Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[villan from luton]

I actually think Bruce's comments are spot on. I hope he can turn it around. However, my fears from the summer are being realised. I said then that if you flood fill a squad with Championship players then you end up with a run of the mill Championship team. Unfortunately, it was the wrong the strategy and we now have some journeymen that were meant to be Championship stalwarts. Have seen nothing from Elphick to convince me he's anything but a bit of a donkey.

I thought Elphick was average today, better than most of the others

[sickbeggar]

Rather than a lack of fitness, i'd suggest its because we have NO MIDFIELD. As a defender you will get knackered if you spend 90 minutes putting up with the opposition charging straight through the invisible men in front of you. Likewise the forwards get a bit tired having to run hopefully back to the centre circle which is the limit of the midfield's forward advances. Our forwards run around a lot for no discernable reason - of course they're knackered

That's part of it. That's the point we are all making. Nobody including Bruce has suggested it is all fitness but it is a huge part of our overall issues and a key reason as to why we make so many mental errors especially late in games.

its a large part of it. It was a large part of it last season. you stick two teams in with the same fitness and 1 team keeps the ball and passes it through midfield while the other team chases it, then one team is gonna get knackered well before 90 minutes

[OzVilla]

Maybe we should be paying whatever it takes for whoever the fitness coach is at the Bitters then.

[ClarrieBlue]

I actually think Bruce's comments are spot on. I hope he can turn it around. However, my fears from the summer are being realised. I said then that if you flood fill a squad with Championship players then you end up with a run of the mill Championship team. Unfortunately, it was the wrong the strategy and we now have some journeymen that were meant to be Championship stalwarts. Have seen nothing from Elphick to convince me he's anything but a bit of a donkey.

I thought Elphick was average today, better than most of the others

I remember when SGT bought Steve Sims for the same reasons we bought Elphick. Sims was quite limited as a Centre Back but he was SGT's Sergeant on the field. A true leader. Tommy don't seem to have it.

[nick harper]

Rather than a lack of fitness, i'd suggest its because we have NO MIDFIELD. As a defender you will get knackered if you spend 90 minutes putting up with the opposition charging straight through the invisible men in front of you. Likewise the forwards get a bit tired having to run hopefully back to the centre circle which is the limit of the midfield's forward advances. Our forwards run around a lot for no discernable reason - of course they're knackered

That's part of it. That's the point we are all making. Nobody including Bruce has suggested it is all fitness but it is a huge part of our overall issues and a key reason as to why we make so many mental errors especially late in games.

its a large part of it. It was a large part of it last season. you stick two teams in with the same fitness and 1 team keeps the ball and passes it through midfield while the other team chases it, then one team is gonna get knackered well before 90 minutes

You close players down quickly, they make mistakes at this level. You stand off and they are good enough to run past you. Wolves closed us down well all over the pitch and we kept giving it away. It's simple stuff.

Having said that the midlfield is really poor. Not only were they not protecting the back four, they were not supporting the front two. The gap between the midfield and forwards was a chasm throughout the second half.

He must go with a narrow three in midfield until he gets to January so we get more control of games. It will be at the expense of one of our forwards, but we need to grind out some wins from somewhere.

[olaftab]

The fitness issue is a bit of myth and as other said almost every manager says it. Bradley said the same thing in his post match interview. I am not sure what fitness had to do with Kodjia wandering aimlessly on the right hand side at times and McCormack being so utterly useless. Adomoha not being able to cross or take a decent corners and players constantly passing to opposition?

[olaftab]

However switching the dug-out ....a master stroke. That will give us extra ten points over the coming months.

[OCD]

The fitness issue is a bit of myth and as other said almost every manager says it. Bradley said the same thing in his post match interview. I am not sure what fitness had to do with Kodjia wandering aimlessly on the right hand side at times and McCormack being so utterly useless. Adomoha not being able to cross or take a decent corners and players constantly passing to opposition?

They didn't look fit to me, before Bruce even said anything.

[Steve67]

An old pro like Bruce has taken just 48 hours to work us out. Not fit enough, not organised enough, some go missing in action. He will sort it but I see lots of frustration until he can do a bit of dabbling in the market.

[sickbeggar]

The fitness issue is a bit of myth and as other said almost every manager says it. Bradley said the same thing in his post match interview. I am not sure what fitness had to do with Kodjia wandering aimlessly on the right hand side at times and McCormack being so utterly useless. Adomoha not being able to cross or take a decent corners and players constantly passing to opposition?

yep. are we supposed to believe Bruce that all these players left their clubs fit to join villa and in the case of McCormack, RDM managed to make him unfit in 3 days? Presumably Kodja and Adomoho were force-fed burgers by RDM as well

[villabear]

I thought when watching the second half against Huddersfield we looked knackered and thinking how can this be as it's only our third league game.

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[KevinGage]

The fitness issue is a bit of myth and as other said almost every manager says it. Bradley said the same thing in his post match interview. I am not sure what fitness had to do with Kodjia wandering aimlessly on the right hand side at times and McCormack being so utterly useless. Adomoha not being able to cross or take a decent corners and players constantly passing to opposition?

They didn't look fit to me, before Bruce even said anything.

Ditto.  It was being said here on the post match thread and elsewhere.

It's right that new managers often do use it as a cop out. Or -being generous- they ask their side to play in a slightly different way than they are used to and they don't have the legs for it.

Today we were set up not dissimilar to how we have been throughout the season. It doesn't look like we were asked to press high, giving it full gegenpress or whatever.  Yet we still looked spent by about 60 minutes.

[ozzjim]

We have said a number of times they look unfit this season. Bruce saying it like it is.

[AvFc4eVeR]

It's all falling into place now;

Lack of fitness
Clueless play
Not looking like they have ever played together
Poor set pieces

They really have done fuck all in training all season.

Over to you Steve, sort em out!