Steve Bruce

[Grasshopper]

4 minutes ago, blandy said:

The football was utterly awful, and not only was it awful, it was error strewn throughout. If Wigan had been half decent at doing shooting n'that we'd have lost that. I reckon we gifted them 3 really good chances to score through defensive howlers.

I think what I've learnt from watching this season is how awful a lot of sides in this league are.

Where Bruce has done well is in instilling a team spirit and a team that now plays for the whole 90 minutes with maximum effort and commitment.

I guess history says that unless you have a set of brilliant players, then the way to succeed in the 46 game Championship is to work your rocks off, not make too many mistakes and take your chances. That seems to be where Bruce is aiming for us, and by having the ability to have better players in many positions than the opposition, it looks like it ought to work, at least to get a side into a playoff place over a whole season.

I'm with Terry really, though. I crave the assurance that seeing a team not only play solidly, but excitingly and creatively brings.

There was a full away end yesterday, but to be honest until late on the volume of noise coming from it was not that loud or enthusiastic, because the game was so turgid. If the team can start to actually excite supporters, then there will be no stopping us.

I think there's a fair way to go yet, but the ingredients are pretty much there, is just getting the mix right.

I'm with you on all those points.

I keep hearing the word "yet" about Bruce.

Yet has only 1 more letter than if.

And IF has a very very big consequence.

[TRO]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

The football was utterly awful, and not only was it awful, it was error strewn throughout. If Wigan had been half decent at doing shooting n'that we'd have lost that. I reckon we gifted them 3 really good chances to score through defensive howlers.

I think what I've learnt from watching this season is how awful a lot of sides in this league are.

Where Bruce has done well is in instilling a team spirit and a team that now plays for the whole 90 minutes with maximum effort and commitment.

I guess history says that unless you have a set of brilliant players, then the way to succeed in the 46 game Championship is to work your rocks off, not make too many mistakes and take your chances. That seems to be where Bruce is aiming for us, and by having the ability to have better players in many positions than the opposition, it looks like it ought to work, at least to get a side into a playoff place over a whole season.

I'm with Terry really, though. I crave the assurance that seeing a team not only play solidly, but excitingly and creatively brings.

There was a full away end yesterday, but to be honest until late on the volume of noise coming from it was not that loud or enthusiastic, because the game was so turgid. If the team can start to actually excite supporters, then there will be no stopping us.

I think there's a fair way to go yet, but the ingredients are pretty much there, is just getting the mix right.

I think the personnel in this team Pete will change again......its part of an evolving process.

our demise is/was such that we were never going to buy the necessary players to right the wrongs in one or two windows.

We all know that most important thing right now to build the confidence and develop the club culture is winning.

That Football we all crave will return and I agree with you the description that Terry alluded to in his earlier post I concur with.

[Grasshopper]

52 minutes ago, lexicon said:

MUST... NOT.... CHANGE.... AGENDAGAHHHHHHH

absolutely no.

Nothing would have pleased me more than seeing Bruce succeed.

As Wyness has said, he's here for next season too, I hope he can get us up.

I think playing like we do will only get us so far (playoffs, still no promotion if we dont win the final))

 

[Eastie]

Give me winning football over entertaining football anyday - it's those scrappy ugly wins that will take us up next season .

[Xela]

5 minutes ago, Eastie said:

Give me winning football over entertaining football anyday - it's those scrappy ugly wins that will take us up next season .

I agree. 

Good football is winning football. 

[TRO]

15 minutes ago, Xela said:

I agree. 

Good football is winning football. 

The swagger will come with the confidence derived from winning.

Then the convincing wins we all crave, will arrive.

all in good time.

Edited March 19, 2017 by TRO

[a m ole]

1 hour ago, alreadyexists said:

Maybe we should just wait and see what happens.

I'd rather get it sorted now so we don't have to bother with the next 14 months.

[Eastie]

2 minutes ago, a m ole said:

I'd rather get it sorted now so we don't have to bother with the next 14 months.

Hold onto your hat and enjoy the ride - it may be bumpy at times but we will arrive at our destination in 14 months time and the sun will be shining

[sne]

Sorry to say I'm finding it very hard to get excited about next season.

I expect we will be challenging for promotion (anything else would be a bad joke) and that our performances will improve somewhat.

But the way we play is just horrible. Not just style of play but also the number of mistakes and failure to do even the basics right.

 I know winning football is good football, and that's true to a point.

But I watch too much other football from other leagues and countries to be able to pretend that what I'm seeing from us is anything but utter tripe.

If we manage to grind out results next season to get us promoted I'll be thankful for it of course, but I'll believe it when I see it.

