Brentford away - Boxing Day - 7:30pm

Not having a go at Hogan just pointing out the truth the lad is not good enough. Neither is Davis. Kodja had to deal with the same set up from Bruce and you know what he did? He made things happen, he took responsibility and scored goals. The return from our strikers is appalling, partly down to supply but also in part because they have not made things happen.
 
Silhill, believe me i have not been a Hogan fan. But in the second half he was starved of the ball completely. He genuinely had nothing to work with .
 
At 6 foot 4 I'd do more damage than Hogan but christ it's nothing to do with ability, attitude or work rate its purely based on the fact we have this desire to fire balls forward and bypass our midfield. In this instance that was probably the right thing to do because Glenn Whelan can barely pass it sideways and Jedinak isnt there to unlock defences.

The one brief link up between Hogan and Grealish which was ruled out for offside showed the lad can do it when put in the position.

My mind is just blown and confirmed what I already knew about debates 'I'm right because I don't like your opinion'. Someone post the Hogan goals from Brentford again please.

Next they'll be telling me the assist leader since 15/16 can't pass it to a man or because James Chester doesnt dive into tackles he's a poor defender.

 
McParlandTheGreat - 27/12/2017 00:10

Bruce's comment after the game ended with:
"I don't think it's an attitude thing or a work-rate thing. With Aston Villa there comes an expectation and at the minute you have to handle the expectation."

He's back to his excuse of last season. B*ll*cks to the expectation at Villa; Villa is the sort of opportunity that players crave. OK we're Barcelona or even Spurs, but how did we manage to sign so many players? Opportunity.

It IS an attitude and work-rate thing. Closing down, making the moves, making oneself available, working for other players, knowing when to get forward. And that comes from the manager.

To go out on the field and perform you need confidence in yourself and in your manager. Today Bruce's "own" players didn't show that.
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I don’t buy that either. He’s bought badly and probably realises it but he can hardly come out with that. There is no energy, no desire to close down and a longstanding and continual problem of passing to the opposition. I’ve come to the conclusion that this squad is now about Mid table capability. To be fair, that’s better than lower mid table of last year. This is progress of a sort but it looks like it’s going to take at least another season. Unless something miraculous happens in January...
 
Wurzel - 27/12/2017 00:25

Not having a go at Hogan just pointing out the truth the lad is not good enough. Neither is Davis. Kodja had to deal with the same set up from Bruce and you know what he did? He made things happen, he took responsibility and scored goals. The return from our strikers is appalling, partly down to supply but also in part because they have not made things happen.
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Not every striker is the same.

It is all on Bruce anyone watching Hogan would know he isn't going to fashion chances himself and I'd argue 80% of strikers need to be supplied. Kodjia is the exception rather than the rule. It makes it all the worse because I think Bruce planned on replacing Kodjia with Hogan given the formers lack of work rate.

Not too sure what the angle is it all lands on Bruces front door its grim reading no matter how it is portrayed. He has either wasted money, is a terrible man manager or he can't simply can't build a team despite being given all the resources to do so. I am sure some will say all of the above.
 
I think Kodjia is more of an individualist, the type who can shine in a poor team and has the ability to make things happen for himself. Guys like Davis and Hogan might not have that individual ability like Kodjia but in a real team they'd do the business, like Hogan did with Brentford. Kodjia is a one of a kind player at this level, if we'd signed say Dwight Gayle instead of him we'd have been relegated. Not because Dwight Gayle is a bad player but he can't do it himself.

That is Bruce's greatest sin as far as I'm concerned. He's totally failed to mould this squad into a team. We still rely on moments of magic or luck to get us goals the vast majority of the time. In fairness this isn't a new problem, it goes way back. Relying on one or two star players to get you through is a recipe for disaster. We saw that once Benteke left but we've learnt fuck all.
 
I only watched on TV so can only comment on what the cameras picked up.
It did look like a lot of them were just going through the motions though.
Too much turkey and baileys maybe .
 
Chieftoast - 27/12/2017 00:42

Would koeman drop a division?
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I remember a time when he was practically begging for the job in the media. We appointed McLeish obviously.
 
