Villarocker

The changes Bruce made from Monday night surprised me. Steer and Elphick did enough for me to justify staying in the team. I can understand Hutton for Taylor but that should have been the only change to the back five. I can understand Thor for Whelan, to be a bit more energetic there. I can understand McGinn coming in for Hourihane. I'd have left Albert in the team as he deserves longer than one game before being dropped. I think overall he made too many changes too soon.

TRO, say what you want about the players mate but, truth is, Bruce has worked with the vast majority of them long enough to grow some backbone and spirit into them. Also, why has he not addressed, as a matter of priority, the replacement of John Terry? You cannot lose a player of his standing and simply hope that Elphick becomes decent again or Jedinak will cut out the mistakes. Jedinak doesn't work at CB and Bruce needs to learn that before he costs us games. I think that so far Leeds look like last season's Wolves (pressing fancy football with foreign manager) and Middlesbrough look like last season's Cardiff (journeyman British manager grinding out results). Villa look like last season's Villa - the manager is the same and doing the same things. Bruce needs to adapt to the modern Championship otherwise we will waste another season in our history.

To wish a death like that on someone who makes bad decisions in a game of football is lower than a snakes belly!

Limpid, get in touch with Kevan Grealish and get him to wage bets with these so-called ITK's. When Jack stays, and the debts are paid, Villatalk could be funded well beyond our lifetimes

You can't blame Spuds for thinking they can wait til late in the window to get him as cheap as possible because they expected us to be desperate for cash. Fortunately for us, Xia found us two wealthier owners to fend off the cheeky cockerny feckers! Stay with us Jack and in a few years you'll be playing alongside Kane, Eriksen etc - after they've signed for the new mighty Aston Villa!

Jack is Villa through and through. Does anybody really think he's playing his face over Villa "stopping" his move to Spuds. It's clear that Levy is using his press friends to publicise bullshit just to try to force Villas hand. I'm confident Jack will stay here in this league this season and beyond if he is wanted by the club. The owners should chat to him, reassure him of how much they need him here and tell him never to look elsewhere - if they haven't already!

Bruce has said post-match that we cannot continue to play that way because we lacked intensity. I watched players playing passes last night that lacked confidence, almost like they were scared to do something wrong. Taylor just hoofs it down the line, it's his go-to pass when confronted by an opposing player. He clearly isn't good enough for where we want to be which leads to the question; why have him in the first place? Elphick had passes out wide to either Hutton or Elmo on many occasion and just turned back and played it square to Chester - that's not good enough. It's like he lacks bravery on the ball and again, that's not good enough. Whelan played a lot of square balls last night although, to be fair to him, he did play a few good passes forward too. He is another who lacks the intensity of play we need in midfield and should be moved out of that starting line-up. I have no problem with us playing a holding midfielder but we just need one who is more dynamic and with a bit more muscle maybe, to better screen the back four. Bruce has the chance to do something about this now and let's hope that the board find a way of backing him to make the changes happen - hopefully without having to sacrifice our best player.

Can I just say, if we get £30m-£35m for Jack we should instantly give Hull £15m for Jarrod Bowen!

He could have had more chances to score if others had noticed him! Good goal and played well. Not sure the big dislike of Elmo is. Why can't he keep the shirt until someone else deserves to take it from him?

I don't think Bruce did anything wrong tonight. I think Elphick bottled it for their goal and could have tried to head that clear. I don't blame anyone for bad performances, I just think we had players making bad decisions at times. I think Bruce saw what every other person would see, that Villa had loads of space down our right first half but didn't exploit it, and second half proved that with both our right sided players scoring.

Maybe it's me but he looks too small to be a decent striker. However, he does look good with the ball at his feet and showed good awareness to set up Hourihane, who should have done better! Was just thinking who he reminds me of. Do we finally have Defoe?

He has only one pass and that's hoof down the left touchline in the hope that Adomah flicks it on. Poor player with the ball.

Elmo £1 at 33-1 3rd goalscorer =

Elphick was good, bad and the ugly. Kodjia was his old selfish self. Jack is trying to run the show as usual. Taylor is tough in the tackle but hoofing it down the line whenever possible, as usual. Adomah looks off the pace. The right side of our team looks like it has the plague because the rest want to play left or middle only. Elmo for next goal if he stays on and they find him better!

Surely a 433 with Elmo right wing?

I like the idea of this signing but, what is it with Bruce and signing full backs? Bree, Elmo, Taylor, even Axel has been deployed at full back. We already had youngsters coming through as well as De Laet and Hutton. Bruce certainly likes full backs so hopefully, this time, he will have got one right.

You make some fair points mate. The 3-5-2 formation is something that Bruce seems keen to adopt and what scares me most is the personnel he will deploy there. If Jedinak starts regularly in that position we are going to leak more goals than last season.

It worked for Wolves to be assisted by Mendes but then they had a manager who spoke the lingo and played with a style to match their capabilities. Can our manager do the same? I am not so sure that Bruce would have taken that Wolves side up last season.

Promotion?

I'm on the fence but only because I'm unsure as to how many of our best players we will lose before the season starts and who would replace Bruce. If you said to me "Henry will replace him and the only player we will definitely lose out of our best dozen players will be Grealish" then yeah, I'd say get rid. But, if it's "Allardyce or Dean Smith to replace him and we'll lose Grealish, Chester, Adomah" then I'd rather we stick with Bruce. Overall, for me, Bruce has been great at building the club back up in terms of it being a sinking ship but, ultimately, he failed on the pitch where his job was to get us promoted. Xia almost cost the club too and I think he should follow Bruce out of the door when he goes.

Surely either would be better than the road to mandarin?

Trouble is, he'll probably be playing elsewhere!

The circle of life is a wheel of fortune - that we keep losing on! To think that Xia is The Lion King! ? ?

Only option there is to lower the asking price to compensate for the wages. We could end up selling say 30 million worth of players for 20 million just to allow for their salaries. Great business that!