Steve Bruce

[TRO]

7 minutes ago, av1 said:

And thats another worrying aspect of our play. Forest were another team in terrible form before they played us. 

We aren't just being outplayed by the odd team, we are being outplayed by average teams that are in poor form themselves.  

I thinks its wise to stay positive.....but i was picking stuff up all through the game yesterday.

Seriously, I wouldn't know where to start quite frankly.....if it was my responsibility

I don't know whether SB will make it, I hope so.....but I pity anyone who has the job of turning this around.

ps pity? ......well in relative terms. ( 1 mill per annum)

Edited February 26, 2017 by TRO

[Eastie]

1 minute ago, av1 said:

Normally i woud agree, some weeks you will play better than others, thats sport. 

But the undeniable fact is that we have been crap in almost every game since Bruce came in. 

Considering we've taken 29 points under him I can't see how it's an undeniable fact we've been crap in nearly every game .

Of course we all would like to be doing better but having taken a team with one win in 19 it is not that bad a record order him overall - we had a terrible January and February but October to December were automatic promotion form with 23 from 12 games - it will take time and would have done whoever was manager.

[Guest av1]

2 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Certainly wouldn't say forest , or Ipswich outplayed us in anyway whatsoever - both were incredibly lucky to win and villa were the better side by a distance.

So with the most expensively assembled squad in the division we had the better of a team made up of loans and freebies, and still lost. 

Call me hard to please mate, but i expect just a little bit more. 

[Eastie]

2 minutes ago, av1 said:

So with the most expensively assembled squad in the division we had the better of a team made up of loans and freebies, and still lost. 

Call me hard to please mate, but i expect just a little bit more. 

Hard to please

[romavillan]

43 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

On the ball, I agree. Off the ball we were very, very solid. Could still be playing now and Derby wouldn't have scored.

No. We looked fragile, invited them on, loads of mistakes we were lucky to get away with and had the ref on our side. A draw at the very least was what Derby should have got out of the game. At no point did we look solid despite being compact and having lots of players back.

[sharkyvilla]

All he can do is try and back up this win with another.  I think Tuesday's game comes at a good time, and hopefully confidence can grow quickly.  If he can settle on a team and never play 5 at the back again I think half the battle will be won.

[Eastie]

1 minute ago, sharkyvilla said:

All he can do is try and back up this win with another.  I think Tuesday's game comes at a good time, and hopefully confidence can grow quickly.  If he can settle on a team and never play 5 at the back again I think half the battle will be won.

Vital that we win these next 2 games and hopefully the quality will improve - Derby are a decent side and I thought we might take a point off them but I expect to kick on now against Bristol and Rotherham and we need to see a few goals rather than grinding out a scrappy one goal win .

[romavillan]

Yeah in terms of results that's all he can do, 3 more points and another clean sheet and we only need another couple of wins to be safe. In terms of playing football there's plenty of room for him to improve the performance.

[kurtsimonw]

1 hour ago, av1 said:

But thats neither here nor there, i guess I'm just disagreeing that we looked very solid. They played us off the park. 

That's not what I said. I said we were solid. Which means when out of possession, we limited their chances. Derby had a lot of possession, but never, ever looked like scoring.

[kurtsimonw]

36 minutes ago, romavillan said:

No. We looked fragile, invited them on, loads of mistakes we were lucky to get away with and had the ref on our side. A draw at the very least was what Derby should have got out of the game. At no point did we look solid despite being compact and having lots of players back.

We both should've had a penalty. Would hardly say "our side". Officials even got a decision at the end wrong which then caused our player to get sent off. Not justifying his reaction, but had he got it right, it wouldn't have happened.

[Demitri_C]

Think Bruce needs to do some dissecting in the squad. If it was me I'd get rid of Johnstone and bunn, release Hutton, sell Amavi ( his heart isn't in it anymore despite how good I think he can be) and get rid of Gardner. (I'd say gabby too but no one is stupid enough to take him off us)

he also needs to look at all the players out in loan and see if any improve what we already have (e.g Gil, veretout)

i personally think we need only about four players to be real beasts in the league next season. The most important signing for me is goal keeper and where a large part of the budget should go.  A left back, rb and cm are other positions I think we need. Hopefully RHM or Davis can step up and be back up options to hogan and the kodj

[mikeyp102]

14 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Think Bruce needs to do some dissecting in the squad. If it was me I'd get rid of Johnstone and bunn, release Hutton, sell Amavi ( his heart isn't in it anymore despite how good I think he can be) and get rid of Gardner. (I'd say gabby too but no one is stupid enough to take him off us)

he also needs to look at all the players out in loan and see if any improve what we already have (e.g Gil, veretout)

i personally think we need only about four players to be real beasts in the league next season. The most important signing for me is goal keeper and where a large part of the budget should go.  A left back, rb and cm are other positions I think we need. Hopefully RHM or Davis can step up and be back up options to hogan and the kodj

Bunn and Hutton are at the  end of their contacts and will go. We don't need another RB we'll still have Bree and De Laet.

Priority will be a GK, DM and CB

Edited February 26, 2017 by mikeyp102

[Jareth]

29 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Bunn and Hutton are at the  end of their contacts and will go. We don't need another RB we'll still have Bree and De Laet.

Priority will be a GK, DM and CB

I'd say we need to replace Gabby and Bacuna too. I mean, imagine swapping those two for two quality players that contribute goals...

