Terry and Snodgrass when it came down to motivating the team - and I have not a clue what he thinks slating the team so openly will achieve - this to me smacks of a manager out of touch with modern day football on more than one front.

Lets be honest Bruce divides opinion and has done for some time in my view - this alone tells a story again imo 

[romavillan]

It's pretty simple really, he's made a massive rod for his back now with the last three results, but the performance for an hour or so against Brentford showed that 11 players assembled for the most part by Bruce, trained for a long time under Bruce's team along his lines, can actually play decent football. It's not the first time they have, but it's as rare as rocking horse shit compared to the turd we get mostly.

So, either we get more of the good stuff or he's in trouble in my opinion. Unless we go on one of those crazy run's of form in which we play rubbish and win game after game, like the run after the bad start last season. At least this time we aren't starting from so far back. Yet.

Conclusions can be made either way before xmas in my opinion and then at least if a new face comes in he gets January to work with.

[andym]

As much as i think Bruce is doing an overall poor job, i suspect that in terms of engagement with players etc he probably is very good, i have no doubt that his man management style works well and that he is capable of fostering that charged level of atmosphere like you see at Man City.

Unfortunately, that is only half the battle in getting a successful team - the Man City documentary shows you Pep's brilliant attention to detail tactically, when hes talking about how if the ball goes somewhere, or an opposition player does something how he wants the whole team to react, and then how he drills it into them on the training pitch. Man City won the Premier League because they have bought the best players - they won it by miles because of Pep.

Given how often we look clueless under Bruce, how often we fail to do even basic pass and move, its clear there is a distinct lack of coaching and tactical nous.

 

[TheStagMan]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

No, no fickleness round here, none at all..........remember how much quieter the Bruce out noise was when we won 7 games in a row last season.........no fickleness whatsoever.........

Yes, because we were winning, it was not permissible to criticise the performances or express any fears about the future. A number of posters would jump on any negative posts and cite how ridiculous it was to be negative when we had won, regardless of how shite we may have been and how deserved or otherwise the win was. 

Definitely not fickle. And frankly a ridiculous allegation. Utter nonsense........

[HeyAnty]

56 minutes ago, NeilS said:

That is more or less how I see it as well. Bruce needs to get us promotion or he will be gone in the summer, there will be no more chances for him after this season.

Even with promotion They may not like what they see and make changes anyway, but it is best to take stock of what you have before ripping it all up to start again.

I read similar posts all last season. I just don’t see him getting us promoted.  Even if he somehow managed it I wouldn’t want to let him loose with a premiership budget 

[TheStagMan]

I have heard we have ordered one of these:

 

to cope with the amount of players that Steve throws under it.

[Tayls]

5 minutes ago, andym said:

As much as i think Bruce is doing an overall poor job, i suspect that in terms of engagement with players etc he probably is very good, i have no doubt that his man management style works well and that he is capable of fostering that charged level of atmosphere like you see at Man City.

Unfortunately, that is only half the battle in getting a successful team - the Man City documentary shows you Pep's brilliant attention to detail tactically, when hes talking about how if the ball goes somewhere, or an opposition player does something how he wants the whole team to react, and then how he drills it into them on the training pitch. Man City won the Premier League because they have bought the best players - they won it by miles because of Pep.

Given how often we look clueless under Bruce, how often we fail to do even basic pass and move, its clear there is a distinct lack of coaching and tactical nous.

 

Pep is crazy with that tactics board. I cannot imagine Bruce analysing the opposition in one half, identifying a weak point and then passing that onto the players so they can make a specific play. 

But then there is the video analysis where Pep presents to them in a dedicated room - I wonder if Villa even bother with that! 

The gap is huge. I hope our new owners/CEO have a vision that is similar to that of owners at elite clubs. 

[NeilS]

17 minutes ago, HeyAnty said:

I read similar posts all last season. I just don’t see him getting us promoted.  Even if he somehow managed it I wouldn’t want to let him loose with a premiership budget 

I am not disagreeing with you, I am frustrated with how we seem to scrape along without looking convincing. All I am saying  is that the new owners are well within their rights to take a look before going all guns blazing and firing everybody in sight. Looking in from the outside, we narrowly missed out on promotion last season. They may have acted differently if they had bought the club at the end of May, and with more time to put things in place.

[jim]

2 hours ago, villabromsgrove said:

I'm still trying to get to the bottom of "why Bruce is the man".

He's old fashioned and he's not a particularly good coach, Am I right so far?

He’s a safe pair of hands who will get us there or thereabouts. 

Thats all I can come up with..

[Guest av1]

2 hours ago, villabromsgrove said:

You're very dismissive of criticism of Bruce, but I want to hear you say why you think he's the man.

Spot on. There is a lot this, I've not seen ine detailed post as to why Steve Bruce has/continues to do a good job. 

 

[HeyAnty]

22 minutes ago, NeilS said:

I am not disagreeing with you, I am frustrated with how we seem to scrape along without looking convincing. All I am saying  is that the new owners are well within their rights to take a look before going all guns blazing and firing everybody in sight. Looking in from the outside, we narrowly missed out on promotion last season. They may have acted differently if they had bought the club at the end of May, and with more time to put things in place.

