Steve Bruce

[DCJonah]

2 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

So we wernt falling down the table when he took over? 

The way I see it is he took over and made us harder to beat. Then made far to many changes in Jan which led to that horrid run. The changes were needed but there were too many at once. That was a blunder but you can understand why he did it. But yes he still f**ked up.  We then steadied the ship and went on the best winning streak of any team in the league but ended poorly as damage had already been done. 

So it was a very unsuccessful season all round but one that is hard to judge managerial performance on because there were so many other factors with the largest one being the lack of stability all year and so many changes!!

Now he has a whole preseason with his players. If we are not in the mix for top 2 after 2 months and the football is still poor I will agree no excuses, he has to go.

We'd lost 3 championship games in 11. We were already a difficult team to beat. 

I don't think the poor run was just down to making changes. I think it showed a real poor side to his managerial abilities. 

He's now arguably got one of the best group of players in the league. He should be hitting the ground running. 

[TRO]

13 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Like the games lost, we weren't leaking a ridiculous amount of goals before Bruce. 

So again this problem he had to fix looks like something he initially caused then. 

it wasn't the amount i was refering to, it was the EASE in which we conceded a winning position and the difficulty we encountered in try to recover that winning position.....that was the issue.

Quite frankly, we either have confidence in our manager or we don't.....as you know I do.

We can all formulate cases to satisfy our underlying feeling and our opponents will just refute them.

Its a forum and we all have our opinions.....thankfully for me, I am happy with him for the job of getting us promotion.

[Vive_La_Villa]

16 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

We'd lost 3 championship games in 11. We were already a difficult team to beat. 

I don't think the poor run was just down to making changes. I think it showed a real poor side to his managerial abilities. 

He's now arguably got one of the best group of players in the league. He should be hitting the ground running. 

You're right. We desperately needed results. The performance didn't really matter as we were playing quite attacking football with RDM but drawing games which felt like defeats.

You're entitled to your opinion that the poor run was down to poor managerial ability but the large number of changes and the impact it may have had can not be ignored.  

So im reserving full judgement until there are no other excuses. I.e. This season. 

Edit: by the way I'm not a fan of Bruce. I haven't seen enough to make me thing he is the one to lead us to promotion. I just accept he is capable of doing it because history shows this.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Vive_La_Villa

[Eastie]

43 minutes ago, Villan_of_oz said:

No cos GH is actually RDM, that's why he bitches about SB so much because he is still bitter the good doctor gave him the ass

Dr x gave RDM the ass ? No wonder he left

[CosmicVillan]

Bruce had to stop the rot, I think he did that. After a run of games under RDM going at teams and hoping to blow them away with attacking football we were starting to look like all the confidence had been knocked out of us.  I can't remember the exact stats but didn't we create the most number of goalscoring opportunities under RDM yet kept throwing points away ?

When that happens players stop believing, much of it is mental..You can't just flick a switch and go back to all out attack even under a new manager, Bruce has gotten us believing we can stop teams scoring and that we can see games out...the next stage is to make us believe we can go go and attack without being vulnerable to the counter. I think he will do that this season and you will see our attacking players come out of their shells.  

  

[TRO]

It interests me, listening to folk refer to the January period of last season and use it as the catalyst for us not gaining a play off place.

it ends up in some cases blaming the manager, when in my view he was the victim of circumstances as opposed to being the architect.

that maybe true being the defining moment of our season,but is it not understandable loosing your 2 most stand out performers in Kodjia and Jed through no fault of his own and at a time when stability was brittle.

I accept everyone has their own views.

ps I also hope when we go up, we go up strong, not weak and come straight back down.....that situation above maybe have been a god send to us.

[hippo]

I was heavily in favour of his appointment - and hope he does the business for us. However even if a quota of the linked players join us - I still see us way short of goals 

[DCJonah]

11 minutes ago, CosmicVillan said:

Bruce had to stop the rot, I think he did that. After a run of games under RDM going at teams and hoping to blow them away with attacking football we were starting to look like all the confidence had been knocked out of us.  I can't remember the exact stats but didn't we create the most number of goalscoring opportunities under RDM yet kept throwing points away ?

When that happens players stop believing, much of it is mental..You can't just flick a switch and go back to all out attack even under a new manager, Bruce has gotten us believing we can stop teams scoring and that we can see games out...the next stage is to make us believe we can go go and attack without being vulnerable to the counter. I think he will do that this season and you will see our attacking players come out of their shells.  