[DCJonah]

10 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I'd say we need to replace Gabby and Bacuna too. I mean, imagine swapping those two for two quality players that contribute goals...

I'd imagine under Bruce they'd score and assist as much as lansbury and hourihane. 

[Sam3773]

Scenes when we win all the remaining games and get into the play offs... 

[Demitri_C]

1 hour ago, mikeyp102 said:

Bunn and Hutton are at the  end of their contacts and will go. We don't need another RB we'll still have Bree and De Laet.

Priority will be a GK, DM and CB

I completely forgot about de laet!

Oh yeah and I forgot get rid of that oaf Richards.  Add a cb. Def will need a lb if amavi goes

[striker]

3 hours ago, Eastie said:

We played them off the park 2nd half at pride park and played the leaders Brighton off the park too - ultimately it means nothing - the thing that counts is the result and I'd take an ugly 1-0 all day long .

Yet (not directing this point just at you) when Villa lose there are always mitigating circumstances for that loss. If the thing that counts is indeed the result then results under Bruce haven't been good enough.

[striker]

5 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

I don't think many would argue that we have a very good squad of players for this division and that on paper you would expect results to have been much better. That is a very simplistic way of looking at things though and it doesn't take into account that you still have to build partnerships on the pitch and build up understandings be it Chester and Baker/Elphick at centre back, Hogan and Kodjia up top, Lansbury, Hourianne and Jedinak in the middle, Bree/Hutton and Adomah down the right etc etc. It takes time for a team to evolve and if it was just a case of throwing 11 good players together you wouldn't need to employ a manager and coaches.

I'd imagine our best 11 at the moment would look something like Johnstone, Bree, Chester, Baker, Taylor, Jedinak, Lansbury, Hourihane, Adomah, Hogan, Kodjia. All bar one of them players has been here for 8 months or under.  Five of them here since last month. It simply isn't realistic to think it will come together overnight or even in a matter of weeks.

We have to take advantage of the fact that we now have 2 months of this season remaining and aren't in any danger of relegation for me and no chance of the play offs. We have to use this time to bed in a formation and barring injuries/suspensions decide on a best 11 and pretty much stick with it. Then over the summer make minimal changes and look to hit the ground running come August. That is what I expect us to now be focused on.

Is it a simplistic way of looking at things or maybe those expectations were too high?

Either way I still don't think expecting Villa to be challenging for a playoff place was beyond Villa before and when the transfer window opened. I also feel the owner had higher expectations than mid or lower table in the Championship because if he didn't why sack RDM?

You could also say that with a little more luck and less elementary mistakes Villa would still be in contention for a playoff place so really I don't feel change has been the major contributor to where Villa are at the moment.

In my opinion it's more to do with the way Bruce has been setting the team up and when Lady Luck hasn't shone on Villa or several of the players have made mistakes the team's system hasn't been offensive enough to get at the opposition. Bruce has already stated that his preferred system hadn't been working.

[USA_Villa]

Every dog has it's day and by the sound of it Steve was very lucky as Derby played us off the park.

Let's get a few points straight:

1. When Bruce was appointed we were 19th in the league. We're now 17th. Hardly setting the division on fire.
2. Other than Wigan, we are the lowest scorers in the Division. That really doesn't look like changing does it?
3. When was the last time you watched the Villa and thought they played well. I can't remember

I will settle for 17th at the end of the season and then hope and pray we bring in another manager.

[markavfc40]

11 hours ago, striker said:

Is it a simplistic way of looking at things or maybe those expectations were too high?

Either way I still don't think expecting Villa to be challenging for a playoff place was beyond Villa before and when the transfer window opened. I also feel the owner had higher expectations than mid or lower table in the Championship because if he didn't why sack RDM?

You could also say that with a little more luck and less elementary mistakes Villa would still be in contention for a playoff place so really I don't feel change has been the major contributor to where Villa are at the moment.

In my opinion it's more to do with the way Bruce has been setting the team up and when Lady Luck hasn't shone on Villa or several of the players have made mistakes the team's system hasn't been offensive enough to get at the opposition. Bruce has already stated that his preferred system hadn't been working.

I can't argue with any of that mate. When he was appointed I certainly felt it wasn't beyond the realms we could still make the play offs and at the end of the year that was still very much the case.

For whatever reason we completely folded in January and whilst the loss of Kodjia to the AFCON is a partial contributor it shouldn't have had the impact it did.  By the time he returned we had also undertaken another big overhaul with 14 ins/outs and were back to square one in terms of having a good group of individuals but throwing them together and looking nothing like a team.

You could say Bruce/the club shouldn't have made that amount of changes in January but I think a number of situations fell for them and they felt they had to act. Lansbury, Hourihane, Bree were all coming to the end of their contracts. McCormack was playing silly buggers, clubs at this time wanted Ayew, Westwood and Gestede and there was no saying that would be the case in the summer, and besides the books also needed balancing now.

Regardless of any mitigating circumstances in terms of having to integrate so many players bad runs of results happen and now you can put that down to a bad run under a poor manager or a bad run under a good one. I personally think it is the latter but time will tell. Certainly by the end of this season I want to see a settled side, in a settled formation, getting good results with decent performances giving us all the belief that next season we will be capable of achieving promotion under Steve Bruce.

Edited February 27, 2017 by markavfc40