Steve Bruce

[weedman]

8 hours ago, Wezbid said:

I think that's half his point, there's more focus on pointing out this and having a go at that, in comparison to getting the 3 points, with a clean sheet to boot. 

It was exactly my point, if we'd made attacking subs and lost everyone would be losing their minds here, as it happened he made defensive subs that worked, we won and kept a clean sheet. I know some people like to moan about all things Villa, and won't be happy til we win every match of the season with over 80% possession every game and making Barcelona look like a pub team, but to criticise the manager after his decisions completely worked is a stretch for me, he's been rightly criticised for some of his decisions this year, let's give credit where its due, enjoy the 3 points, and hope it sets us up for a little run now 

[striker]

I'm all for winning no matter how Villa do it. I'd prefer of course to watch Villa play free flowing football in the same way Brentford did but it's not always possible in a league where generally you have to grind out results to escape (see Newcastle recently).

Due to previously watching teams under Bruce I wasn't 100% happy with his appointment because his teams rarely play the type of football I want Villa to play but his CV said four previous promotions from the Championship so he was in my view a sensible short term appointment by Xia to get us promoted.

Since that appointment and the initial new manager bounce where I praised Bruce calling him Bruce Almighty I feel the board and Xia have moved the goalposts to accommodate the failure of the manager to produce the required results to at least challenge for the playoffs.

Think about that for a moment. Aston Villa even without the new additions in January were expected in some quarters to challenge for automatic promotion and at the very least expected by others to be in a position to challenge for those playoff places. The main reason being that the Championship is a rather large step down in quality from the Premiership and surely with Villa's squad and resources Villa should have been able to compete in the top 6 of a very poor division. Bruce's appointment was the glue to put all of that in place this season.

I do not think those appointed had stability in the Championship over promotion to the Premiership in mind when they appointed Bruce this season or indeed their club in free fall towards the relegation places.

This is why currently I feel the appointment of Bruce has been a mitigated failure where other appointments such as Monk at Leeds with less money to spend and on paper having to use an inferior squad has been an success.

[romavillan]

There's loads of good footballing sides in this division, people talk about the Championship like it's **** clash of the vikings on a mud bath pitch and you can only win by being the most ugly thing possible. Bollocks. We've been out passed by virtually every side we have played, we have ground out the odd victory ourselves by competing hard etc. like we did against Derby. Can't fault the commitment, what is worrying is that we are consistently over the course of this entire season outclassed in this league by sides with better passing and movement. 

I'm not asking for Barcelona but there is a middle ground between a total refusal to keep the ball, not just giving it away but looking like we are actually afraid of having the ball, and tikka-takka- If we had confidence in our movement and shape the horrendous hanging on for nearly the entire second half against Derby could have been eased by say knocking it about for 5 minutes and slowly bringing the whole team up the field keeping compact. We look about as likely to do that as we do of winning the Champions League this year.

We have bought pretty well surely for this level? Bruce needs to show he can make a footballing side out of this lot before the end of the season or he should be getting sacked.

[AntrimBlack]

There is no doubt in my mind that Bruce was brought in to achieve promotion this season, and in that he has failed abysmally, as we won't even come close.

I was not particularly enthused about his appointment, but this was the big positive for me.

I am 100% sure that he will also be unable to fulfil Xia's lofty ambitions, and I think he was only ever a stop gap - the man to get us up - then goodbye.

Now I am not even convinced that he can get us up next year, and, if that is the case, we could be destined to spend a long time in the lower reaches of English football.

[Eastie]

29 minutes ago, striker said:

I'm all for winning no matter how Villa do it. I'd prefer of course to watch Villa play free flowing football in the same way Brentford did but it's not always possible in a league where generally you have to grind out results to escape (see Newcastle recently).

Due to previously watching teams under Bruce I wasn't 100% happy with his appointment because his teams rarely play the type of football I want Villa to play but his CV said four previous promotions from the Championship so he was in my view a sensible short term appointment by Xia to get us promoted.

Since that appointment and the initial new manager bounce where I praised Bruce calling him Bruce Almighty I feel the board and Xia have moved the goalposts to accommodate the failure of the manager to produce the required results to at least challenge for the playoffs.

Think about that for a moment. Aston Villa even without the new additions in January were expected in some quarters to challenge for automatic promotion and at the very least expected by others to be in a position to challenge for those playoff places. The main reason being that the Championship is a rather large step down in quality from the Premiership and surely with Villa's squad and resources Villa should have been able to compete in the top 6 of a very poor division. Bruce's appointment was the glue to put all of that in place this season.

