Steve Bruce

[TRO]

Despite the bit of success we have had with our recent 4-4-2.....its not what i would set us up for( but who am I? just putting my head above the parapet) with promotion in mind.

Home 4-3-3

We should be able to operate more offensively at Home and our record is enough to put our opponents on the back foot, with the crowd with us, we should be able to open up more.

Away 4-2-3-1

There will always be instances where it is prudent to change depending on the opposition, but generally thats what I would do.

Away I would play Whelan and Jed in the 2 DM roles( fitness permitting)....If the whole team play less deep the 2 DM's can press and keep the 4 fed.....it doesn't have to be as defensive as it sounds.....but it does rely on the 4 offensive players being on their game....we can't carry players and play 6 to get 4, because we then leave ourselves exposed. 60% 40% attack in a counter should get us points away from home.....40% 60% attack  at Home.

Edited October 30, 2017 by TRO

[TRO]

14 minutes ago, dn1982 said:

Bruce will not have a clue who to pick. Thor takes a spot on the bench and is hopeless. Yesterday we ended up with Hogan LM surely if you put someone on the bench you have to have confidence in using them. Jedinak and Whelan will probably be our midfield now which isn't ideal as neither can create. I just hope he gives Davis and Hogan a run together as a partnership. 

I see that happening only away from home.

[Dave J]

51 minutes ago, TRO said:

I too am concerned about that.

I accept from the Brouters that poor performances will eventually catch up with you.

I see players having quite noticable form dips from game to game which troubles me and during those dips the control of the football goes missing or the ability to move away from an opponent and put them on the back foot is redundant.

If we continue with the low grade football we are offering, suspensions and injuries will be prevalent.....WE HAVE TO LEARN TO MOVE THE BALL....and let the ball do more work and US less work.

If we have the players we say we have, this should not be too much trouble.....but its like watching an old man do up his shoes laces on a freezing morning or a fisherman retrieving a fish from his keep net with soapy hands.

Its **** poor control of the ball for the reputations they have.....they should hang their heads.....Thats players,coaches, Manager....they are all in it together.

 

I’m afraid moving the ball - comes down to one man whether you like it or not! It’s his team, his model , his DNA.

i do actually agree with the principal mind!

[TRO]

1 minute ago, Dave J said:

I’m afraid moving the ball - comes down to one man whether you like it or not! It’s his team, his model , his DNA.

i do actually agree with the principal mind!

I know from past experience who you will blame.....and some of it is apt.

But when do you identify a players form dip? or a poor game?.....it appears a player cannot have a poor game on his own, it has to be SB's fault.

I accept that it may appear that I overly defend SB.....but equally do you ever see any fault in the players themselves.

[AshVilla]

Back to 4 4 2 please

[bannedfromHandV]

11 minutes ago, Dave J said:

I’m afraid moving the ball - comes down to one man whether you like it or not! It’s his team, his model , his DNA.

i do actually agree with the principal mind!

Yep okay.

 

It's Bruce's fault when a supposed professional footballer cannot pass 10 yards to a team mate.

[TRO]

Just now, bannedfromHandV said:

Yep okay.

 

It's Bruce's fault when a supposed professional footballer cannot pass 10 yards to a team mate.

These are the bits I am really struggling with

or passes before looking and nearly concedes a goal....yeah, poor coaching.

[TRO]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Yep okay.

 

It's Bruce's fault when a supposed professional footballer cannot pass 10 yards to a team mate.

its probably his fault for signing him and his fault for playing him.....but as for the pass itself, its called scraping the barrel.

[TRO]

11 minutes ago, AshVilla said:

Back to 4 4 2 please

well, not to be too picky, but most of these so called "digital managers" that are putting dinosaur managers in the shade, rarely play that these days.

my understanding is its frowned upon as old hat and unsophisticated.

not agreeing necessarily with that stance of course.....just saying.

[Dave J]

18 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Yep okay.

 

It's Bruce's fault when a supposed professional footballer cannot pass 10 yards to a team mate.

I’m not sure TRO meant misplaced passes - although I will stand corrected, moreover a style of play?

[Keyblade]

21 hours ago, bobzy said:

How does the manager shoulder blame for players not playing the way he wants them to? When Hourihane passes straight to Jota did you think “oh **** sake Steve, why is Conor doing that?”.

We haven’t been playing “hoofball” for the past few games. If he wanted us to play that way, he wouldn’t have setup with one striker and a 5-man midfield.

