Bristol City v Aston Villa post-match thread

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Was not happy with the change to three central defenders, and it didn't work at all.

However in fairness to Bruce he did what he often doesn't and changed tactics to deal with it. We looked much better after that and had enough chances to have won it. Last season we would have lost that, it is promising to see us respond to going a goal down.

Not great but some positives. Just annoyed he started with such a daft formation change.

I too take some comfort from the above. It just goes to show, Bruce is not as stupid as he pretends to be. He got the point he was looking for.

[ChicagoLion]

was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

And this is where I don't understand the support for Bruce.
How do you explain that decision?

You can be critical of what he does from time to time whilst still backing him.

Sure, Even you must admit, that decisions seems bonkers.

What, you mean the five at the back in the first half?

Yes, genius or bonkers?

I didn't have a problem with him trying it but it didn't  seem to suit us at all.

Even though he threw away the momentum he had built after the Norwich result?
This for me shows a complete lack of judgement and this is showing up all the time.

[Matt Collins]

We've not kept a clean sheet all season

I can understand him wanting to make us more resilient for an away game. I think 352 was a mistake,  but I also don't think we can just play like we did v Norwich in all our away games

[LeeB]

There was a huge difference this year to conceding and last year. The more I think about it the more of an improvement it was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

That's my gripe with Friday night. The totally unnecessary tactical change meant us being on the back foot from the off, whereas with Norwich we flew out of the traps and had the whip hand from the off.

You need to fuck about with formations when your the fucking Blues or suchlike, packed with limited players. We're not. Play a simple framework they all understand, drill their particular defensive responsibilities and then let them do what they're paid to do.

Instruct them to go for the kill in the first half, once we get in front we can murder teams if they leave space behind. Kodja, Davis and Hogan will have field days.

Do that and not only do we go up, we entertain.

We have to go on the front foot and start asserting ourselves and that comes from the top.

[paul_e]

There was a huge difference this year to conceding and last year. The more I think about it the more of an improvement it was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

That's my gripe with Friday night. The totally unnecessary tactical change meant us being on the back foot from the off, whereas with Norwich we flew out of the traps and had the whip hand from the off.

You need to fuck about with formations when your the fucking Blues or suchlike, packed with limited players. We're not. Play a simple framework they all understand, drill their particular defensive responsibilities and then let them do what they're paid to do.

Instruct them to go for the kill in the first half, once we get in front we can murder teams if they leave space behind. Kodja, Davis and Hogan will have field days.

Do that and not only do we go up, we entertain.

We have to go on the front foot and start asserting ourselves and that comes from the top.

That's been my point all along.  We need to approach every game knowing that if we turn up and do all the basics properly our extra quality will be enough to win more often than not.  That's not thinking we have a divine right to anything or disrespectful to the league or any other silliness that gets thrown around, it's knowing that we've got a very good squad and making best use of it.  Bruce, like a lot of fans on here, seems so determined to not come across as arrogant that he's meek instead and we play within ourselves all too often.

[LeeB]

There was a huge difference this year to conceding and last year. The more I think about it the more of an improvement it was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

That's my gripe with Friday night. The totally unnecessary tactical change meant us being on the back foot from the off, whereas with Norwich we flew out of the traps and had the whip hand from the off.

You need to fuck about with formations when your the fucking Blues or suchlike, packed with limited players. We're not. Play a simple framework they all understand, drill their particular defensive responsibilities and then let them do what they're paid to do.

Instruct them to go for the kill in the first half, once we get in front we can murder teams if they leave space behind. Kodja, Davis and Hogan will have field days.

Do that and not only do we go up, we entertain.

We have to go on the front foot and start asserting ourselves and that comes from the top.

That's been my point all along.  We need to approach every game knowing that if we turn up and do all the basics properly our extra quality will be enough to win more often than not.  That's not thinking we have a divine right to anything or disrespectful to the league or any other silliness that gets thrown around, it's knowing that we've got a very good squad and making best use of it.  Bruce, like a lot of fans on here, seems so determined to not come across as arrogant that he's meek instead and we play within ourselves all too often.

Where we differ I think is that I believe the conservative approach was necessary last season, we were too damaged mentally throughout the club.

But that's not the case now, and that approach will only set us back. The Hull game I could accept, we looked good and bad at times but it's first game and it happens often, but the Cardiff game should never happen when you've got the deck he has to play with, and then to go to Reading and set up like that, and to claim we were unlucky, sets off big alarms.

After finding something that worked against Norwich and then Wigan, too go back to that against Bristol City, for fucks sake, was just baffling. The performance following the change was good generally, and fact he changed it was encouraging, but why do it in the first place?

