Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: andyh on January 08, 2017, 12:18:44 PM
-
At the start of the season a lot of fans were in agreement that it was always going to be a big challenge to get back up in one season.
I think the most pragmatic thought that we could make a solid start and then make a push in the second half of the season.
It's been said that to make a push then we really need to be in 'touching distance' of the play off positions.
So, at the turn of the year and with the reverse fixtures kicking in we are 7 points off the playoffs.
Is this close enough?
Are we happy with our position (especially considering where we came from) ?
Or is there concern that we are already too far off the pace?
-
Considering the outlay and resources thrown at the team, I'd say we've been appalling. I can't can't believe the lack of structure and planning at the club. I hope this changes with the appointment of 'proper football men's, but I can't help feeling that no matter who we've appointed over the last decade, it never seems to make a difference. Hopefully the Doc has seen this and will get it sorted.
-
FGS sort the midfield and it will happen!! it cant be more obvious.....
-
Ask me after the window has closed.
-
FGS sort the midfield and it will happen!! it cant be more obvious.....
Agreed. It's staggering that we still have the likes of Westwood playing for us when he's been the main weak link in the team for years and we still haven't sorted it even though we were finally relegated! It's absolute incompetence really.
-
FGS sort the midfield and it will happen!! it cant be more obvious.....
When the midfield is sorted by the end of January, I expect us to progress and make the playoffs
-
Actually getting us to win games this season, and drastically improving our home form has been a colossal turn around. Sure, performances haven't been great but don't forget how deep the rot had gotten into the club.
I really think that we were that bad last season, this has been good progress. We should be aiming for the play-offs, but I still expect next season to be our promotion season.
-
FGS sort the midfield and it will happen!! it cant be more obvious.....
When the midfield is sorted by the end of January, I expect us to progress and make the playoffs
I agree. If we get the right purchases in January then I think we are close enough to be able to make the play offs. It will take a good run though and I have a sneaking suspicion that Bruce might bide his time in January with the view to getting it right over the summer and having a real go at it next season.
We shall see.
-
We have made progress but not enough, 18 odd points off top spot is shit whichever way you look at it, especially when you consider how rubbish the league is
yes we are winning games but when you look at the likes of rotherham, wigan, burton, blackburn you should be winning
sb is doing a decent job in some areas and you have to give him a transfer window
biggest worry is we seem to lack a definitive way of playing, constant changes of players and a really shit balance
-
I don't think we're where we should be given the players, but, unfortunately, we're about where I expected we would be. I've come to the conclusion that the rebuilding is going to take longer than one season, and that going up only to come back down, or just managing to avoid relegation would be counter-productive.
-
I too concluded some time ago that Bruce will get us back up some day but it won't be via the scenic route. It is going to be thud and blunder, bump and grind for every point. I am satisfied that he will do it. Pleasure from it would be a hope too far.
-
We have made progress but not enough, 18 odd points off top spot is shit whichever way you look at it, especially when you consider how rubbish the league is
This league is not 'rubbish' and being far from the top of the table is not 'shit' considering how far we have fallen. We do not have a god-given right to come straight back up - we are doing quite well considering we were the laughing stock of English Football for a solid year.
-
I really don't think we have made any progress. We have thrown millions at it and as we stand we are a mid table championship team. One day very soon the money is going to dry up and we have to tighten our belts in the championship then we really are doomed . A plan regards player recruitment is a must and something that we stick to as previous years we have used the tombola approach to recruiting players.
-
If Bruce has started the season, I think we'd already be a play off spot. I still think we'll be in there come May. I'd like us to get promotion this season, but I'm not going to be too gutted if we don't go up as we are playing some major catch up after the RDM debacle.
League is rubbish? No, don't agree with that. It's not pretty, but it's an extremely tough league to compete in. With the inevitable squad turnaround thats going to happen in January and the summer, I think we'll be OK long term.
-
Catching up after shooting ourselves in the foot with the appointment of RDM and £50m of misdirected sending.