I must have missed where Bruce outlined his plan on how he wanted us to play against SHA that you seem privy to? If it were one of the first times we were playing like this, then sure you can probably put it down to derby nerves, but this has been a recurring theme in our away games against what Bruce probably deems "decent" opposition. If you don't recall just check out the respective match/reaction threads of these games to refresh your memory. Full of aimless hoofball (to Scott Hogan in the earlier ones no less!), and unsurprisingly we got completely battered in all of them:

Cardiff 

Reading

Bristol City

Wolves

The only away games in which we didn't play like that this season were against 19th place and 22nd place Barnsley and Burton respectively...and surprise! We won both emphatically.

I'm not saying individual mistakes are down to Bruce, where have I implied that? I said that the hoofball tactics that he employed are. And I didn't even say that was necessarily a bad thing. My criticism is that he just went about employing these tactics in the completely wrong way. You're saying that surely he couldn't have been playing 4-2-3-1 and hoofball at the same time, so that must not have been his plan. I'm saying he really is that tactically inept. I have no doubt that his line of thinking was "this formation won me the previous game so I'll stick with it", a lien of thinking he exemplified with his Wolves lineup (playing 4-4-2 even though he specifically mentioned in his pre-match presser that Wolves 3 man midfield and passing style would be a problem). The man admitted himself, he doesn't do tactics.

But my main contention with what you're saying, and why I think it is so ridiculous is that even if we give Bruce the benefit of the doubt despite the overwhelming amount of prior evidence against him...how does any of that absolve him of responsibility? If the players aren't playing the way he wants them to, we're supposed to just shrug and give him a free pass for that? How does that make any sense?

[bobzy]

7 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I must have missed where Bruce outlined his plan on how he wanted us to play against SHA that you seem privy to? If it were one of the first times we were playing like this, then sure you can probably put it down to derby nerves, but this has been a recurring theme in our away games against what Bruce probably deems "decent" opposition. If you don't recall just check out the respective match/reaction threads of these games to refresh your memory. Full of aimless hoofball (to Scott Hogan in the earlier ones no less!), and unsurprisingly we got completely battered in all of them:

Cardiff 

Reading

Bristol City

Wolves

The only away games in which we didn't play like that this season were against 19th place and 22nd place Barnsley and Burton respectively...and surprise! We won both emphatically.

You don't setup with a 5 man midfield if you just want to lump it long.  You'd play 2 up top.

If I'm honest, I don't particularly remember Cardiff or Bristol City being games of "hoofball".  Cardiff was absolutely appalling, but I don't really recall playing this long ball stuff.  It was just an absolutely garbage performance.  (I also don't remember us being battered against Bristol City - are you thinking of a different game?).

In any case, with the exception of Wolves there, all of these games happened in August.  So as my original post said - "we haven't been playing "hoofball" for the past few games".

 

7 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I'm not saying individual mistakes are down to Bruce, where have I implied that? I said that the hoofball tactics that he employed are. And I didn't even say that was necessarily a bad thing. My criticism is that he just went about employing these tactics in the completely wrong way. You're saying that surely he couldn't have been playing 4-2-3-1 and hoofball at the same time, so that must not have been his plan. I'm saying he really is that tactically inept. I have no doubt that his line of thinking was "this formation won me the previous game so I'll stick with it", a lien of thinking he exemplified with his Wolves lineup (playing 4-4-2 even though he specifically mentioned in his pre-match presser that Wolves 3 man midfield and passing style would be a problem). The man admitted himself, he doesn't do tactics.

I think it was more 4-4-1-1 to be honest - he expected Onomah to be the link between the midfield (Whelan and Hourihane sitter deeper) and Kodjia, but it just didn't work at all.  Yes, I don't think "hoofball" fits into that setup.  It would be beyond bonkers to think you're going to have great success pumping long balls up to a lone striker who only has 1 central support player with him.  Against Fulham, from memory, the formation/personnel were basically the same but Hourihane played further forward - so he complimented Onomah (just on the other side of centre).  Dropping him deeper didn't work here - Blues' midfield out battled ours completely.

 

12 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

But my main contention with what you're saying, and why I think it is so ridiculous is that even if we give Bruce the benefit of the doubt despite the overwhelming amount of prior evidence against him...how does any of that absolve him of responsibility? If the players aren't playing the way he wants them to, we're supposed to just shrug and give him a free pass for that? How does that make any sense?

It doesn't absolve him of responsibility - I don't think I've said it does.  What I've said is that a derby game is a completely different game to any other.  I imagine that plans (other than "get stuck into them") often go out the window when the pressure gets to the players.  There were at least 3 key mistakes against Blues (Whelan dithering -> Kieftenbeld broke; Johnstone clearance at Vassell; Hourihane pass to Jota) which just haven't been apparent in our other games.  If anything has been against the norm (again, recently) it was this game.  Which, again, is to be expected - because derby games are odd.

I don't particularly understand your last part by the way.  I mean, if players are literally ignoring the manager then he either needs to be sacked because he's "lost the dressing room" or the players need to be severely disciplined - but neither of these things would have any impact on the game?  So... yes, if the players are deliberately ignoring instructions, I'd be **** furious with them, not the manager.