[Dave]

We've not kept a clean sheet all season

I can understand him wanting to make us more resilient for an away game. I think 352 was a mistake,  but I also don't think we can just play like we did v Norwich in all our away games

3-5-2 would have been a mistake, but it would have been better than the 5-4-1 that we started with.

[paul_e]

There was a huge difference this year to conceding and last year. The more I think about it the more of an improvement it was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

That's my gripe with Friday night. The totally unnecessary tactical change meant us being on the back foot from the off, whereas with Norwich we flew out of the traps and had the whip hand from the off.

You need to fuck about with formations when your the fucking Blues or suchlike, packed with limited players. We're not. Play a simple framework they all understand, drill their particular defensive responsibilities and then let them do what they're paid to do.

Instruct them to go for the kill in the first half, once we get in front we can murder teams if they leave space behind. Kodja, Davis and Hogan will have field days.

Do that and not only do we go up, we entertain.

We have to go on the front foot and start asserting ourselves and that comes from the top.

That's been my point all along.  We need to approach every game knowing that if we turn up and do all the basics properly our extra quality will be enough to win more often than not.  That's not thinking we have a divine right to anything or disrespectful to the league or any other silliness that gets thrown around, it's knowing that we've got a very good squad and making best use of it.  Bruce, like a lot of fans on here, seems so determined to not come across as arrogant that he's meek instead and we play within ourselves all too often.

Where we differ I think is that I believe the conservative approach was necessary last season, we were too damaged mentally throughout the club.

But that's not the case now, and that approach will only set us back. The Hull game I could accept, we looked good and bad at times but it's first game and it happens often, but the Cardiff game should never happen when you've got the deck he has to play with, and then to go to Reading and set up like that, and to claim we were unlucky, sets off big alarms.

After finding something that worked against Norwich and then Wigan, too go back to that against Bristol City, for fucks sake, was just baffling. The performance following the change was good generally, and fact he changed it was encouraging, but why do it in the first place?

I think it was necessary for a time but we needed to have a spell of consolidating and then start to progress which didn't happen and in the end, in my opinion, the brilliance of Kodjia saved us from finishing in a relegation battle. This year we've started in the same way and a good performance against Norwich was very welcome but that can't be allowed to mask just how toothless we still are.  I'm not going to count in the cup game because the team was so changed and the atmosphere was so different that it doesn't really fit.

[tomd2103]

There was a huge difference this year to conceding and last year. The more I think about it the more of an improvement it was, just such a folly to have hamstrung ourselves for 40 minutes.

That's my gripe with Friday night. The totally unnecessary tactical change meant us being on the back foot from the off, whereas with Norwich we flew out of the traps and had the whip hand from the off.

You need to fuck about with formations when your the fucking Blues or suchlike, packed with limited players. We're not. Play a simple framework they all understand, drill their particular defensive responsibilities and then let them do what they're paid to do.

Instruct them to go for the kill in the first half, once we get in front we can murder teams if they leave space behind. Kodja, Davis and Hogan will have field days.

Do that and not only do we go up, we entertain.

We have to go on the front foot and start asserting ourselves and that comes from the top.

That's been my point all along.  We need to approach every game knowing that if we turn up and do all the basics properly our extra quality will be enough to win more often than not.  That's not thinking we have a divine right to anything or disrespectful to the league or any other silliness that gets thrown around, it's knowing that we've got a very good squad and making best use of it.  Bruce, like a lot of fans on here, seems so determined to not come across as arrogant that he's meek instead and we play within ourselves all too often.

Where we differ I think is that I believe the conservative approach was necessary last season, we were too damaged mentally throughout the club.

But that's not the case now, and that approach will only set us back. The Hull game I could accept, we looked good and bad at times but it's first game and it happens often, but the Cardiff game should never happen when you've got the deck he has to play with, and then to go to Reading and set up like that, and to claim we were unlucky, sets off big alarms.

After finding something that worked against Norwich and then Wigan, too go back to that against Bristol City, for fucks sake, was just baffling. The performance following the change was good generally, and fact he changed it was encouraging, but why do it in the first place?

Agree with all of that.  Seeing as we have Hogan and soon will have Kodjia back, I still think he wants to play two up front and is looking at ways to incorporate that.  The problem I see is that any formation with two up front doesn't really suit various other players in the squad.  I think the 4-1-4-1 formation we saw against Norwich and after the switch at Bristol City is the best fit for the players we currently have:

                                                       Johnstone / Steer

Bree / De Laet   / Hutton           Chester                      Terry / Samba                 Taylor

                                                         Whelan / Jedinak


Elmohamady / Adomah         Onomah / Lansbury        Hourihane / Bjarnason      Snodgrass / Green

                                                     
                                                   Davis / Hogan/ Kodjia


There is obviously the question of where the likes of Grealish and O'Hare will fit into that formation and if Hogan and Kodjia will be able to lead the line if Davis is not fit or loses form.