Villa V Reading: Sat, 25th Aug, 15.00 | Page 16 | Vital Football

Villa V Reading: Sat, 25th Aug, 15.00

Bikini Inspector said:
Sorry but that simply isn't the case. Not blaming him for us failing at promotion but neither did he contribute enough to say that we wouldn't have been in the play offs without him. His goals and assist stats are abysmal for this level when you think about the hype he gets. He's a decent player who shows flashes of quality nothing more nothing less and if he carries on like this he should be dropped for Bolasie.
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I disagree I'm afraid. Is Bolasie going to play in the midfield?
 
Wurzel said:
I know it's hard to accept but in this league every team is capable of taking points off another. It is precisely the competitive nature of the league that makes it so difficult to get out of it. Stoke fans are coming to terms with this reality at the moment.
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I can accept that but what I can't accept is that we seem to actively go out of our way to make everything so much harder for ourselves over and over again. I'm just fed up of it.
 
Wurzel said:
I know it's hard to accept but in this league every team is capable of taking points off another. It is precisely the competitive nature of the league that makes it so difficult to get out of it. Stoke fans are coming to terms with this reality at the moment.
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Spot on. You've only to look at the results so far this season to realise that almost every team has shown consistent inconsistency. You can have a great game which gives you a dominant win one day, only to stumble and fall a few days later. And it's not dependent on who you are playing.

At this stage of the season the only thing which matters is points. Three draws in 5 matches is disappointing, even more so that two of those draws were caused by clear mistakes by us. However the fact remains that relative to other teams we're doing OK; there's still all to play for.

I can understand people not being enthusiastic about Bruce's style. But in defence of what he's doing, he's not packing the defence like most of our opponents have been. He is trying to develop an attacking style, which takes time considering our only fit senior forward is still finding his form, and we're deploying several new players.

The best way forwards is simply cutting out the mistakes, which means we have to be concerned about the defence. No easy solution, but I'm certain it doesn't include Jedinak.
 
The team looks quite unbalanced at times. Add Bolasie into the mix and it could go either way.
Until the defence is sorted properly it's going to be one step forwards two back.
 
Thomas Holte said:
Regarding the new Leeds manager or any good manager come to that, he came in with a plan, assessed the current squad then added to areas he felt needed strengthing with the correct type of player and proceeded with his football style drilling into the players what he wants and what is expected of them.

That seems light years away from the way Steve Bruce operates who buys decent players just because they are decent players then hasn't got a clue how to play them because he never has a plan A yet alone a plan B and is continually shown up tactically by other managers who outthink him and make the correct substitutions during games unlike Bruces sometimes bizarre changes.

He seems to think just because they are decent players they can be relied on to do the business for him on the pitch but it doesn't work like that any more Steve and those days have now bypassed you.

He came in to do a job of stopping the slide and that he did well thank you but the more that is asked of him the clearer his managerial limitations are shown up.

I read that Calderwood ended up snapping back at some of the crowd yesterday from the dugout area which isn't a good sign and perhaps our esteemed leader JF could confirm or deny this!?
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Bielsa is a fascinating character and someone my brother was banging on about 3 years ago. If you get a chance look him up and have a look at his training methods, he's had an immediate effect and never managed in England before just like nuno, I think its time to be brave because we are in a descent position and I'm sure we would take off with the right coaching setup.
 
Just watched the penalty incident again and Chester is going to launch it for a throw-in when the bloke nips in and he's got himself in front to draw the foul. Chester's lack of speed did him. There again if he was quicker he'd not be with us he'd be in the top flight.
 
Read most of the post match stuff and whoa, it's totally like a broken record.

I'm tired of people trotting out the same arguments for and against. If you pick a match thred from last year (save BCFC or WWFC) you will read the same stuff.

IMO if you want the same result, carry on doing the same thing. Bruce will not change and nor will the performances or results. We will be good enough for the play-offs I'm sure, but we will have to put up with these post match dissections for the rest of the year.

Based purely on the football that we see week in and week out and nothing to do with the names or personalities at the club (players or managers), is this what 30k + people want to pay to see on a sunny Saturday afternoon in August, let alone a dark miserable Tuesday in February?

Personally I don't get sentimental about managers or players anymore, because they come and go with regularity. I am therefore not emotionally invested in Bruce and can definitely see him being gone sooner rather than later, based on the product on the pitch.
 
Wolves proved yesterday that you have to go out in each game and play your own game, fuck the opposition. Last week Huddersfield set up to keep it tight against Man City and NOT get slaughtered.... 6-0
Wolves played like it was against any other club and deserved their draw by playing their own game.

Lets get the Villa bandwagon rolling and not worry about anyone else let them worry about us.
 
Wasn't there, I was at a wedding, but was totally unsurprised - I said after I think it was the Wigan game - "it is all so last year".

How many times did we have a good performance and then come out against a "bottom side" and look as if we couldn't give a toss.

I said when we were in financial meltdown, Bruce was the guy who could claw back a 12 point deduction and see us safe.

Now, if you want as much as a safe bet to get the play offs as possible, but in a boring, predictable and "pragmatic" manner - he probably still is the guy.

If you want to go for Automatic - he isn't

From what I have read, Saturday was just the same as 90% of games from the last two years - and that is not good enough.

As for the "Grealish was poor" bit - and here is one for the record books, I am going to defend him here...... if you are trying to turn Jack Grealish into the next Jordan Henderson - he WILL be poor !
 
Thomas Holte said:
If you are content and think Steve Bruce is above criticism then that's up to you Wurzel.

As for where the information comes from you only have to look on the pitch at how disjointed we are compared to most other teams who do have a plan.

I and many others think SB has reached his managerial limits and is unable to take us any further so let's see how it pans out OK.
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No I don't think Bruce is above criticism, but how many managers have we had in the last decade? Where has chopping and changing ever got us except relegated? It is a reality that it takes time to turn around bad teams and weren't just bad we were abysmal. Bruce is into his third season, I have no doubt that the new owners will give Bruce enough rope to hang himself and if things do not improve then they will make a decision. Until then , especially as we are 4th and unbeaten I will continue to give Bruce support. This is a very long season and I'm now certain that we will be at the right end of the table come the end of the season, something I couldn't hope for just a few weeks ago.
 
Since MON left give or take a decade ago, we have had

GH, AM, PL, TS, RM, RDM, SB - 7 managers

Between 1990 and 2000 we had GT, DJV, RA, BL, JG - 5 managers - so no much less

Didn't do us any harm then !

It isn't about how many managers you have, it is about how good they are - and the ones we have picked over the last 10 years have not been.

Nothing to say the next one won't be a good one in the same way it doesn't mean if you keep Steve Bruce for the next 10 years he will be good.
 
Actually in percentage teams it is around 25% less, but even so those years were partially successful but even then it could be argued the club was underachieving. Look I'm certain that if Bruce doesn't get it done this season he will be gone, we are 4th, unbeaten, and the season has only just started. If it looks like we are not going to contend there is time to replace him and get a new man in just like Fulham who had an amazing second half of a season last year.
 
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