I do not think those appointed had stability in the Championship over promotion to the Premiership in mind when they appointed Bruce this season or indeed their club in free fall towards the relegation places.

This is why currently I feel the appointment of Bruce has been a mitigated failure where other appointments such as Monk at Leeds with less money to spend and on paper having to use an inferior squad has been an success.

He took over a team with one win in 19 and no away wins in over a year - the results under Bruce have been significantly better than what we have had in recent years - of course we all hoped he'd do better and to be chasing a play off place but with a totally new team and 8 new players in January then maybe we need to accept it will take time  to turn the club around .

that is not a free pass for Bruce but I do expect to see considerable improvement in results and performances as the team gels and believe a top half finish will be acceptable although not desirable this season .

make no mistake I expect this squad to be challenging for automatic promotion next season however and failure to do so should see the appropriate action swiftly taken . 

[AntrimBlack]

1 hour ago, mikeyp102 said:

That win effectively made us safe from relegation. Therefore now is an extended pre season. It gives the new players the chance to learn villa park, get used to playing under the large crowd, get used to each other and get a style of play. If that happens we should then only need a couple additions in the summer without having to totally rebuild a team again. Hopefully then we should start next season on fire.

With an expensively assembled squad and back room staff, we have managed to stave off relegation from the second tier of English football.

To say I am less than overjoyed would be putting it mildly.

[Eastie]

1 minute ago, AntrimBlack said:

With an expensively assembled squad and back room staff, we have managed to stave off relegation from the second tier of English football.

To say I am less than overjoyed would be putting it mildly.

There is still 45 points to play for - I fully expect to see a much better end to the season and a top half finish at worse.

there has been upheaval with a new manager and totally new coaching team and a host of new players - a top half finish is acceptable this season considering the changes at the club - next season we must hit the ground running in August and dominate games  - too soon to judge Bruce yet .

[striker]

4 minutes ago, Eastie said:

There is still 45 points to play for - I fully expect to see a much better end to the season and a top half finish at worse.

there has been upheaval with a new manager and totally new coaching team and a host of new players - a top half finish is acceptable this season considering the changes at the club - next season we must hit the ground running in August and dominate games  - too soon to judge Bruce yet .

I still feel that if Bruce can settle tactically on his best team allowing them to play, win the next two games with results going our way Villa still have an outside chance of scraping into sixth.

Thats a big If though concerning Bruce because currently I feel tactically he is holding the team back.

[Eastie]

4 minutes ago, striker said:

I still feel that if Bruce can settle tactically on his best team allowing them to play, win the next two games with results going our way Villa still have an outside chance of scraping into sixth.

Thats a big If though concerning Bruce because currently I feel tactically he is holding the team back.

I feel there is far too much ground to make up at this stage - I think it would take a huge effort to get into 10th at best - top 6 has gone for me .

im hoping a couple more wins will see the pressure lift and confidence grow and to be honest we should blow teams like Bristol city and Rotherham away on paper - it will be interesting to see how those games go .

[romavillan]

29 minutes ago, Eastie said:

There is still 45 points to play for - I fully expect to see a much better end to the season and a top half finish at worse.

there has been upheaval with a new manager and totally new coaching team and a host of new players - a top half finish is acceptable this season considering the changes at the club - next season we must hit the ground running in August and dominate games  - too soon to judge Bruce yet .

Not sure where you are getting that optimism from though, what have you seen this year that would make you think we will finish strongly. We just lucked out massively and played horrendously to get our first win since boxing day. Great we got 3 points but I saw nothing to suggest we had made any kin of progress, any kind of steps forward to making a good side. Play like that against a good side and we'd be smashed off the park. It's true Bruce's results have been better than what we have seen for over a year. That's the worst we've been consistently in my life time though I reckon, over a couple of years. So the MINIMUM should be better from in a lower division than the worst we have been for a very long time. Bruce has barely achieved that minimum.

It's deffo a tough job, I'm under no illusions it's easy, still though, relegation to League One is still very much a possibility and we have yet to play well for a whole 90 minutes this season, let alone 2 weeks on the bounce. So I find it hard to see where this good form is going to come from.