-
For me this season was always going to be a season of consolidation and that is how it's panning out. Obviously I'd be happy if we can mount a late surge into the play offs but I can't see that happening. I'm of the opinion that next season will be our year for promotion and I'm quite happy with that. I am convinced the structure of the club is slowly evolving into a proffesional top flight club again and I'm willing to be patient for promotion.Like many others I'm just enjoying going to the football again.
-
Our record of signings over the past few years hasn't be great apart from the odd exception.RDM''s policy was baffling to say the least and in my opinion has seen millions wasted. Start of this season what did we need most.A keeper, a right back ,A MIDFIELD and a striker. Granted I didn't expect all those positions to be addressed in one go but how many of those positions have we adequately replaced given the money we spent.
-
No, we've stopped the rapid downward momentum but with the amount of money spent we should have seen more of a push towards automatic promotion. Instead we spunked more money without any idea on how the players were going to work as a team and that's limited our progress.
D, must do better.
-
Not plummeting like a rocketing comet straight into League 1 after the last 5 years of self obliteration is progress frankly. RDM was the wrong appointment. Bruce is a good appointment. He'll get us there. If we have to stabilise and get ourselves a solid footing to launch from this season, before having a proper push next season, so be it. The Home form is a big plus.
Again though the biggest thing we can do is sort the midfield out. It's no exaggeration to say that we need another 3 in. We've got an absolutely appalling midfield. There's no quality or balance. We've known this for half a decade and we've not sorted it. If Bruce does it, we'll make quicker progress.
-
We have made progress but not enough, 18 odd points off top spot is shit whichever way you look at it, especially when you consider how rubbish the league is
This league is not 'rubbish' and being far from the top of the table is not 'shit' considering how far we have fallen. We do not have a god-given right to come straight back up - we are doing quite well considering we were the laughing stock of English Football for a solid year.
The quality of teams is pants
Fuck me if mid table having spent a record amount for the league is okay id hate to see us doing badley
-
We're about where I expected us to be, mid-table, with a distant hope of going up via the playoffs. Things might have been better, without RDM and the crap summer spending, but we were always going to be up against it. Maybe we'll get promoted next year if things work out well in the transfer market, and we are able to shift some of our shit. Long, long way to go.
-
Loads of time left in the season. RDM worked out worse than perhaps anybody envisaged and it wasted an opportunity that Bruce would have took.
Since Bruce has come in we look more like it. I think we will breach the 7 point gap and hit the play offs.
A case of what might have been though if Bruce had been here from the start of the season.
-
Not enough for me.
-
What we have done is wasted a fortune. The money Villa has spent over the last twelve months should have assured us of the playoffs at least, if Bruce had been given the job from the start that may have happened.
-
If Bruce had been here from the start we'd be at least 10 points better off. We wouldn't have dropped points against Wednesday, Huddersfield, Forest, Brentford, Barnsley, as we'd have comfortably shut up shop.
-
Please do not underestimate the monumental fuck up that was RDM. That cock hole managed to further scupper our recovery with some terrible transfer business, not to mention clueless tactical management. The upshot is Bruce having to repair the squad whilst trying to average 2 points a game in what is a bloody difficult league. I for one am not expecting us to get into the play offs...if Bruce managed to get us there given the mess he inherited it would be amazing.
-
In comparison with?
I would have thought that with the money spent we should be having a good go at automatic promotion but reluctantly accepting play offs.
Agree with the comments aboutbRDM that is2 managers in a row that we have allowed to make random transfers.
Bruce is papering over the cracks by getting us organised and more difficult to beat.
-
I dont know guys, Bruce has certainly got us better results but they have started to tail off too,
inevitable in my eyes as I dont think performances have improved all that much from the RDM days....
