Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

[Chris Smith]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

[markeeeebeeee2005]

What do people think of playing 442 for the rest of the season?

The Kodjia/ Hogan partnership seemed to have some hope with good interplay on Saturday.

The defence generally looks better with four in it, than 5 or 3.

My only concern is whether just two in the middle is enough. But both Hourihane and Lansbury seem to have the legs to do it. And Hourihane could be moved left, if we need to bring Jedinak in for a bit of midfield bite.

I think it could help players to play in a formation they understand with some clearly defined positions to build up a run of momentum.

The risk is when playing against a 451, that the midfield gets swamped.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

Counter attacking will only work if you take your chances and have a very solid defence. Inviting teams to constantly come at you, even poor teams like Forest, is only asking for trouble as we found out yesterday. What was needed was to press them higher up the pitch. I hate the way we back off teams, giving them so much respect not to mention space, we really did make it easy for them.

[Chris Smith]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

Counter attacking will only work if you take your chances and have a very solid defence. Inviting teams to constantly come at you, even poor teams like Forest, is only asking for trouble as we found out yesterday. What was needed was to press them higher up the pitch. I hate the way we back off teams, giving them so much respect not to mention space, we really did make it easy for them.

It was pressing high that caught us out at Brentford so it would have been suicidal to just blindly follow the same plan. 

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

Counter attacking will only work if you take your chances and have a very solid defence. Inviting teams to constantly come at you, even poor teams like Forest, is only asking for trouble as we found out yesterday. What was needed was to press them higher up the pitch. I hate the way we back off teams, giving them so much respect not to mention space, we really did make it easy for them.

It was pressing high that caught us out at Brentford so it would have been suicidal to just blindly follow the same plan. 

Inviting them on worked a treat didn't it? Five in midfield and we stand off them. With the players we now have we should be able to battle in the midfield. It's what I expected from a Bruce team.

[markeeeebeeee2005]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

Counter attacking will only work if you take your chances and have a very solid defence. Inviting teams to constantly come at you, even poor teams like Forest, is only asking for trouble as we found out yesterday. What was needed was to press them higher up the pitch. I hate the way we back off teams, giving them so much respect not to mention space, we really did make it easy for them.

It was pressing high that caught us out at Brentford so it would have been suicidal to just blindly follow the same plan.

From what I saw at Brentford there was no evidence of any sort of pressing, and especially not high pressing.

We lost because we invited pressure on to us, couldn't hold onto the ball and our players didn't track opposition movement.

There was no urgency in terms of trying to regain possession.

[adrenachrome]

Judging by SB's comments as reported in the Brum Mail, he is going to persist with the 3-5-2 formation.

Steve Bruce will persevere with Aston Villa's new system despite failing to find a winning formula against Nottingham Forest.

Bruce introduced a 3-5-2 formation for the trip to the City Ground, which ultimately ended in an agonising 2-1 defeat.

After a flurry of transfer window signings, Bruce is determined to hit upon a style of play which brings out the best in his talented squad.

And the manager intends to work on the new shape in training at Bodymoor Heath again this week after admitting there was not much time to perfect it between the Brentford and Forest defeats.

"We’ve only tried it for two days so we’ll work at it and it will get better," said Bruce. "There’s things we have got to improve on.

"Up until they scored our goalkeeper hasn’t really had a save to make and once again we’ve been punished.

"Sometimes it’s cruel. When you’re in a run like this, everything seems to be going against you.

"We were in on Wednesday to work on it, we will get better. It’s a system I’ve used before and one I quite enjoy.

"I think with what we’ve got up front now it will work."

"We have to stay strong with it and dust ourselves down.

"There were big improvements today. I thought we looked a real threat on the counter.

"We’ve tried to devise a new system within two or three days so the longer we work on it we’ll get better. There were better signs today."

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I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of the ball to create enough chances to have buried them.

Did you watch the game, as looking at your few replies I'm unconvinced.

[Chris Smith]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of it to make the chances that should have won us the game. We have seen in the past that just keeping hold of the ball in itself is meaningless. It was pretty irrelevant to the result yesterday; it wasn't lack of possession that caused the keeper to fumble or chances to be missed.

Counter attacking will only work if you take your chances and have a very solid defence. Inviting teams to constantly come at you, even poor teams like Forest, is only asking for trouble as we found out yesterday. What was needed was to press them higher up the pitch. I hate the way we back off teams, giving them so much respect not to mention space, we really did make it easy for them.

It was pressing high that caught us out at Brentford so it would have been suicidal to just blindly follow the same plan. 

Inviting them on worked a treat didn't it? Five in midfield and we stand off them. With the players we now have we should be able to battle in the midfield. It's what I expected from a Bruce team.

It only didn't work because we failed to take our chances, not because of the system of itself.

The other night there was always a gap for Brentford to play in as we were too spaced out. We stayed compact and reduced that yesterday and consequently we created more and conceded fewer chances. Perhaps when the players get to know each other's game in midfield it will evolve but at the moment I thing the pragmatic approach is the way to go, particularly away from home.

[Ads]

Brentford murdered us in the space that Lansbury would vacate as he was out of his natural position. They had a player capable of using the ball well and on occasions could have driven a bus through us. Our back four was routinely exposed. Chris is spot on.

[SoccerHQ]

My concern now is that it will take a Tim Sherwood style mentality change to kick start our season. But I don't think Bruce is capable of being that way in terms of just letting the team play. We won't go down so we almost need to accept that we are building for a run at this next season.

Let's just have a pre season where we have a settled team (no more bringing in 6-7 players), a settled formation and let's get a good start to next season and take it from there. None of this 1 win in our opening 11 games nonsense that pretty much killed our season straight away.

Let's be at the top right from the off next season and we can build from there although I get the feeling the football still wouldn't be anything to write home about but I wouldn't have an issue.

[markeeeebeeee2005]

Brentford murdered us in the space that Lansbury would vacate as he was out of his natural position. They had a player capable of using the ball well and on occasions could have driven a bus through us. Our back four was routinely exposed. Chris is spot on.

Pressing only works and is only really pressing if a whole team does it as a tactic. If it's just one player pressing, then they are just running around like a madman and it isn't really pressing.

You are right though the gaps Lansbury left were well and truly exploited.

[sirlordbaltimore]

SB still has my backing 100%

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I thought we played alright too

There was nothing wrong with the system.

For the system to really work it helps to have the ball.

We had enough of the ball to create enough chances to have buried them.

Did you watch the game, as looking at your few replies I'm unconvinced.

I did. I can only assume you were wearing your beer goggles, either that or you're very easily pleased. There were real positives to take from the game; the fluid move for the goal, Hogan's run that deserved a goal and the great move leading up to Kodja's miss before Grealish got sent off. What those three examples show is that we can play football but we rarely looked like trying to repeat them preferring to sit back and defend in numbers. Why? I have no idea.