Steve Bruce

[markavfc40]

29 minutes ago, Richard said:

Lack of fitness, lack of confidence neither of those would affect basic football quality / skill and it is something we look light on

I totally disagree mate as I think that is exactly what happened. Early in the season we played some nice stuff. Ball retention was not an issue, far from it as we dominated possession in many games.

Against Rotherham, an hour against Huddersfield, and that 90 mins against Forest, was as good as anything I have seen from us in years.

You can see though that since the first half dozen games, confidence as diminished, fitness levels have been found wanting, and as nerves kick in the ball has become like a hot potato. Basic errors is exactly what all of these leads to.

This squad wasn't helped by working under a manager that despite a full pre season had no idea what system he wanted to play and resolved to chopping and changing, square pegs in round holes, leading to a total lack of organisation. I am confident Bruce can resolve many of the issues as the basic levels of quality, certainty at this level, are there. We just need to give him time and I hope we all do that.

[Mantis]

Exactly Mark. Wish people would stop ignoring the mental aspect.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

....since the first half dozen games, confidence as diminished, fitness levels have been found wanting, and as nerves kick in the ball has become like a hot potato. Basic errors is exactly what all of these leads to.

This squad wasn't helped by working under a manager that despite a full pre season had no idea what system he wanted to play and resolved to chopping and changing, square pegs in round holes, leading to a total lack of organisation....

That bit is spot on for me. The players are scared. They're scared of losing, scared of making mistakes, scared of getting stick, scared of their own shadows. They play with fear weighing them down.

[Johnnyp]

We have the right man at the helm. Hopefully people don't get silly after 5-6 games when it's a bit bumpy, because lads..its going to be. Steve Bruce doesn't even come into it when i filter through all the annoyance villa gets going in me. Summer's of poor recruitment, bad culture at the club. Bruce must be given total autonomy to do as he pleases. Promotion may not happen this year, not being defeatist. We've massive work to do, you all know this really.

[Demitri_C]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

They were not a good side. We made them look good. The standard in this league is pretty low to be honest and from the games we have seen other teams have been better. Considering we spent 50m and bought players suited to this league that is a huge worry, we don't even look like better quality but poor fitness, or better quality but mental fragility , or better quality just unlucky , or better quality just a few out of form, or better quality just adapting to a different style. It is all of those things and poor quality which is a huge worry

I agree with most of that but I think it's abit harsh on wolves. I'd say they have performed the best at villa park out of all the teams we have faced. We may have better individual players but they are more if a team than we are. We just look like individuals in a game. Look at that kodjia incident for example. Very amateur and poor from him there.

[Zatman]

I hope Bruce is a religious man because he is going to need some divine intervention to get anything from a lot of these clowns

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

But we didn't we drew with a very good wolves side, so not all hope is lost

they arent really a good side, they are 12th in Championship and lost last 2 games including to bottom 3 Wigan

[Demitri_C]

20 minutes ago, Zatman said:

they arent really a good side, they are 12th in Championship and lost last 2 games including to bottom 3 Wigan

And the only team yo win at the sty this season, not even Norwich can win that. I would say they will be up there come end of season

[VillaCas]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

This is the main thing for me and, without wishing to reignite the Bruce debate as he is here now, that is what I and a few others were saying we needed before we appointed him. A long term build job. Some people were saying we needed to just get up this season and then replace him for the next phase but my argument was that we never needed this as promotion was not going to happen anyway . We needed the long term build and for this to be in his hands is really worrying for me. Even those who wanted him did not accept he was a long term manager.

This is bang on. I'm not moaning about Bruce one bit after yesterday and won't be until he has a chance to bring in some of his own players BUT Bruce's supporters have been pushing him as Mr Here-and-now, the man for the short term, to use his championship experience to get us out sharpish and then we would reassess from there. He is not the man that I would choose to spend Xia's war chest and slowly build a squad

He has no record of building squads for the long term - Hulls result yesterday is a timely reminder of that

[wazzap24]

11 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

This is bang on. I'm not moaning about Bruce one bit after yesterday and won't be until he has a chance to bring in some of his own players BUT Bruce's supporters have been pushing him as Mr Here-and-now, the man for the short term, to use his championship experience to get us out sharpish and then we would reassess from there. He is not the man that I would choose to spend Xia's war chest and slowly build a squad

He has no record of building squads for the long term - Hulls result yesterday is a timely reminder of that

I don't think the last bit about the Hull squad is entirely fair. 