We've spent an absolute fortune on mediocre players and brought in a manager who I and everyone I know saw as a bit of a dinosaur 10 years before he got here. Solid enough lower table old school British manager. One of those who is in the game and keeps getting employed year after year, but who will never get anywhere near the big clubs.

Really is the exact opposite of what I hoped for when we got a new owner.

But there you are, this is they way we've decided to go down so I'll just have to wait it out for another season and by then hopefully things will have changed.

I'm by no means trying to say that the way I like football is the right way, it's just my opinion of what I like to watch. As it stands now I can't really say I get much enjoyment even when we win. It is after all in the Championship against horrible teams while playing turgid football in a season when promotion was off the table by the end of January. Being in the Championship and having been so poor that thanks to our position we won't even get on the telly more than a few time for the reminder of the season, with me not able to go to the games it's like we don't really exist anymore.

Then again I am a miserable person who find it easier to focus on the negative. 

[AVTuco]

29 minutes ago, Xela said:

I agree. 

Good football is winning football. 

Winning football is good football.

 

[Lerner's Driver]

1 hour ago, terrytini said:

I'll give you my answer if I may.

I'm actually not concerned overly about whether it is 'attractive' as such - for example I love good defensive performances, and good battles, and can't stand tikka takka style football.  I'd say my favourite Villa sides over the last fifty years have never been 'pretty' as such.........but we've never been a Wimbledon either, we have always, at our best, had a solid side with a bit of midfield graft and a couple of good engines, a decent winger and some pace.

SO that is what I, personally, both would like to see and think would be effective against better opposition.

As for what would bring that shift, I think we are very close to it, especially when we put our best Eleven out.  Yesterday was a classic example, where once the changes were made we played like Villa. Huddersfield first half touched on it.

Lansbury is huge for us, as is Hourihane (only slightly less so IMO) - if they really were Bruces choices (and we've no reason to say they weren't, but its possible they were Rounds also) he has chosen a perfect blend which bodes well for his summer spending too.

Some say some of his negative stuff has been forced , others  - like me - think its been a choice. In my view he - rightly - concluded quickly we simply had to build in resilience above all else.............but (again IMO) he overdid it (fair enough he is learning too, we aren't Hull or Wigan, or Blues, and our players and our best way isn't theirs either) and particularly over compensated for the loss of JK and conceding a few goals suddenly in late December/January.  This made him even more conservative (three at the back, that awful selection against Ipswich, wasting Lansbury as a holding MF). 

Which is how we ( needlessly IMO) started yesterday.  The football HAD to be poor - at times we had a line of 6 or even 7 players so when they won the ball there was no outlets.  We only had 2 (3 if you count Amavi) forward thinking players, in Hourihane and Adomah, and they were often both trapped aswell. The system/selection caused the poor football (as IMO it has done on most other occasions we've been poor in quality).

As soon as he changed it we looked a far better side - most crucially the midfield stopped being an extension of the defence and became a link between defence and attack.

I think he is bit like a kid with a new exciting remote control toy - he doesn't want to break it.......so errs on the side of caution (too much for me).....but I am gradually thinking he knows he needs to, and maybe even wants to,  set us up to play a lot more positively.

Terry, I think this is an excellent summary of what is and has been going on. 

I certainly don't think Bruce is perfect, but he is genuinely aware of the privilege he has been afforded, which perversely is probably also one of the main reasons he's been scared to f*** it up - in fact, I think he himself used these words.

Such an admission could be fuel for criticism because we are Villa we expect the best, blah, blah, but I think he is still prepared to learn primarily because this is such a big opportunity.

I also particularly liked your description of the Villa way, which I agree at its best has always been more about free flowing effective football, rather than pretty passing. 

I think fluent is what we all want, including Bruce and I think he will deliver eventually.

[pintpotvilla]

Oh dear SNE,  chin up its not as bad as your'e making out.OK so we're not playing great football yet, it will come, we've had

a lot of things to repair and it's not going to happen overnight,but it WILL happen. Cheer up it's not that depressing in Sweden

is it?

 

[wilko154]

Last season we were an awful football team with many, many flaws.

This season we are slowly but surely ironing out each and every flaw, unfortunately we expected this to happen over the summer but we have now realised that it is going to take the full season and another pre season to finish the job.

So far with the Summer and January windows we have shipped out the deadwood and brought in a mixture of very good to good Championship footballers. Before that I would say the majority of our squad were poor to average Championship players.

We have gotten rid of the losing mentality in the side, players have got a 'winning feeling' back and no longer give up when going a goal behind. We are starting to play for 90 minutes and you can see the players are there to win football matches.

We have formations tied down that we know work with the players we have, you could say this is still a work in progress but it's a lot better than it was to start at the beginning of the season. This will only improve as players come back from injury.

