Tomaszk

As has been said, at games it was minimal. He was looking for criticism so he could try and turn the media onto the fans instead of himself. I'm honestly stunned he's got decent jobs at Wednesday and Newcastle after Villa. The pattern repeats everywhere. Admittedly he walked out on Wednesday before the Bruce scenario played itself. They hate him for a different reason.

Incapable people who are a bad judge of character and player gave him a contract well above his station. Why should he turn down money Keith Wyness and Steve Bruce gifted him? He'd never had that money before, it wasn't the precedent to do so.

He got minimal criticism at games until the very end. Comparing again with McLeish, Lambert, take your pick, they had months and months of fan unrest. It only started when Bruce put us back in the position we were in when he arrived. Bruce was inventing it before it was there. Or going looking for it. We know his children sit and scour the internet for jabs at him and report back. If he's going looking online he's only got himself to blame, I could go and find Liverpool fans criticising Klopp right now if I wanted. "If I go, who are they going to get who's any better?" is probably one of my favourite quotes in football. What an arrogant arsehole. Newcastle the biggest game of the season for me while he's there.

I can't help you clearly. You don't get it. Is there only one way to beat a side? Ever? You have to copy the team that last beat them? Tottenham had a good blueprint for playing away at Southampton. 5-2 win, comprehensive. Not a 1-0 grub with a deflection. Ancelotti really shit the bed, he must be "totally stupid" to not adapt and copy that actual good plan.

What? Irrelevant. I don't think I can help you. If you think a 1-0 shit win from a deflection is an ideal gameplan to copy you see the game like Steve Bruce. Unlucky pal.

Liam Rosenior is fantastic. Absolutely brilliant pundit.

Jermaine Beckford and Kieron Dyer both fairly impressive new pundits from what I've seen. Obviously made to look better than they are being sat next to wallies like Jamie Redknapp et al.

"Steve Bruce" is a great read on twitter. Absolute conman. Stumbles into every result. There is no plan, there never was. Tim Sherwood had more of a plan, and he is a moron and definitely not a football manager. The forensic examination of Dean Smith we're clearly going to see on the main forum every time we don't win a game is very amusing bearing in mind the vault of excuses that were wheeled out when Bruce was doing this shit at Villa.

The boy is a wizard. I love how he doesn't overanalyse as well. He'll prepare sure, you often hear him talking about specifics of opponents; but on the pitch, it's all natural, instinctive stuff. I absolutely love watching him play football. Utterly convinced the over the top criticism he got up until a few weeks ago when everyone was crying for him to start for England was jealousy. Pure jealousy from fans of teams who simply cannot hold onto players this good that come through their academy. And we have one that stayed with us in the championship, then kept us up, then signed a new 5 year deal. An Aston Villa icon.

Understand and agree with your general point but Barkley was poor the other day. That's it. That's why he lost the ball in those areas. There's no magical system or formation or manager that would have had us winning that game comfortably with Barkley and McGinn so flat. You've got to compete and they were tired/injured/unfit, call it whatever you want. Squad isn't there. We are going to lose more this season, mostly for the reason we've only got 10 or 11 Premier League players at the club.

Trying to replicate a performance where a side grubbed a 1-0 win due to a player heading it into his own net is very silly indeed. Don't think Ancelotti will be doing that very often. Steve Bruce type stuff. I'm well over that.

Uh oh. Looks like 38 wins the minimum expectation then.

The anti-Bruce.

@AndyClarke

Didn't like Gabby much when he was a big player for us, didn't like him when he started messing about when we were being relegated and I don't like him as pundit.

If you want to look at things with surface level simplicity, fill your boots.

The Wolves performance where they could have been dicked 3-0 just like we were? Pretty shitty blueprint if it relies on the other opposition getting tired, missing a hatful of chances, and scoring a deflection yourselves to win. An absolutely abysmal blueprint in fact. Hopefully every other manager in the league has a blueprint of Villa's 7-2 win v the defending champions. There's a plan. Some deflections yes, but they were lucky we didn't score 12.

Without De Bruyne their air of invincibility totally disappears.

Reading around that was Leeds "at their best". Pretty encouraging because that was us at our worst in about six months and we could have been one or two up before 55 mins. If we'd played well and been thumped I'd be concerned.

You still posting here? Jeez.

Presume everyone wants to be the fittest. That drill is perfect in-game replication for them, don't think it would work as well for us if we aren't going to charge round like nutters during matches. However, same as us going down without Covid, Leeds were clearly on the way to blowing promotion again without it. It's unsustainable the way they play, it physically cannot be done unless you have a bigger squad. Other teams this season will meet Leeds on a day when they have no legs and beat them handsomely. Great to watch when it works though, a lot of fun, and a lot of dominance.

I hope it's not going to be the case all season every game we lose that Smith was "outsmarted"? Players appeared very tired and plenty put in bad performances. There's no one he can replace them with that's better. Lack of any depth and underperforming players was the reason we got pumped by a good Leeds side.

So? Barkley was shocking. Our worst player. Watkins would have scored if Grealish had rolled it 5 yards to his right at 0-0. He should have scored at 0-3. I don't understand what you want? That your view he was nothing "to fear" to be accepted? Because of one match? One in which Villa were terrible?

Big time. We did look tired from the first 5 mins though. Will you stop it, you'll give me a rash.