I'd argue it's nigh on impossible to build a squad capable of doing well in both leagues, without changing a decent amount of personnel. 

Bruce quit becuase the Hull board wouldn't back him to bring in the players he felt they needed to compete in the Prem. 

If anything, yesterday's result just highlights the fact he was right? 

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the majority of teams promoted then have to add 'premier quality' afterwards. 

[Demitri_C]

23 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

This is bang on. I'm not moaning about Bruce one bit after yesterday and won't be until he has a chance to bring in some of his own players BUT Bruce's supporters have been pushing him as Mr Here-and-now, the man for the short term, to use his championship experience to get us out sharpish and then we would reassess from there. He is not the man that I would choose to spend Xia's war chest and slowly build a squad

He has no record of building squads for the long term - Hulls result yesterday is a timely reminder of that

Now I've heard it all your blaming Bruce For hulls defeat yesterday? 

[VillaCas]

3 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

I don't think the last bit about the Hull squad is entirely fair. 

I'd argue it's nigh on impossible to build a squad capable of doing well in both leagues, without changing a decent amount of personnel. 

Bruce quit becuase the Hull board wouldn't back him to bring in the players he felt they needed to compete in the Prem. 

If anything, yesterday's result just highlights the fact he was right? 

I'm not saying it's impossible, but the majority of teams promoted then have to add 'premier quality' afterwards. 

Yes maybe that's true. I make the point only because various posters had previously said that he left a strong squad behind at Hull as evidence of his team-building abilities, they've now shipped 17 in the last four games so not that strong - I take your point about difficulties taking a squad up, but there are differences between needing further depth and being totally out of their class. 

The implication is that if he should get us up yet another serious rebuild would be required to remain competitive. I would contrast that with the smoother progression someone like Howe has made with Bournemouth. I'm not intending to be over critical of Bruce for this, just that I don't see him as a slow build type of guy - his promoters have been touting him as able to make a quick impact. 

I have sympathies with him given the midfield mess but equally come February, after the window, we need to see dramatic improvements 

[Demitri_C]

Agnew isn't coming according to teamtalk

[VillaCas]

8 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Now I've heard it all your blaming Bruce For hulls defeat yesterday? 

Nice try, but you need to re-read it. That's not what I said. The point was around Bruce's strengths in the short term v long term. Bruce was originally touted as a short term answer to our situation - now people are saying it will take time and we need patience. I think that is true but support the point that if it is a long term job then Bruce has shown little evidence that he has that in his toolbag. The squad he left behind at Hull is a small pointer to this short term v long term thinking. If Hull had scored 17 in their last four and won 6-1 I would have been happy to accept that that shed some positive light on Bruce's team building abilities. As they lost 6-1 and have conceded 17 in 4 I think it fails to support the thinking.

So no, not blaming him but in the way that Pearson was given lots of credit for the supposed foundation that lead to Leicester success, Bruce must accept a proportion of the responsibility for how Hull perform this season. I'd imagine if Hull were top of the league you'd be pointing to that as evidence of Bruce's past abilities- it's got to work both ways 

For the record, Bruce has pretty much free rein from me until he gets a few new faces in January (although I expect to see a change in attitude very soon)

[Richard]

6 minutes ago, VillaCas said:

Nice try, but you need to re-read it. That's not what I said. The point was around Bruce's strengths in the short term v long term. Bruce was originally touted as a short term answer to our situation - now people are saying it will take time and we need patience. I think that is true but support the point that if it is a long term job then Bruce has shown little evidence that he has that in his toolbag. The squad he left behind at Hull is a small pointer to this short term v long term thinking. If Hull had scored 17 in their last four and won 6-1 I would have been happy to accept that that shed some positive light on Bruce's team building abilities. As they lost 6-1 and have conceded 17 in 4 I think it fails to support the thinking.

