Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[adrenachrome]

Have we sacked him yet?

If he doesn't win at least two games by lunchtime then I think he's out

I am concerned that my concerns have not been addressed. Unless the former potato headed fellow addresses my concerns p.d.q I shall be writing some pretty stiff letters to whom it may concern and churning out notes with interest on the interwebs using my bot network.

[Jimbo]

There's some rather fanciful claptrap being chatted on this thread. It wasn't a great performance, but one of the worst in the last 4-5 years? Someone's been frolicking in funny land. Although we don't want to admit it, the truth is that this Small Heath side is pretty solid, well drilled and determined, which is why they are 7th in the table. This is their World Cup final. They were well up for it, and still couldn't beat us.

Bruce has been in the job a couple of weeks, and in that time we've won half as many games, with injuries and suspensions, as we did in the previous year. We haven't looked too great admittedly, but you have to stop the rot before you varnish the floorboards.

[TheMalandro]

We haven't got rid of the termites yet

[Clampy]

Anyway it doesn't really matter. I will continue moaning about his limited talents and you will defend him. And if he succeeds then kudos to you, and if he fails, well i'm sure someone will claim i wanted him to fail

You're entitled to your views, however laughable they are.

[paul_e]

There's some rather fanciful claptrap being chatted on this thread. It wasn't a great performance, but one of the worst in the last 4-5 years? Someone's been frolicking in funny land. Although we don't want to admit it, the truth is that this Small Heath side is pretty solid, well drilled and determined, which is why they are 7th in the table. This is their World Cup final. They were well up for it, and still couldn't beat us.

Bruce has been in the job a couple of weeks, and in that time we've won half as many games, with injuries and suspensions, as we did in the previous year. We haven't looked too great admittedly, but you have to stop the rot before you varnish the floorboards.

You disagree but the 'frolicking in funny land' is a pretty pathetic comment.

I think it was that bad because it's one of the few times where I honestly don't think we ever tried to the win the game.  Doing that against a champions league team that cost half a billion to assemble is frustrating but sort of understandable, doing it in a derby against a team that cost a fraction of ours and whose players would struggle to make our bench is shocking.  I understand why he took a safety first approach and in the first half it worked but doing nothing to address their dominance for most of the 2nd half was as bad as anything we did under Lambert/Sherwood/Garde/RDM.  Magomah should've scored from that Hutton mistake and Donaldson missed a sitter (that was far easier than the chance that Westwood has been given shit over).

For the bold bit can you make your mind up whether they're a good side who are just in better form than us or whether they're a shit team who were well up for it as the most important game of their season.  Personally I don't think either of those is true.  I think they're a poor team who have enough pace up front to hurt teams without being anything like good enough to get promotion and that, whilst it is for their fans, I don't think their management team will have let the players approach is as the biggest game of the season for them and we need to stop assuming that every team will be doing that.

The results in the last 2 games don't stop it being a really bad performance.

I can accept that I may be slightly over selling how poor we were but in 2 recent local matches we've not descended to their level (as often happens and is acceptable) but rather we've failed to step up to it and that worries the hell out of me.  In both games we've looked like the plucky underdog who is happy to be there and get away with a point.  I haven't seen enough of the reading or fulham games to know if this is a change because it was derbies or if this is just how he's got us playing.  If it's the latter I hope it's down to being pragmatic and getting points however is possible and if so then whilst I don't enjoy it I can accept it, which i've already said.

To clarify though because some people seem determined to misunderstand, results wise Bruce is doing well (as I expected him to) and I'm more than happy for him to have time to fix things.  However I think the quality of our attacking play is dreadful and needs to be worked on, defensive solidity is good and is an improvement on what we've seen but we need to offer something going forward or, like the wolves and blues games, teams will just lay siege to us and I don't think we're anything like mentally strong enough to withstand that.

[Jimbo]

You surely must have been inhabiting a separate reality to think that was one of the worst performances in the last 4-5 years, so if anything it was a kind euphemism to describe your deluded state. I'm not even going to begin listing those performances that were worse, because Bruce will probably have picked up another two wins before I get to the end.

[Chico Hamilton III]

The worst Villa performance in the last 4-5 years?? Absolute nonsense.

[paul_e]

You surely must have been inhabiting a separate reality to think that was one of the worst performances in the last 4-5 years, so if anything it was a kind euphemism to describe your deluded state. I'm not even going to begin listing those performances that were worse, because Bruce will probably have picked up another two wins before I get to the end.

I'm going to take your approach to debating from the Birmingham thread now and assume that you think that performance was perfect but I expect better from Villa because I like them more than you do.

[Jimbo]

Good lord, yet more unhinged garbage. Give it a rest, Paul, please.

[Clampy]

I think most can agree that yesterday's performance wasn't the greatest. I've seen a lot worse than that though.

[Clampy]

I'm a bit staggered that someone thinks that yesterday's performance was 'up there' with the likes of the 6-0 battering against Liverpool last season.

[AVH87]

I think Bruce got a couple of things wrong yesterday.

Once it was clear Bacuna wasn't available due to injury, his energy needed to be replaced by Tshibola. Starting Westwood instead was a mistake and we were never going to dominate and link the midfield to attack well enough with the trio he went with, for Westwood then to stay on for virtually the whole game with Tshibola not even coming on to address the lack of linkup between midfield and attack was poor.

Also playing RMC right wing was a really poor decision, he's far too slow to be stuck out there. If he's playing it has to be as a No. 9 or No. 10.

[Jimbo]

I'm a bit staggered that someone thinks that yesterday's performance was 'up there' with the likes of the 6-0 battering against Liverpool last season.

Exactly. That's just one of the many grand disasters of the last twelve months alone that springs to mind.

[Brend'Watkins]

My only concern about Bruce thus far is that he had Westwood's name  on the team sheet and Tshibola on the bench. He must really be woeful in training or Westwood is a brilliant hypnotist.

[AVH87]

I'm a bit staggered that someone thinks that yesterday's performance was 'up there' with the likes of the 6-0 battering against Liverpool last season.

Indeed, we are a Championship team now with Championship level players. Looking at our teamsheet I think people know deep down we aren't going to roll over many teams in this league.