[AntrimBlack]

35 minutes ago, Eastie said:

There is still 45 points to play for - I fully expect to see a much better end to the season and a top half finish at worse.

there has been upheaval with a new manager and totally new coaching team and a host of new players - a top half finish is acceptable this season considering the changes at the club - next season we must hit the ground running in August and dominate games  - too soon to judge Bruce yet .

Would you agree with me that he needs to be judged at the end of the season at the latest?

[mikeyp102]

1 hour ago, AntrimBlack said:

With an expensively assembled squad and back room staff, we have managed to stave off relegation from the second tier of English football.

To say I am less than overjoyed would be putting it mildly.

No one is overjoyed. We're just trying to look at the bigger picture. This club has been a shambles for the last few years and needed a complete rebuild.

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, striker said:

Since that appointment and the initial new manager bounce where I praised Bruce calling him Bruce Almighty I feel the board and Xia have moved the goalposts to accommodate the failure of the manager to produce the required results to at least challenge for the playoffs.

Think about that for a moment. Aston Villa even without the new additions in January were expected in some quarters to challenge for automatic promotion and at the very least expected by others to be in a position to challenge for those playoff places. The main reason being that the Championship is a rather large step down in quality from the Premiership and surely with Villa's squad and resources Villa should have been able to compete in the top 6 of a very poor division. Bruce's appointment was the glue to put all of that in place this season.

I do not think those appointed had stability in the Championship over promotion to the Premiership in mind when they appointed Bruce this season or indeed their club in free fall towards the relegation places.

This is why currently I feel the appointment of Bruce has been a mitigated failure where other appointments such as Monk at Leeds with less money to spend and on paper having to use an inferior squad has been an success.

You have to take into account that when Bruce arrived we were already 13 points from automatic promotion, 10 from the play offs having won one of our first 11 games. Had that form have continued then 22 games later we'd now be 30 points from the play offs. His job initially was to turn that diabolical form around and the hope, not expectation, was that we would have time to close the gap and make the play offs.

You also aren't comparing like for like with Monk. He went in to Leeds at the start of June and had a full pre season to implement his ideas and tactics. Bruce came in mid October to a club on a dire run this season, having not won an away game for 14 months, and inherited an unbalanced squad lacking confidence.

None of the above is to say he couldn't have done better as I think he should have. I think he has tinkered with the formation too much which hasn't helped in terms of integrating so many new players which in fairness is the biggest issue here. Around 34 players in/out in 8 months is pretty much unheard of and it has now left us with a group of very good individuals for this level but nothing like resembling a team on the pitch. That is where the stability that Wyness alluded to comes in. We will never see a team evolve if we keep changing managers and coaching staff as each will come in with different ideas and almost certainly want to change X number of players and we are again back to square one.

You can't just have stability for stability sake of course. You have to back the right man. The club it seems have gone all in on Steve Bruce with the CEO reaffirming that stance two days ago. They won't have done that on the back of the last two months of results. They have looked deeper than that. Taken into account what he inherited, taken into account his vast experience at this level and the success he has had, taken into account what they see that we don't behind the scenes and I'd also imagine they have looked at how Bruce has handled himself during this poor run and been impressed by how strong a character he is and the unflinching belief he has that he is the man to turn our club around. 

Whoever came in last October was going to need time and only time will tell if they were right in choosing Steve Bruce. Despite the recent poor run and the likely ups and downs we will see for the rest of this season, and despite it not really mattering what I think given the club have nailed their colours to the mast with Bruce, I have a feeling it will prove to be the right decision and we will reap the rewards of it next season.

Edited February 26, 2017 by markavfc40

[TRO]

On 2/25/2017 at 10:05, terrytini said:

Wow there are some weird and wonderful reasons why we are losing matches !!

I wonder if every other club has some many theories !!

Heres one. The team are being poorly managed.

Thats all there is to it.

bit of a stock answer, if I may say so.

Bomb proof, I would say.....I bet you had to dig deep to come up with that pearler Terry.

Edited February 26, 2017 by TRO

[romavillan]

12 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

No one is overjoyed. We're just trying to look at the bigger picture. This club has been a shambles for the last few years and needed a complete rebuild.

Totally, the question now though is whether Bruce is the manager to make a team from all the seemingly good players we've bought since the summer.

[Jareth]

I think Bruce needs the summer transfer window to get this squad right - not total overhaul but definitely need a few replaced such as Gardner, Hutton, Bacuna, Gabby and then an experienced keeper brought in. I'll be judging him proper next season. 