The final stage of this is now to play some exciting football, to iron out the mistakes we are making and consistently perform. However in saying this I would take a win over a good performance any day. Pre season and another transfer window will help Bruce bring in a couple more of the right type of players for this league and his side, along with possibly some players returning from loan.

All in all we are currently winning games and not conceding goals, exciting football is the next step but we now have the basics back and we can begin to build our club back up again. Things are looking up, absolutely no doubt about it.

[sne]

5 minutes ago, pintpotvilla said:

Oh dear SNE,  chin up its not as bad as your'e making out.OK so we're not playing great football yet, it will come, we've had

a lot of things to repair and it's not going to happen overnight,but it WILL happen. Cheer up it's not that depressing in Sweden

is it?

 

The thing is that I think this is pretty much how I think Bruce want's us to play.

Sure it will get a bit better, but I don't think the style will change all that much.

[pintpotvilla]

8 minutes ago, wilko154 said:

Last season we were an awful football team with many, many flaws.

This season we are slowly but surely ironing out each and every flaw, unfortunately we expected this to happen over the summer but we have now realised that it is going to take the full season and another pre season to finish the job.

So far with the Summer and January windows we have shipped out the deadwood and brought in a mixture of very good to good Championship footballers. Before that I would say the majority of our squad were poor to average Championship players.

We have gotten rid of the losing mentality in the side, players have got a 'winning feeling' back and no longer give up when going a goal behind. We are starting to play for 90 minutes and you can see the players are there to win football matches.

We have formations tied down that we know work with the players we have, you could say this is still a work in progress but it's a lot better than it was to start at the beginning of the season. This will only improve as players come back from injury.

The final stage of this is now to play some exciting football, to iron out the mistakes we are making and consistently perform. However in saying this I would take a win over a good performance any day. Pre season and another transfer window will help Bruce bring in a couple more of the right type of players for this league and his side, along with possibly some players returning from loan.

All in all we are currently winning games and not conceding goals, exciting football is the next step but we now have the basics back and we can begin to build our club back up again. Things are looking up, absolutely no doubt about it.

I agree with the points you make but i don't know about " giving up when we go 1 down" being eradicated. In fairness we still tried at

Huddersfield after their goal, but at Newcastle & Brentford we were a shambles.Thankfully recently we haven't been a goal down very

often so it will now be interesting to see what happens when we do

[briny_ear]

38 minutes ago, pintpotvilla said:

Cheer up it's not that depressing in Sweden

is it?

 

Please watch a box set of any series of Wallander and then listen to Abba's last album, The Visitors.

Then come back and let us see if you want to ask the same question. 

Mind you, Villa's football should look positively frothy after all that.

Edited March 19, 2017 by briny_ear

[HolteExile]

1 hour ago, Eastie said:

Give me winning football over entertaining football anyday - it's those scrappy ugly wins that will take us up next season .

Here's the weird thing - and it's not just peculiar to us: The better you play, the more likely you are to win games. 

Yes, you might scratch out wins against relegation candidates here and there playing as we did yesterday. 

But give me a style of football that gives us a healthy chance of winning 25+ games (which is what we'll need next season) any day. 

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, sne said:

The thing is that I think this is pretty much how I think Bruce want's us to play.

Sure it will get a bit better, but I don't think the style will change all that much.

I agree with much of your Post. I agree it's not about ' winning football is good football'... at our worst under Bruce we've been unwatchable, there is no future in that.

Whilst we've had such misery I can understand  those that say winning is all that matters but feel they would,in the main, change that view pretty quickly if we served up rubbish every week.

Where we differ is I genuinely think in his own way he actually does / or is coming around to want to play some proper football (again as I said earlier that doesn't mean pretty, but it can be very watchable).

And despite some odd selections I think the main 'proof' for me is - slowly but surely - he looks like he intends to use Lansbury and Hourihane properly.

Theres no way he can do that with four full backs, or a defensive six, or a 'get ball and hoof' approach.

Therefore he must be aiming to play 'better/ properly' call it what you will.

Last twenty minutes yesterday a good example of where we need to be next year....First hour or so what we need to consign to the dustbin of this season.

Edited March 19, 2017 by terrytini

[Dr_Pangloss]

1 hour ago, sne said:

The thing is that I think this is pretty much how I think Bruce want's us to play.

Sure it will get a bit better, but I don't think the style will change all that much.

Reminds me of the other thread about 'enjoying' this season. Grinding out 2-0 wins over Wigan is hardly entertaining or enjoyable. I have no great issue with it if we get promoted but obviously we have, unacceptably fallen short of that this season, not all Bruce's fault, but he certain is culpable for that disaster in Jan. 

Next season really is promotion or bust IMO, if we don't make it we will be financially **** unless Tone has a trick up his sleeve. 

[HanoiVillan]

What is 'pretty football' when it's at home?