I get that. The one thing i do hope, if our owners are half thinking of getting rid, i hope they do it now and give a new manager a chance with the international break coming up

[jim]

2 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

No, no fickleness round here, none at all..........remember how much quieter the Bruce out noise was when we won 7 games in a row last season.........no fickleness whatsoever.........

I seem to recall several people expressed concern that our style of play was unsustainable.  It relied more on individual brilliance than brilliant tactics and passages of play. Ultimately they were proved right.

What makes you think Bruce is the man and do you believe he will get us promoted this year? 

[A'Villan]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

It was a dreadful performance and a miserable night out.

Not altogether surprising. 

I fully agree with those who lay the problems at Bruce’s door. It’s all very well ‘rotating’ but it rarely works unless a specific playing method is coached into all the players throughout the Club, and that’s not Bruce’s way. Players have little chance when it’s all random.

His method ( whether or not one agrees with it, or agrees that it works ) - he does have one  for those that say he doesn’t - is to buy decent players, then ‘man manage’ decent performances out of them. He sets up relatively defensively ( even now) and expects and encourages the players to then think the game out on the pitch. It’s pretty basic stuff.

He has said himself, and anyone who has watched us or any of his other Clubs can see clearly, he doesn’t do tactics, at all.

He isn’t going to build a Club, or a repeatable playing style, and he will always depend more than most on individual form and inspiration.

However.

For me, he stays.

He has been averaging close to 2 points per game for more than a seasons worth of games. That gets us up around top 2. That’s what we must achieve.

If, IF there was a standout candidate - whether proven or not - who was available, and of whom it was reasonable to believe they could get  that points average, then it’d make sense to see whether that person could takeover.

But I don’t see such a person.

The only other scenario is if he starts to average significantly below 2 points per game, for whatever period of time one would deem a reasonable sample size.

 

The problem with this acknowledgement of his methodology is that it applies to every manager, some are better than others in the mentioned areas, and it may be that they are then identified with that trait. Every manager has to prepare their team to 'think the game out' on the pitch, every manager needs to recruit well regardless of policy, and every manager needs to man manage. But there are a myriad of facets which make up the performance and outcome of any given football match. The one quality you mention Bruce has an inherent tendency toward which is not a necessity of management is his defensive mentality.

I think what you've done well is identify two strengths and a weakness in Bruce's approach which are standouts. That being he has a record for recruiting players of proven ability wanting to move, either the fringe players of a bigger club or a standout achiever at a lesser club, rather than developing the player or selecting based on the perceived ability to play a certain role in a given system. He has relatively good man management ability. I would put this largely down to a combination of his personable nature and vast first-hand experience of being a footballer. And lastly and probably most evidently has a defensive, 'difficult to beat' approach, that often lacks any strategic suitability or tactical ingenuity that results in poor cohesion and is dependent on the skill and nous of the individual to win the contest. Rather than tailoring his plans to the uniqueness of differing scenarios he has a rigid and dogmatic philosophy.

In my opinion he is the anti-coach, not because he is unsuccessful in the outcome of a given football match or because he can't motivate players to do their best, but because he leaves ingenuity entirely up to the players, leaves development of players to the people he recruits from and likewise the trials and errors of strategy to his peers. A coach is someone who teaches, trains or instructs the process of improvement or how to attain a goal, not someone who's pupils rely mostly on what they've learnt elsewhere to overcome the challenges they face.

It's not all bad under Bruce though.

Allowing players the freedom to make their own decisions and come up with their own ideas actually boosts creativity. That is why you will often find the most creative player (typically a #10) allowed freedom in any given side. However it is important to note that having a skill-set is a prerequisite to successfully pulling off ideas in a competition. Without that, you can be as 'creative' as you like, but you will be like a fish out of water. Because Bruce tends toward the tried and tested, he has a reasonable amount of success with leaving players to their own devices. Don't get me wrong here, I am not suggesting creativity is bolstered under Bruce. But it's undeniable that there's been some noteworthy success for players under Bruce. Players like Bent, Sessgnon, Gyan, Henderson, Huddlestone, Snodgrass, Larsson are players who's attacking football suffered no loss as a result of playing under Bruce. Then from our own end we've seen Adomah, Kodjia, Hourihane and Grabban make statements at championship level, not to mention the rise of Grealish has come about in the freedom and responsibility afforded him by Bruce. Unfortunately for Bruce though individual efforts are not enough in a team game of eleven a side and even seven years ago Bruce was being labelled a dinosaur and telling the press, 'I don't really do tactics', whatever he meant by that, in response to him losing games to managers with lesser teams.

Football is a free-flowing affair and requires players to compete for 45 minutes at a time without instruction, a lot happens in this time that is simply out of the managers control. This is evidenced by Bruce achieving success within the sport. In basketball or American football you would be finished without tactics and set plays in your repertoire.Whereas in football, by recruiting well enough and keeping the players upbeat and motivated, he compensates for a lack of preparation, versatility, coaching and tactics.

My most recent coach told me in order to be pro you have to do all things adequately and one thing well, that's just to get your foot in the door. Bruce has achieved more success than most in professional football and I think regardless of his shortcomings his knowledge of the game is obviously strong enough to acquire 4 promotions (relegated twice) and a 10th place finish in the top flight. His knowledge of the ins and outs of football is probably underrated, irrespective of his inability to adapt.