Wurzel - 26/12/2017 23:20

For me Hogan has had long enough to show that he deserves to play for Villa and he is clearly not good enough. At this level you have to make things happen for you and he just doesn't. A poor signing and one of a few that may lose Bruce his job.
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Controversial opinion but I agree and have been saying it for quite a while.

Everyone says we aren’t playing to his strengths, which is apparently playing the perfect pass to him at the perfect time... if you need to put everything on a plate to him to actually do anything, which he hasn’t in months and months, then he’s obviously not good enough for us.

I actually thought he had a good first half and was thinking maybe he can prove me wrong... but then in the second half he barely touched the ball. There should be no excuse, if your on the pitch you’ve got to be counted and Hogan just doesn’t. Things clearly haven’t worked out for him here, I would rather we cut our losses on him in January and brought someone else in rather than hoping it just suddenly “clicks”
 
Lets try and put it in perspective.

We are 9 pts from second with 22 games to go and I don't rate any side above us with the exception of Wolves who I don't believe will miss a beat and go on to win this league.

Bruce has steadied the ship, spent lavishly by Championship standards and probably until 3 or 4 games ago the consensus was he was doing okay.

We have failed to win in 5 and are sitting outside the top 6 by 3 points and our next game is against a rival, level on points who just ditched their manager for this cardinal sin.

This is where we are.

For me going 6 games without a win at any stage of the season is catastrophic and falling 6 points away from the tail end of the pack with over half of games played could easily be deemed a sackable offense. Where should we draw the line?

I am really in two minds, I think keeping Bruce in charge means effectively means 2nd won't happen unless he has a few drastic revelations so we're stuck going through the playoffs but he has that experience that many don't.

My head tells me get rid but my heart says give him a chance.
 
colavfc - 27/12/2017 10:51

I may be wrong here but hasn't our recent poor form coincided with the return of jack grealish
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Or the return of Gabby?

Or the start of December?

Or the injury to Samba?

Or the loss of goals from Albert?

Or a lack of tactics and strategy which we've been papering?

 
BodyButter - 27/12/2017 02:02

colavfc - 27/12/2017 10:51

I may be wrong here but hasn't our recent poor form coincided with the return of jack grealish
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Or the return of Gabby?

Or the start of December?

Or the injury to Samba?

Or the loss of goals from Albert?

Or a lack of tactics and strategy which we've been papering?
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All of the above might be the right answer. But at the risk of repeating myself from other posts in months and years past, Grealish has still yet to prove anything other than he’s comfortable on the ball. He was hyped up by the media for one good pass in an FA Cup semi and we’ve yet to see him produce anything resembling a 90 minute performance..
 
Had to go out last night and where we went had no wi-fi or signal at all , so wasn't able to find the result out until about 10 o'clock. Hugely disappointing , but what was worse was that I kind of knew how we played before I read anything on here. Didn't have to be Pep to know how the game would pan out based on the last 3 encounters against Brentford . If we play against anyone who moves the ball quickly then we will struggle , same for going forward , I can't beleive the number of times Snodgrass slows the game down completely , cut's inside and loses the ball.

Like a lot of others I like Bruce and think he has done a decent job steadying the ship and giving us a degree of stability , but we need to go up this season........
 
You don’t need to watch us to know how we have played, you can look at team sheet and pretty much map out the game.

Which is probably why any half decent team takes the piss.
 
sirdennis - 27/12/2017 07:42

Had to go out last night and where we went had no wi-fi or signal at all , so wasn't able to find the result out until about 10 o'clock. Hugely disappointing , but what was worse was that I kind of knew how we played before I read anything on here. Didn't have to be Pep to know how the game would pan out based on the last 3 encounters against Brentford . If we play against anyone who moves the ball quickly then we will struggle

.
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Where did you go out SD the 1970's ? :17:

Incredible that he set the team up with Jedi and Whelan in the middle. Did he not learn from the previous games?. Why do we always get stubborn inflexible managers?. I would love to have a conversation with him as to what he was thinking last night compared to what we were thinking and all knew was going to happen.
 
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