Reivax_Villa

Cavare looks a decent player

Bruce has confirmed that he will not again play this season.

Good result 

We looked solid and gained a clean sheet. Our goal difference is looking very good.

Forest are not a bad side, they keep a lot of possession however they do not make use of it. 

Elphick does not deserve to get dropped.

I am presuming Jedinak is injured. 

The line up is still solid. 

The same mistake that we have made with  Steven Davis, Albrighton, Cahill, Hogg..

There is a great risk that he will end up on that list also.

IF we get promoted under Bruce this season.

Ideally I would like us to get a new manager. Maybe Rafa or Koeman just someone that could keep us up in that league.

I would like to think that he is however it is too early to tell.

If we continue to see a change in our play and build up then the answer is YES

Nice spell of football there

Happy for Hogan and it looked like that goal meant the world to him.

No shots on goal yet

Bristol have had 3 

Just watched his interview..

Interesting that he has a lot to say when we win. 

My feelings towards the entire situation is that we will see where we are once this season is over.  If we do not get promoted ( which i hope does not happen) then I will be expecting a 5 minute plus post match interview from him explaining why.

The man has spoken

I see that Lee Hendrie is defending Bruce and his coaching on twitter.

https://twitter.com/leehendrie77/status/945980547469332482

What concerns me is that lack of football minded people we have on our board.

Middlesbrough made a footballing decision, sacked Monk and brought in a manager they believe that will compliment their style a bit better.

I feel like our Chairman and our CEO are incapable of making this sort of decision.  It appears that our board & chairman are more influenced by business opportunities and ideas opposed to footballing decisions.

He is a manipulator, he has manipulated his way into keeping this job.

He makes stupid statements.  One I remember vividly about the foreign players at Wolves not being able to cope with the cold weather..

He is full of BS

So now we are going back to basics..

He frustrates me.

What he has done during his time here is a discredit to us. He has wasted millions on players that he has rarely played or utilised. He has then scrapped his approach and signed experience players who have not been up to the acquired standard.

Interviews

During his interviews he mentions this role like it is the poison chalice, he speaks as if no other manager but himself is capable of dealing with the expectation of this role. I reckon because of this he is still at this club

Yes we are a huge club but the weight of expectation has been created by himself and it affected the players last season.  He continues to say that there is still plenty of work to do, so what has he done for the past 14-15 months?

He is negative and reluctant in most of his interviews, even when we win matches.  

Style

So what is it?

We are a defensive, counter attacking team but we have very few players capable of playing this way. We lack capable wide players so we rely on our full backs to overlap the wingers. Our central midfielders play too deep, even our most technical midfielders are deep lying players.  We relied heavily on Kienan Davis because he held the ball up to give our midfielders time to move from their deep positions and make forward runs. 

Simply this has not been good enough, our team has not been coached to a good enough standard. I think players like Hourihane, Lansbury have declined since arriving here.  

We lack expression in our play, and we do not play with any purpose.  This has resulted to our football being ineffective.

Transfers

Bruce likes the idea of good players, but the ones that he has signed shows that he does not know how to make them better  or get the best out of them.

Hogan - Hourihane - Bree- Lansbury -Bjarnason -Taylor  -Johnstone - Onomah - Snodgrass - Samba -Terry- Elmohamady - Whelan.

As well as our previous signings we are now in the s*** with FFP because of some of these signings. 

A lot of Bruce signings have been uninspiring with the exceptions of Hourihane, Terry and Taylor.  

Our signings do not look like it has been part of a long term strategy of building a team that can not only play to a style but capable of playing at the highest level in this country.

Can we trust him next week when the transfer window opens?

Summary

Steve Bruce created this illusion that we were in the worst position and that only he could stop the "Rot". I actually do not think we was in a rot, our management made some poor decisions and we were paying for it.  By stopping this Rot ( He calls it), we play this defensive smash and grab style of football whilst Kodjia saves our season and we finish 13th. 

He continues to mention that we have not had stability at this club and we are better off with him as our manager because he has four promotions, yet there is no improvement to our players or tactics. Keinan Davis and Adomah emerge as our top players whilst Terry rallies everyone and we are now promotion contenders. Ultimately this has not been a solution nor this has shown any signs of a long term plan,  he has merely papered over the cracks that highlight his insufficiencies as a modern day manager. Recently Bruce has made his last throw of the dice by bringing Steve Agnew to buy him some more time at this football club but it may be too late for him.

We are not getting promoted this season under Steve Bruce. It is that simple,  we do not score enough goals and we do not create enough chances.  We are very ineffective and we struggle against the top 8 sides in this league. 

The management i.e Wyness need to take responsibility for this and I believe that once Bruce is inevitably sacked, he should not play any role in finding a new manager.

First Half,

Well we haven't had much of the ball which i expected. Elphick looks comfortable, makes me think why did he not replace Terry earlier.

Our shape looks dreadful even our attacking play looks like a team that has not been coached. 

 I do not see any benefits by playing Jedi and Whelan,  it's one or the other for me. Hourihane may be fatigued but he is required in the middle of the park. 

Snodgrass.. I just do not know what he does.

Contrastingly Brentford look progressive in their play, imaginative with their set pieces. I look at them with envy.  This just shows what Dean Smith can produce with a squad assembled on a low budget. 

Imagine what Dean Smith could do with our side..

He looks like a very good coach.

That line up is built for counter attacking football.

I'm not expecting us to be dominating possession.

33 minutes ago, villarocker said:

Monk would surely have taken the Swansea keep-the-ball and play-it-out-from-the-back style that Martinez and Rodgers oversaw, to 'Boro?  I guess they don't think they have the players to do that. 

If we overlook the technicalities for one moment,  the point i'm trying to make is that the management at that club had the foresight to make that decision.

The question is whether our management can make a similar enough decision. 

Interestingly Monk was sacked because of the playing style, they felt that style would not help them get promoted..

What is Keith Wyness & Xia doing right now? 

I just hope that they don't give him any more money to spend.

11 minutes ago, srsmithusa said:

And then his replacement has no chance to assess the squad and have input into the January window.   

Honestly I believe if we sack Bruce halfway through the season they will be looking to give the new manager enough time to make an impact for next season.

3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Bruce would have been sacked 40 something games ago if he were our first manager at this level. We sacked RDM too early, IMO.

I dunno you know, RDM's signings were questionable,.