How Do We Sum Up This Season? | Page 2 | Vital Football

How Do We Sum Up This Season?

People talk of a lack of improvement under Bruce but that's not entirely true.
We are better than we were under RDM , and the defence and keeper look good.
Yes the midfield is garbage , but in Kodija Hogan McCormack Davis Green if we sort the midfield that has to yield lots of goals .
I'm confident Bruce will make the signings this summer to improve matters .
 
A poor start under RDM, improved results with the arrival of Bruce, then an appalling run, followed by another good run.

My concern is that even the good run of results since beating Derby, were by virtue of a strong defensive unit & a forward on fire (Kodjia), the worry was we could not string four passes together & the midfield was non-existant. Very alarming when you consider we bought in Hourihan & Lansbury, the 2 most creative players in the division at the time, both of who have been really poor.

Lansbury in particular, a mate of mine who is Forest, said he can play when he feels like it, but, is lazy & probably feels that moving to Villa meant he'd made it. I think we would do better with Angela Lansbury to be honest!!!

Bruce said recently that he had identified targets for the summer, so did he not identify the January influx???? Of the number of players he bought in, only Taylor has looked worthy.

Also, what the hell do we do to strikers? McCormack, Hogan & even Gestede were scoring goals for fun until they arrived at B6. I was really pleased to get Hogan, though since he arrived he looks like he couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo.
 
When bruce took over we were on the slide. He halted that slide and we started to win . Over previous 5 years I think the win % is about 25%. Under bruce it's about 45%.
I have been as pissed off after watching us win as lose but and it's a big but , we still don't really know how much the crap that's still in that squad bruce doesn't rate but has had to play. We are still a mental case when you consider who is on loan and who is still at the club. We do however now have a proper management structure and leadership. I think the club needs a purge and richards , gabby , hutton , bacuna and elphick will be a great start.
 
Gestede and Westwood was great business.
Thought davis was excellent in the 2nd half.
 
I think next season he should just build the team around Green and Grealish. Sod all this 45 minutes here, 45 minutes there bollocks, put them in and let them play week in week out. It'll be last chance saloon for Grealish. Can he finally live up to the hype?

Just look at Everton throwing the kids in. It just gives the whole club a lift seeing your own lads performing every week.


 
It may be a cliche but it really can only be summed up as transitional. We now have a manager that, although not my first choice and still not what I want from a manager, actually has a clue and a decent record at this level, we have an owner that seems to have learned pretty quickly that it's best to leave important decisions to those that know what they are doing, at the same time he seems to know the financial side of things well and is willing to back the manager. The future is starting to look bright again.

 
I must admit at the start of the season I thought we would go up , but in hindsight we had been in such a mess for the last 5 years or so that promotion was never going to happen . The mess was compounded by the scattergun signings of the RDM eraand so Bruce's job was made harder and we are undergoing a huge transitional period with the squad. Apparently there were something like 38 ins and outs and no club can be successful under those circumstances and with that in mind I think 13th is about right.

Next season though........
 
The Vital Villa members fans have their say on the season just ended...


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Thanks for comments and also a great title as per BBJ's post.

Will merge into the Ironside started thread later

:35:
 
The encouraging this is that none of us think this is acceptable. The rot of the past few years has hopefully now been stopped, and this summer is huge in terms of our future. As you said yourself JF, we really cannot afford a third season at this level.
 
I thought Holloway was optimistic when he had us finishing 16th, I was certain we were in for another relegation season. In fact I thought we were going to end up in Division Two before things got sorted out.
I think we will have a third championship season, unless Mr. Bruce not only gets his first choice players coming in but, can get rid of all of the deadwood, 14 -16 players by my count, we all know he'll be unable to get rid of some of those simply because of a mixture of attitude and contracts.
 
14 goals away in 23 games, lowest in the league ffs, even [obviously Rotherham scored more]. Still that is 4 more than last season but in 4 more games - but the best away support.
Total number of goals in 46 Villa games was 95 - the lowest in the league. Only 3 clubs scored less, only 3 clubs conceded less.
Progress .... I don't think so
 
Lots expected better because of the money spent, however I think for all the Drs good intentions we went about the summer recruitment wrong, we overpaid and were left very light in the middle of the park

Bruce had the chance to add his own players and got them at a good price, however the squad was just unbalanced from the start and wasnt really addressed in January, just a panic buy with Hogan and a couple of CM's..

We needed a plan, an ideal and a style of play and buy players to fit that. We didnt. We bought some of the best players in the league and hoped they would gel.