  

Has he? We finished 13th and had a 10 game streak without a win. 

We showed we could hold out at times and other times we couldn't. I don't think he achieved what some believe he did. 

 

[striker]

On 7/5/2017 at 16:42, TRO said:

No disrespect I wasn't expecting you to.....and a few more too.

Its not a case of being his PR.....its more a case of not agreeing with you.

Those players was not " shoe horned" in to anything, we had a large building job to be done......The imbalance of having the right type of players around them to capitalise on their offensive skills was the catalyst for me....they struggled.....I don't expect them to struggle this season.

.....when we won the league, which was arguably our best example of getting it right.....In rough terms,we had 4 players....Shaw/Withe/Cowans/Morley who did the offensive bit......The platform for them to play was created by the other 6 outfield players.....Those 6 won the pitch battle and allowed the 4 to flourish.

The current team:

The midfield sat too deep, because the back four was sitting too deep and was reluctant to push forward.....if you don't win your individual battles you can't gain ground and end up conceding it.

I am not pretending that Steve Bruce is Jurgen Klopp or Pepe Guardiola.....but I give him far more credit than some about knowing how this game should be played.

If your cared to read the snip from Harry Redknapp yesterday about being only as good as your players, it may explain something......and yes I think Harry knows what he is talking about too.

Furthermore if Steve Bruce was the numpty some would have you believe.....John Terry would not touch us with a ten foot barge pole.

So if those players weren't shoe horned then according to your post they were forced into defensive positions by the opposition? With all due respect that's nonsense. Right from the start of most games under Bruce last season Villa set up defensively, continually handing the initiative to player for player inferior opposition. So much so in fact it destroyed the confidence of Hourihane one of the best free scoring AMs in the Championship.

Bruce is being given a lot of credit on here well as far as I can see anyway. Most posters  have mentioned his promotional record and due to that are prepared to give him pre-season and the start of next season despite the awful turgid football played under him and despite finishing 13th with a budget and squad most Championship managers would die for.

Concerning Terry I do not think he is the coup you think he is, not now and not for the mooted deal he is on. I would have loved to see him go to Birmingham and then watch Kodjia rip him a new one in the derbies. I think he'll be targeted by niffty Championship forwards as Elphick was. Furthermore imo he will be out muscled.

Your comment concerning Redknapp I suppose is a fair one but as recently as last season, results in the Championship showed that you don't have to spend fortunes if you can find a system to suit what you have available and gain success.

 

[Vive_La_Villa]

16 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Has he? We finished 13th and had a 10 game streak without a win. 

We showed we could hold out at times and other times we couldn't. I don't think he achieved what some believe he did. 

 

You're not happy with Terry and you're not happy with Bruce. 

Are you looking forward to the season mate ? 

[DCJonah]

14 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

You're not happy with Terry and you're not happy with Bruce. 

Are you looking forward to the season mate ? 

Yes and I did say that with the wages and contact length the Terry deal is well worth the gamble. 

I believe we have a squad easily capable of promotion. I'll give Bruce the chance for the first 10 or so games and see what happens 

I'm looking forward to the new season but I still strongly disagree with some of the stuff posted about last season. 

[Demitri_C]

2 hours ago, Grasshopper said:

more to the point

Who is keeping Round and the mystery "somebody" in check?

What makes you think Wyness needs to be kept in check? 

[terrytini]

Reading the last three pages ( which for me perfectly sum up the previous 150+ ) I think it's a shame the different 'sides' can't concede the majority of each other's points, as IMO pretty much all are valid.

Some are indeed over egging his achievements.... we didn't just have a terrible run we also consistently played poor football, and he DID regularly set us up negatively ( including during games when we went ahead).

Whilst he did suffer from losing a couple of guys in January the way he floundered around dealing with it WAS poor ( three at the back anyone ? Yes. No. Maybe) (the starting line ups against, for example, Ipswich at home, Wigan away ?).

And we did lose a lot under him, so in some ways he did all that and still failed to shore us up.

And he DID completely cramp Lansbury style after a promising debut.

On the other hand we DO seem more resilient - a team can be harder to beat even if they still lose too many.