Bruce talks a good game in the media but Ive yet to see evidence of a solid tactical structure consistently applied to the team, selection and subs all seem haphazard to me
disaster of a season thus far, we must be the worst performing club in Europe given our budget compared to the other teams in the division
still wouldnt write us off for a playoff run though but we need more than Kodjia to start looking a threat up top asap
-
In just over a month thousands of us have travelled to Leeds, Norwich, QPR, Cardiff & Spurs and been rewarded with one goal, three points from 12, a cup exit and very little in terms of entertainment.
The first five away games also involved trips north, south, east and west to Sheffield, Luton, Ipswich, Bristol and Derby and resulted in a cup exit, two goals and two points.
So there's been progress by one point, but watching us play away from home is becoming as boring as it would be to expand these stats down into attempts at goal per 100 miles travelled.
-
No specially away from home.
Yes RDM dropped some unnecessary points but so has Bruce v Norwich, Leeds home and away, Cardiff.
-
You have to go some to spend gross £100m in 18 months and find yourself 12th in the championship.
-
Bruce has the players he inherited to work with, the way he dropped Westwood and Gardner at half time is recognition on his part that some of our squad are crap, lets see who he gets in this month although it is very difficult to get quality in January. If we had someone in the reserves that deserved a chance on merit they would have been given a chance by now which is damning on the way that part of the club has deteriorated.
-
Bruce has the players he inherited to work with, the way he dropped Westwood and Gardner at half time is recognition on his part that some of our squad are crap, lets see who he gets in this month although it is very difficult to get quality in January. If we had someone in the reserves that deserved a chance on merit they would have been given a chance by now which is damning on the way that part of the club has deteriorated.
I'm getting a bit tired of reading that bold bit on here and other places. He's been here 3 months and this was, I think, the first game in that entire time where he hasn't picked 1 of them. One of our better players against Tottenham was a guy that he dumped in the stiffs for 3 months to accommodate those 2 in the team. So we clearly did have someone in the reserves that deserved a chance on merit.
In answer to the original question I'd say not yet. We're more organised defensively and we're not falling apart in the last 5 minutes but we're also creating far fewer chances. He needs to address that last problem, right now it's caused by the half a pitch sized gap between our midfield and lone striker but he also needs to work out how he wants us to play in attack and start working on it in training because I see no evidence of training when we have the ball, it appears to have been focused entirely on defensive shape and set pieces and I just don't think that will be enough.
-
Nah, but it's a process.
-
Di Matteo was rubbish tactically for sure, but don't agree about his signings being a waste. Kodj, Albert and Chester are all good ones, and Tish and Jedi aren't bad ones. McCormack, however, annoys me. Worse than Gabby.
-
Sometimes it isn't the player it's more the system and game plan, same with Gestede he scored plenty the season before but somehow the way Villa were set up it didn't suit.
Bruce has to be given the chance to bring players in that fits the system he wants to play then we will see if he has got it right.
The one thing that I am convinced about is that Bruce above all previous managers would bust a gut to turn this club around, he knows that he could have a great future at the biggest club he has managed.
-
No we have too many crap players and not good system and poor entertainment. But it is better than last season dross. From the two games I saw this season Spurs on TV and Leeds home it is bad enough.
-
There is progress under Bruce.
He has got the central defensive partnership right for a start. If he buys well in the January window he will hopefully build us a decent central midfield platform, one that will on occasion get ahead of the attackers, but that's about mentality and confidence in your teammates as much as ability.
As has been said earlier and elsewhere he didn't inherit a "quick fix" team, instead a team that has been in decline since before MON left, each succeeding manager adding to the layers of rubbish we have to rid ourselves of. It's a helluva job. But its baby steps right now.
I don't expect us to go up this season, and if we did, having seen us play a Spurs second eleven we would need wholesale changes in all positions to even survive a season in the EPL.
-
Bruce needs to get the midfield and and creativity sorted very quickly. He also needs to recognise that he might need to find a way of playing 2 up front if we want to score goals with the players we have. Can't see better than about 9th at the moment. Selling Gestede and keeping Gabby in the side makes even less sense. About an D- so far.
-
He probably would have preferred to sell Gabby but as you well know there are no buyers.