 

I'm not a Steve Bruce fan here, by the way.  I think our football is generally pretty poor for the resources/squad we've got and I look forward to watching a more entertaining team someday.  I just think leveling this criticism at him after a derby game is a bit ridiculous.  We could have had any manager in the dugout and, whilst they may have setup the team up more effectively, we'd have watched a similarly shit, scrappy game on the whole.

[USA_Villa]

So Brentford went to Preston the weekend and beat them 3-2. Therefore, I'm expecting nothing less than the same on Wednesday. 

I read the report on the game and then came across the tactical adjustments that Dean Smith made before the game. I'm hoping our illustrious manager is analyzing and adjusting in a similar fashion. 

Dean Smith admitted that Brentford had to adapt their style of play to come away with all three points from Preston.

The Bees are normally a side who prefer to play it out from the back but Alex Neil's side press so high up that they felt it would be better to take fewer risks in their defensive third.

The tactics paid off as Smith's side came away from Deepdale with a 3-2 win.

The head coach said: “I think Preston are a good team and we knew it would be difficult. We had to play a bit differently to how we would normally and we felt we had to play beyond the press which we did.

“We didn't take as many risks through Daniel Bentley as we would normally and picked up the second ball higher in their half.I thought they started the game better than we did. We grew into the game and then started finding spaces once we played past the press a few times.

“We got on the ball and moved and scored some well-worked goals.”

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Dave J said:

I’m not sure TRO meant misplaced passes - although I will stand corrected, moreover a style of play?

Dave, i have always admitted SB does go for a cautious approach.....but so did some of the past villa managers.

I have said many times.....players make mistakes and errors, you can't blame managers for that......if they do it continually, yes you can.

our bloke gets blamed if there is no head on the Lager.

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, bobzy said:

You don't setup with a 5 man midfield if you just want to lump it long.  You'd play 2 up top.

If I'm honest, I don't particularly remember Cardiff or Bristol City being games of "hoofball".  Cardiff was absolutely appalling, but I don't really recall playing this long ball stuff.  It was just an absolutely garbage performance.  (I also don't remember us being battered against Bristol City - are you thinking of a different game?).

In any case, with the exception of Wolves there, all of these games happened in August.  So as my original post said - "we haven't been playing "hoofball" for the past few games".

 

I think it was more 4-4-1-1 to be honest - he expected Onomah to be the link between the midfield (Whelan and Hourihane sitter deeper) and Kodjia, but it just didn't work at all.  Yes, I don't think "hoofball" fits into that setup.  It would be beyond bonkers to think you're going to have great success pumping long balls up to a lone striker who only has 1 central support player with him.  Against Fulham, from memory, the formation/personnel were basically the same but Hourihane played further forward - so he complimented Onomah (just on the other side of centre).  Dropping him deeper didn't work here - Blues' midfield out battled ours completely.

 

It doesn't absolve him of responsibility - I don't think I've said it does.  What I've said is that a derby game is a completely different game to any other.  I imagine that plans (other than "get stuck into them") often go out the window when the pressure gets to the players.  There were at least 3 key mistakes against Blues (Whelan dithering -> Kieftenbeld broke; Johnstone clearance at Vassell; Hourihane pass to Jota) which just haven't been apparent in our other games.  If anything has been against the norm (again, recently) it was this game.  Which, again, is to be expected - because derby games are odd.

I don't particularly understand your last part by the way.  I mean, if players are literally ignoring the manager then he either needs to be sacked because he's "lost the dressing room" or the players need to be severely disciplined - but neither of these things would have any impact on the game?  So... yes, if the players are deliberately ignoring instructions, I'd be **** furious with them, not the manager.

 

I'm not a Steve Bruce fan here, by the way.  I think our football is generally pretty poor for the resources/squad we've got and I look forward to watching a more entertaining team someday.  I just think leveling this criticism at him after a derby game is a bit ridiculous.  We could have had any manager in the dugout and, whilst they may have setup the team up more effectively, we'd have watched a similarly shit, scrappy game on the whole.

I would completely agree with you if this wasn't the 5th away game this season out of 7 that we played like this. The Cardiff and Reading games were horrible, we literally just pumped it up to 5'10 Scott Hogan all game.

Even if it was the first time it happened this season, I'd still expect us to go out and smash Blues tbh. See Sheffield United on how to play a heated derby against a good team (which SHA aren't). The players are certainly also to blame, but Bruce definitely shoulders some of the blame. You don't see Mourinho teams not playing exactly how he wants them to for example. Extreme example but my point is that even accounting for individual mistakes, the overall pattern of play should generally be how you intended it to be.