I was expecting us to drop another league under RDM and under Bruce I thought playoffs would be ambitious and too soon for a club that was in such a mess as we were

I think Bruce needs to fill important spaces, CB, LW, AM, ST and some loans and get them playing a set way in a set formation

He needs to win 2 from first 3 games or he will be under pressure and gone by October otherwise
 
Well lets look at the positives.....

Last season the start was nothing short of shocking with "Premiership" Aston Villa taking only 11 points from a possible 39, that a shocking return 28 dropped points and I know we could never win every game but I think the players were shell shocked at the physical game and the amount of fixtures, previously pampered playing three games in a 7 day period was too much for our lot.

The new year with the new players was worse, new manager syndrome was well a truly over will the mighty Aston Villa taking only 1 point from a possible 24 available new players bedding in!! (NO I CANT FUCKING BELIEVE IT EITHER)

This will not happen next season Bruce will hopefully have a settled team by the start, those two shocking periods cost us 51 points.... I could not believe it when I went and looked at the season over again.... 51 fcking points, with just half of those points we would have finished 3rd and only 4 points of automatic promotion......

The shocking periods have to stop, OK I accept we will lose games and draw games we should have won but getting one point from 24 wont happen again under Bruce.

Next season we will be launching towards the Premiership .......

Challenges from Hull and Boro will be key to staying on top as Boro and Hull already have Championship teams, Sunderland will do an Aston Villa.

2017/18 Promotion 2018/19 consolidation in the Premiership.

Top 10 maybe in 5 years......

We all knew last season was going to be a struggle but I think we hit the bottom at the turn of the year, its up and up for the Villa.
 
This last season was bang average and not good enough for what we should expect from a group of players wearing the famous Claret & Blue of Aston Villa. Wholesale changes needed and a massive improvement. Bookies have already installed us as early favourites to go up (just like last season). The pressure will be on from first whistle of the season to last, we are a big club and other clubs will want to turn us over. The worry for me is whether we can improve on last season's average effort.

We need to invest but with only the much talked about £1m transfer kitty available and a policy of sell to buy, we need to be shipping out a lot of players who probably won't achieve the required sale value to allow Bruce to bring in better standard/ more willing to graft players we need. We might get lucky with one or two like Amavi if Atletico Madrid are serious but I doubt we'll get the £12m bandied around. Most of the loanees will get a few million at best and the squad players still here that we need to offload won't bring in a vast fortune either. I think our best chance of drumming up any serious money maybe our hand is forced in selling Kodjia which will leave us very short of quality upfront. The club can ill afford to bring in another McCormack or injury concern Hogan type player. Gabby is probably past his best now, Grealish has flattered to decieve and many others have failed to shine. Of our best performers, Jedinak is nearing the end of his career and Bruce is now thinking of him being a central defender, Chester looked decent and Baker was improved but there is still room to get better. The goalie looked better after a shaky start but is a loan really the way to go - paying for a player we will never actually have on our books. If he stays next season then we have to buy him by the end of the season. Green and Davis should get more game time and if they can shine along with RHM then there is some hope but we cannot just rely on them, they need time to grow and blossom into the players we hope they will become. Hopefully the name of Aston Villa still has some pull in the game today and will attract players with drive and ambition and pride and not be seen as an easy bumper payday for no real effort. Bruce has hinted at going down the road of loans like he did at Hull City - can't say I like the idea of paying wages to another club's player. Aston Villa should not be bringing in and giving game time to players for the benefit of other clubs. We need to think like a big club, act like a big club and have players who want to put in the work ethic and be a part of this big club.

The owner has grand plans to take us back to were we want to be and improve the ground, the club stature and it will take time. Unlike Lerner however, he recognises that Aston Villa is a football club first and foremost and we need to get it right on the pitch before we start to look at anything else. Next season will probably be a tough one but one we must take on and succeed in if we are to realise the club's ambition of returning to the top flight. The squad has to be ready for the challenge, failure and a 3rd campaign in the Championship will be deemed to be failure and Bruce knows if he fails to get the results he will be gone. With this in mind I do however question the money made available - we should be giving the manager a minimum of £6m plus whatever he can generate from sales of the unwanted bomb squad and deadwood.
 
On the transfer funds available.....................

Any Chairman who stated publicly that the club had £20 million to spend would be an Idiot, no one in their right mind makes their transfer budget public knowledge.

 
Don't buy the "we're a big club so other clubs want our scalp" thing. What happened last season was that other clubs were fairly astute in working out our weaknesses. They knew that our attack could be nullified by just having a well-organised defence, they knew attacking down their right would expose our defence, etc. They looked at us and said this is a side with weaknesses. Funny thing, we never seemed to do the same thing to them. That has to change.

If things click for us then we should become a team other teams fear. It's that simple.
 
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