-
In the summer I thought we'd be lucky to make the play offs, and that it'd take us 2/3 seasons to get promoted
After the spend, I thought play offs should be the minimum requirement
Once we changed managers I reevaluated that to thinking we may, at a push just about make the play offs
Now all I want to see are clear signs we'll be better equipped to make a challenge for automatic promotion next season. This month will tell us a lot
-
If we make 2-3 astute signing I really can't see why it looks like such a stretch for our expensively assembled squad to bridge a 6-7 point gap over half a season. I appreciate it's a tricky league and it's never easy, but surely we still have a good fighting chance of making the playoffs?
-
We haven't made anything like £55m worth of progress. RDM wasted a lot of that to produce a massively unbalanced squad that had no midfield and couldn't defend, but at least played some exciting attacking football. Bruce has shored up the defence, but struggled with the limited midfield options, not helped by his bizarre insistence on persevering with Driftwood and Garbagener and ignoring Tshibola and Bacuna. The creativity has suffered massively as has the quality of the football. We're still a basket case with far too many mediocre to abysmal players who should never have been signed and aren't fit to wear the shirt. The fact that some of those are recent signings indicates our scouting system and / or coaching is still shite. I'm not sure how we managed that after spending so much, but hey this is Villa.
-
We haven't made anything like £55m worth of progress. RDM wasted a lot of that to produce a massively unbalanced squad that had no midfield and couldn't defend, but at least played some exciting attacking football. Bruce has shored up the defence, but struggled with the limited midfield options, not helped by his bizarre insistence on persevering with Driftwood and Garbagener and ignoring Tshibola and Bacuna. The creativity has suffered massively as has the quality of the football. We're still a basket case with far too many mediocre to abysmal players who should never have been signed and aren't fit to wear the shirt. The fact that some of those are recent signings indicates our scouting system and / or coaching is still shite. I'm not sure how we managed that after spending so much, but hey this is Villa.
Newcastle and Brighton have Clark and Sidwell as two of their better players so it's not all about individual quality particularly in the second division. Gayle and Murray both flopped for Palace in the top division but both are destroying our one. That Leeds team is brimful of average players. They all seem well drilled teams though, ours still doesn't. Sure some better players should improve things but better tactics, coaching and player selection are the real issue I reckon.
-
We haven't made anything like £55m worth of progress. RDM wasted a lot of that to produce a massively unbalanced squad that had no midfield and couldn't defend, but at least played some exciting attacking football. Bruce has shored up the defence, but struggled with the limited midfield options, not helped by his bizarre insistence on persevering with Driftwood and Garbagener and ignoring Tshibola and Bacuna. The creativity has suffered massively as has the quality of the football. We're still a basket case with far too many mediocre to abysmal players who should never have been signed and aren't fit to wear the shirt. The fact that some of those are recent signings indicates our scouting system and / or coaching is still shite. I'm not sure how we managed that after spending so much, but hey this is Villa.
Newcastle and Brighton have Clark and Sidwell as two of their better players so it's not all about individual quality particularly in the second division. Gayle and Murray both flopped for Palace in the top division but both are destroying our one. That Leeds team is brimful of average players. They all seem well drilled teams though, ours still doesn't. Sure some better players should improve things but better tactics, coaching and player selection are the real issue I reckon.
Agree with the second paragraph totally
I thought leeds were very average and like the other teams in the top 6 worked hard, had a shape and everyone knew their role and stuck to it
Bruce has been given a difficult hand and is working towards rectifying it, it will be nice to see the same 11 week in week out barring injuries and a decent shape
-
Last week SB said the club had a history of signing players for the sake of it. Sounds like he is not overly impressed with what he has inherited. Given that both he and RDM have failed to turn this lot into an effective team probably tells us all we need to know.
-
The last two summers have involved an August trolley dash. Never a good strategy
It's why the assumption that we can get promoted with this squad and then just buy a new team for the premier league is so wrong headed.