Like I said, you're right in that you don't play 4-3-2-1 and play hoofball. That's if you have even the most rudimentary grasp of football tactics which I contend Steve Bruce does not. I thought he was exaggerating when he said he didn't do tactics. He really doesn't and it's shocking to see in 2017.

[bobzy]

3 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

Even if it was the first time it happened this season, I'd still expect us to go out and smash Blues tbh. See Sheffield United on how to play a heated derby against a good team (which SHA aren't). The players are certainly also to blame, but Bruce definitely shoulders some of the blame. You don't see Mourinho teams not playing exactly how he wants them to for example. Extreme example but my point is that even accounting for individual mistakes, the overall pattern of play should generally be how you intended it to be.

Sheffield United have undoubtedly had a brilliant start to the season - but they're the underdogs in their derby games against Wednesday and Leeds.  Before this season, no-one would have expected a newly promoted side to beat 2 potential promotion contenders away from home in derby games.  Now, Sheff Utd have obviously started incredibly well whereas Blues haven't, but that is what derby games are all about.

r.e: Mourinho - do you not?  I can't imagine he asked his team to play they way they did losing at Huddersfield 2-1.  These things happen.

[Eastie]

Think Bruce has missed a trick by not giving o hare more game time - he’s scored twice tonight and the reserves are 4 up in the first half v Newcastle - surely Bruce should at least have o hare as an option  from the bench as he has that drive and creativity we’ve lacked at times - rather him than onomah 

Edited October 30, 2017 by Eastie

[TRO]

2 hours ago, Keyblade said:

I must have missed where Bruce outlined his plan on how he wanted us to play against SHA that you seem privy to? If it were one of the first times we were playing like this, then sure you can probably put it down to derby nerves, but this has been a recurring theme in our away games against what Bruce probably deems "decent" opposition. If you don't recall just check out the respective match/reaction threads of these games to refresh your memory. Full of aimless hoofball (to Scott Hogan in the earlier ones no less!), and unsurprisingly we got completely battered in all of them:

Cardiff 

Reading

Bristol City

Wolves

The only away games in which we didn't play like that this season were against 19th place and 22nd place Barnsley and Burton respectively...and surprise! We won both emphatically.

I'm not saying individual mistakes are down to Bruce, where have I implied that? I said that the hoofball tactics that he employed are. And I didn't even say that was necessarily a bad thing. My criticism is that he just went about employing these tactics in the completely wrong way. You're saying that surely he couldn't have been playing 4-2-3-1 and hoofball at the same time, so that must not have been his plan. I'm saying he really is that tactically inept. I have no doubt that his line of thinking was "this formation won me the previous game so I'll stick with it", a lien of thinking he exemplified with his Wolves lineup (playing 4-4-2 even though he specifically mentioned in his pre-match presser that Wolves 3 man midfield and passing style would be a problem). The man admitted himself, he doesn't do tactics.

But my main contention with what you're saying, and why I think it is so ridiculous is that even if we give Bruce the benefit of the doubt despite the overwhelming amount of prior evidence against him...how does any of that absolve him of responsibility? If the players aren't playing the way he wants them to, we're supposed to just shrug and give him a free pass for that? How does that make any sense?

Well it seems that the spot on tactics of Nuno espirito did not work at QPR like they did against us.....if parallels are to be believed.

little ole Ian Holloway out thought him, if that theory is to be believed.

Look, tactics is one aspect of football, there are many factors involved in a game of top class football....like players winning their battle.

There are no easy games either, as some like to cling to.....lowly teams can beat higher placed teams.....There are no preconceived ideas to be had.

The "we did alright against the weak teams" cobblers....Tell Fulham Bolton are bottom.

We are all reading to much in to this business of getting out of this league....and I myself are not always happy with the spectacle......but we have played Wolves, Blues, Cardiff, Reading,Bristol City away already and are still in the play off positions.

I am not asking for you to get carried away, i am asking for the manager to get a fair criticism on occasions i don't think he is.......whether you like him or not.

[TRO]

On 10/29/2017 at 17:08, Eastie said:

Should have made a change at half time and it should have been onamah off , blues are a poor side who were there for the taking If we had played anywhere near our best .

I don't think they are a poor side......they maybe struggling, but they are capable of beating decent sides, so we had to take them seriously.

[Eastie]

6 minutes ago, TRO said:

I don't think they are a poor side......they maybe struggling, but they are capable of beating decent sides, so we had to take them seriously.

It was clear it wasn’t working at half time and we are better in 442 against sides like blues - I understood the reasons for the change in formation against Fulham but feel he should have reverted back yesterday and played Davis from the start .

Ive been supportive of Bruce in recent weeks but cannot see why onomah stayed on ahead of hourihane yesterday .

Too much caution yesterday and set up more not to lose than to go and win