So no, not blaming him but in the way that Pearson was given lots of credit for the supposed foundation that lead to Leicester success, Bruce must accept a proportion of the responsibility for how Hull perform this season. I'd imagine if Hull were top of the league you'd be pointing to that as evidence of Bruce's past abilities- it's got to work both ways 

For the record, Bruce has pretty much free rein from me until he gets a few new faces in January (although I expect to see a change in attitude very soon)

Yes it works both ways, just like people blaming RDM for our situation and saying Bruce is absolved from blame.

[Duck]

2 hours ago, Mantis said:

 

It's a risk - never said it wasn't. It's just not a big risk.

On the contrary if we keep this amazing form going we WILL be going down. You can't just wave it away, if we end up going down again it'll be a disaster for the club. So I would call it a huge risk, granted what's at stake right now. 

You can't draw games all season and stay up. We need to start seeing games out. 

3 wins in a calendar year is purely laughable. Being relegated to a lower division and struggling to get any more than a draw is laughable. Norwich and Newcastle are cruising and were badly struggling.

We're the laughing stock of the division.

[Mantis]

45 minutes ago, Duck said:

On the contrary if we keep this amazing form going we WILL be going down. You can't just wave it away, if we end up going down again it'll be a disaster for the club. So I would call it a huge risk, granted what's at stake right now. 

You can't draw games all season and stay up. We need to start seeing games out. 

3 wins in a calendar year is purely laughable. Being relegated to a lower division and struggling to get any more than a draw is laughable. Norwich and Newcastle are cruising and were badly struggling.

We're the laughing stock of the division.

Actually, if we kept up this form for the rest of the season and other teams forms stayed consistent then we'd just survive (not that that's any sort of achievement).

I'm not "waving away" anything. I'm just saying that at this stage relegation isn't that likely, especially not with somebody like Bruce in charge now. I don't think our form will stay like this the entire season.

[TRO]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

That bit is spot on for me. The players are scared. They're scared of losing, scared of making mistakes, scared of getting stick, scared of their own shadows. They play with fear weighing them down.

I agree there are fundamental issues that are creating so many more to the point it looks like everything is wrong.

If he can fix some of them early on...IF..... it could have a knock on effect.

[terrytini]

4 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

But we didn't we drew with a very good wolves side, so not all hope is lost

Not really, no.  We made them look good in the end.  Yes they did have the basic ingredients, which we lack, but some of their play, especially first half, was so poor as to be funny. Any decent side in this League would've beaten us out of sight.

[TRO]

1 hour ago, VillaCas said:

Nice try, but you need to re-read it. That's not what I said. The point was around Bruce's strengths in the short term v long term. Bruce was originally touted as a short term answer to our situation - now people are saying it will take time and we need patience. I think that is true but support the point that if it is a long term job then Bruce has shown little evidence that he has that in his toolbag. The squad he left behind at Hull is a small pointer to this short term v long term thinking. If Hull had scored 17 in their last four and won 6-1 I would have been happy to accept that that shed some positive light on Bruce's team building abilities. As they lost 6-1 and have conceded 17 in 4 I think it fails to support the thinking.

So no, not blaming him but in the way that Pearson was given lots of credit for the supposed foundation that lead to Leicester success, Bruce must accept a proportion of the responsibility for how Hull perform this season. I'd imagine if Hull were top of the league you'd be pointing to that as evidence of Bruce's past abilities- it's got to work both ways 

For the record, Bruce has pretty much free rein from me until he gets a few new faces in January (although I expect to see a change in attitude very soon)

Fair Comments....But correct me if I am wrong.

Steve Bruce left Hull because in his opinion the job was not finished and he wanted to keep building....The funds were not to his liking, so he reserved that right to tender his resignation by implying that he couldn't do the job he was employed to do based on insufficient resource.