It may well be that far from promotion he was genuinely worried that the opposite could happen - we were a Club still capable of freefalling. That may well have affected his approach.

The players that came in January are not the players of a negative Manager.

Aswell as a poor run he showed he can get the team on a roll.

The whole camp seemed stronger as the season went on despite the disappointments.

It could well be he saw significant defensive frailties and adapted to this.

All Managers make selection errors. He didn't often make the same one twice.

All Managers have poor runs. 

Much about his character through the good and bad suggested he was / is a pretty safe hand on the tiller.

He MUST know we need to score more, and as some have said he's done so in the past.

Whilst the past is the past, he HAS done it before - quite a bit.

For me, if he adds positivity to his other qualities we will be fine. If he does not, we won't.

But both his fans and detractors make fair points.

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by terrytini

[TRO]

1 hour ago, DCJonah said:

Has he? We finished 13th and had a 10 game streak without a win. 

We showed we could hold out at times and other times we couldn't. I don't think he achieved what some believe he did. 

 

I think it was plain for all to see, that Jed missing played a massive part in that.....Steve Bruce had no one to bring in who could compensate for the valuable/crucial role Jed played.It was equally plain for all to see that when Jed returned or form did too.

The theory that SB went off the rails or cocked up is a total misnomer.

These type of players inc Whelan are the bedrock for a successful team.....The attacking players we have will flourish with these guys giving them the platform to play.

[DCJonah]

1 minute ago, TRO said:

I think it was plain for all to see, that Jed missing played a massive part in that.....Steve Bruce had no one to bring in who could compensate for the valuable/crucial role Jed played.It was equally plain for all to see that when Jed returned or form did too.

The theory that SB went off the rails or cocked up is a total misnomer.

These type of players inc Whelan are the bedrock for a successful team.....The attacking players we have will flourish with these guys giving them the platform to play.

Then I question the need for Steve Bruce if a player like Jedinak is the difference between winning and losing. We might as well have stuck with RDM if it's all down to one player. It's of course not, which is why this is a ridiculous excuse. 

And apart from one player none of our other attacking players flourished even when Jedinak was playing. 

[TRO]

1 hour ago, striker said:

So if those players weren't shoe horned then according to your post they were forced into defensive positions by the opposition? With all due respect that's nonsense. Right from the start of most games under Bruce last season Villa set up defensively, continually handing the initiative to player for player inferior opposition. So much so in fact it destroyed the confidence of Hourihane one of the best free scoring AMs in the Championship.

Bruce is being given a lot of credit on here well as far as I can see anyway. Most posters  have mentioned his promotional record and due to that are prepared to give him pre-season and the start of next season despite the awful turgid football played under him and despite finishing 13th with a budget and squad most Championship managers would die for.

Concerning Terry I do not think he is the coup you think he is, not now and not for the mooted deal he is on. I would have loved to see him go to Birmingham and then watch Kodjia rip him a new one in the derbies. I think he'll be targeted by niffty Championship forwards as Elphick was. Furthermore imo he will be out muscled.

Your comment concerning Redknapp I suppose is a fair one but as recently as last season, results in the Championship showed that you don't have to spend fortunes if you can find a system to suit what you have available and gain success.

 

Well, as you will expect I equally disagree with most of that.....I accept that not conceding goals was paramount in Steve Bruce's mind and that was his main priority.....like others we differ in our view of why that was.

I refuse to accept the notion that Steve Bruce wanted to play defensive football last season......I favour the view "necessity is the mother of Invention"

We will not play that way this season all things being equal( he gets the players he wants) because he has the time and the players needed to fix it.

[KSV]

Not many people know Rugby League.. but as an aussie and a Manly supporter.. ill tell you why Bruce can turn it around. 

Manly in 2016.. had a new coach with pretty much a whole new side.. lots of good players retired/left/let go and he brought in quite a few players. Ultimately they were terrible. Clueless in attack and defence. On paper looked half decent but it didnt work out.. add a few injuries along the way.. they finished outside the finals spots. Manly fans wanted the coach gone already.. me included. 

Fast forward 2017. Currently sitting in 3rd position. Best attack in the league and one of the best defences. Only one or two new signings and CLICK. Dont know what the difference was.. but the team gelled and looks amazing right now.