[TRO]

Something weird struck me yesterday at the game.....I don't go down as much these days as I used to, so I guess all the more reason for noticing what I did.

When I have seen us this year, I have always thought that we looked like  premiership players that has been relegated and hit hard times, can't get anything right, but trying to turn things around....just like the present bottom teams in the prem.

I looked at the individuals and thought, despite your failure to play as a team, you do individually look better than them, thought that at St Andrews, despite them coming back.

 

Yesterday, I said to myself.......You are starting to look individually.....what you are, championship players......and not very good ones either.

That was a very poor performance yesterday, particularly the last 20 minutes......and a very worrying one too.

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by TRO

[striker]

31 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

You have to take into account that when Bruce arrived we were already 13 points from automatic promotion, 10 from the play offs having won one of our first 11 games. Had that form have continued then 22 games later we'd now be 30 points from the play offs. His job initially was to turn that diabolical form around and the hope, not expectation, was that we would have time to close the gap and make the play offs.

You also aren't comparing like for like with Monk. He went in to Leeds at the start of June and had a full pre season to implement his ideas and tactics. Bruce came in mid October to a club on a dire run this season, having not won an away game for 14 months, and inherited an unbalanced squad lacking confidence.

None of the above is to say he couldn't have done better as I think he should have. I think he has tinkered with the formation too much which hasn't helped in terms of integrating so many new players which in fairness is the biggest issue here. Around 34 players in/out in 8 months is pretty much unheard of and it has now left us with a group of very good individuals for this level but nothing like resembling a team on the pitch. That is where the stability that Wyness alluded to comes in. We will never see a team evolve if we keep changing managers and coaching staff as each will come in with different ideas and almost certainly want to change X number of players and we are again back to square one.

You can't just have stability for stability sake of course. You have to back the right man. The club it seems have gone all in on Steve Bruce with the CEO reaffirming that stance two days ago. They won't have done that on the back of the last two months of results. They have looked deeper than that. Taken into account what he inherited, taken into account his vast experience at this level and the success he has had, taken into account what they see that we don't behind the scenes and I'd also imagine they have looked at how Bruce has handled himself during this poor run and been impressed by how strong a character he is and the unflinching belief he has that he is the man to turn our club around. 

Whoever came in last October was going to need time and only time will tell if they were right in choosing Steve Bruce. Despite the recent poor run and the likely ups and downs we will see for the rest of this season, and despite it not really mattering what I think given the club have nailed their colours to the mast with Bruce, I have a feeling it will prove to be the right decision and we will reap the rewards of it next season.

Good post most of which I agree with particularly changing the team and formation too much which hasn't helped integrating the new players. That has been one of the most disappointing aspects of Bruce's reign so far for me due to his experience. I thought he would have identified his best team and formation by now and stuck to it which is backing his own judgement.

I sincerely hope your right about Bruce and that more time is needed but I haven't really seen it in the performances yet or more importantly the results.

The point of my previous post was that the step down in quality from the Premiership to the Championship should have compensated somewhat for the changes when you consider that most of the players brought in by Bruce were already accustomed to Championship football.

 

[DCJonah]

21 minutes ago, TRO said:

Something weird struck me yesterday at the game.....I don't go down as much these days as I used to, so I guess all the more reason for noticing what I did.

When I have seen us this year, I have always thought that we looked like  premiership players that has been relegated and hit hard times, can't get anything right, but trying to turn things around....just like the present bottom teams in the prem.

I looked at the individuals and thought, despite your failure to play as a team, you do individually look better than them, thought that at St Andrews, despite them coming back.

 

Yesterday, I said to myself.......You are starting to look individually.....what you are, championship players......and not very good ones either.

That was a very poor performance yesterday......and a very worrying one too.

 

But these players should be good championship players. So whose fault do you think it is that they look like poor ones?

They play different formations, different positions, different partnerships. No clear plan on the style or how the team will play. 

Worries me about how much worse these players will continue to look under Bruce. 

[TRO]

I agree with the point that too much change in team personnel does not fit with stability.

However, I'm not saying its right, but just offering a thought on mitigation.

Maybe he is searching amongst so much fickle form, injury, suspension, Afcon and new recruits that team shuffling has been forced on him.

Is it any wonder, he don't know his best team.....I watch them every match......I don't.....perhaps watching them in training and turning up for work, hinders rather than helps him?

I am all for TRYING to keep a settled side and I think in the fullness of time that will develop.