-
A few posts I agree with completely here, the idea that the best teams in the league are the ones that looked well trained is painfully obvious, it's why I've been so frustrated with the performances in the last month, Bruce has had the time to give the team an identity and he's not even close yet.
Then Matt is spot on as well, that's why I think we need to have half an eye on where we want to be rather than just going short term and throwing everything at promotion with no thought of whether that's the rigth approach to fully recover.
-
A few posts I agree with completely here, the idea that the best teams in the league are the ones that looked well trained is painfully obvious, it's why I've been so frustrated with the performances in the last month, Bruce has had the time to give the team an identity and he's not even close yet.
Then Matt is spot on as well, that's why I think we need to have half an eye on where we want to be rather than just going short term and throwing everything at promotion with no thought of whether that's the rigth approach to fully recover.
To be fair Paul, our midfield is that weak it would be very hard for any manager to develop a style of play. Play direct football, Westwood and Gardner are not physical enough. Try to play a passing game, Jedinak and Gardner constantly give it away.
I agree entirely with your second paragraph. I was speaking to a fellow Villa fan (who goes home and away) at work the other day and we both said that we would take another season at this level if if meant getting it right. I would still love us to go up this season and winning at Wembley in the play offs would be just the lift the club needs, but it would be a massive rebuilding job in the summer if that were to happen.
-
It would be, but Tony has given all the indications that he is up for it. So the sooner the better for me.
-
A few posts I agree with completely here, the idea that the best teams in the league are the ones that looked well trained is painfully obvious, it's why I've been so frustrated with the performances in the last month, Bruce has had the time to give the team an identity and he's not even close yet.
Then Matt is spot on as well, that's why I think we need to have half an eye on where we want to be rather than just going short term and throwing everything at promotion with no thought of whether that's the rigth approach to fully recover.
To be fair Paul, our midfield is that weak it would be very hard for any manager to develop a style of play. Play direct football, Westwood and Gardner are not physical enough. Try to play a passing game, Jedinak and Gardner constantly give it away.
I agree entirely with your second paragraph. I was speaking to a fellow Villa fan (who goes home and away) at work the other day and we both said that we would take another season at this level if if meant getting it right. I would still love us to go up this season and winning at Wembley in the play offs would be just the lift the club needs, but it would be a massive rebuilding job in the summer if that were to happen.
I honestly think thats just a nice easy excuse. Westwood and Gardner have been terrible this season, that's undeniable but I've seen Westwood look decent at premier league level and we've all seen reports of Gardner looking comfortable in the forest midfield and managing to get a few goals as well. Get a proper structure in place and I don't think those 2 would look so completely out of their depth. From there even if they're not good enough and things are breaking down because of them you've at least got the rest of the squad understanding what you're trying to do and you can try to hit the ground running. As is I honestly think that even if we get the midfielders we need we're looking at another month for the team to start to gel and that will make it much tougher. My concern is that Bruce has had the club in a bit of a holding pattern to get to Jan and now he doesn't seem to be in all that much of a rush to fill the gaps.
-
At the start of the season a lot of fans were in agreement that it was always going to be a big challenge to get back up in one season.
I think the most pragmatic thought that we could make a solid start and then make a push in the second half of the season.
It's been said that to make a push then we really need to be in 'touching distance' of the play off positions.
So, at the turn of the year and with the reverse fixtures kicking in we are 7 points off the playoffs.
Is this close enough?
Are we happy with our position (especially considering where we came from) ?
Or is there concern that we are already too far off the pace?
The basic answer is no right now answering the question in relation to points away from play offs .
I would have also liked to see some classy performances as well as goals and attacking impetus.
I feel the shackles are still on and Bruce is still searching.
He wanted to get basics right and that meant a bit more solidarity team but going forward has been a disappointment.
I hold out hope that the next 2 home matche s at least bring some points if not goals.
I think a real test is if we can go away to Brentford on 31st and win. I say this as by then lile go think had some more points on board and the end of window can be a yardstick to how far off pace from top 6 places the villa are.