I know its different sport etc.. but my point is.. sometimes a new coach cant install his ideas into the players very quickly. An off season makes all the difference.. theres time to implement ideas/tactics. Work on fitness.. get some players back from injury and fit again. A few new signings and tweaks.. and its all different. 

Bruce has been promoted 4 times.. he knows the league.. he knows what is required. I trust he can have a good off season.. a few new signings to boost morale (which Terry has alone) and before you know it.. half way through the next season we are in the top 2-3. 

If i learnt anything from last year.. sometimes it takes time.. i didnt expect it to happen but i am eating humble pie now. I am hoping for the same with Villa.

 

 

[DCJonah]

8 minutes ago, TRO said:

Well, as you will expect I equally disagree with most of that.....I accept that not conceding goals was paramount in Steve Bruce's mind and that was his main priority.....like others we differ in our view of why that was.

I refuse to accept the notion that Steve Bruce wanted to play defensive football last season......I favour the view "necessity is the mother of Invention"

We will not play that way this season all things being equal( he gets the players he wants) because he has the time and the players needed to fix it.

This makes no sense. 

If Bruce felt it was necessary to play this way, then instructed his team to play that way, then that's Bruce wanting to play defensive football. 

I'm sure most managers could say they'd like their team to play like Barcelona but if you can't make it happen it doesn't mean much. 

Ultimately, last season we played abysmal football that resulted in a 13th place finish in the championship. 

Edited July 7, 2017 by DCJonah

[DCJonah]

Just now, KSV said:

Not many people know Rugby League.. but as an aussie and a Manly supporter.. ill tell you why Bruce can turn it around. 

Manly in 2016.. had a new coach with pretty much a whole new side.. lots of good players retired/left/let go and he brought in quite a few players. Ultimately they were terrible. Clueless in attack and defence. On paper looked half decent but it didnt work out.. add a few injuries along the way.. they finished outside the finals spots. Manly fans wanted the coach gone already.. me included. 

Fast forward 2017. Currently sitting in 3rd position. Best attack in the league and one of the best defences. Only one or two new signings and CLICK. Dont know what the difference was.. but the team gelled and looks amazing right now.

I know its different sport etc.. but my point is.. sometimes a new coach cant install his ideas into the players very quickly. An off season makes all the difference.. theres time to implement ideas/tactics. Work on fitness.. get some players back from injury and fit again. A few new signings and tweaks.. and its all different. 

Bruce has been promoted 4 times.. he knows the league.. he knows what is required. I trust he can have a good off season.. a few new signings to boost morale (which Terry has alone) and before you know it.. half way through the next season we are in the top 2-3. 

If i learnt anything from last year.. sometimes it takes time.. i didnt expect it to happen but i am eating humble pie now. I am hoping for the same with Villa.

 

 

I think there's a good chance we will be much better this season. Our players are too good for the level we are at for them not to be. 

[terrytini]

14 minutes ago, TRO said:

I think it was plain for all to see, that Jed missing played a massive part in that.....Steve Bruce had no one to bring in who could compensate for the valuable/crucial role Jed played.It was equally plain for all to see that when Jed returned or form did too.

The theory that SB went off the rails or cocked up is a total misnomer.

These type of players inc Whelan are the bedrock for a successful team.....The attacking players we have will flourish with these guys giving them the platform to play.

TRO I've posted above and other times I see merit in both camps.

But whilst I agree with your final paragraph the first two are way too defensive of the Manager for me.

Firstly no one player is THAT critical. Secondly it has to be down to a Manager to cope with a loss of a player - else why have a Manager ? Thirdly he DID try several things most of which were pretty poor - and lacked any coherent theme. Fourthly it is certainly at least POSSIBLE - surely ? - to see that he took a cautious route to dealing with Jediscabsence but COULD have tried an expansive route. That doesn't mean it would have worked, but many thought it worth trying, as opposed to retreating.

But if you say it's a misnomer that he cocked up - why ? Surely you don't see him as absolved from ANY part in our defeats ( or victories ) ? 

Here's a specific. He himself said trying a 'three' maybe been a mistake.

Heres another - less factual but certainly arguable- the starting line up against Ipswich at Home compared to how we finished the game - a very negative selection which, when remedied - too late - totally transformed the performance. 

I think it's very very reasonable to say (a) it was his job to handle the absences and (b) he didn't handle it well. 

I certainly hope he thinks so else he won't think he has anything to learn.

I