you can't and fortunately, the last two sides we've played, possessed zero threat up front - had they had a Kodjia results might well have been different.
Bruce deserves credit, undoubtedly, for the current run, but I do feel that he’s somewhat stumbled across a successful line-up and formation. Had Bjarnasson not got injured I would wager that Bruce would still be persevering with him at the expense of Amavi or Adomah. He was also hell-bent on shoe-horning Hogan into the line-up when, the reality is our best football has been played with Kodjia as a lone-striker and 2 wide-men either side of him. Similarly had it not been for Grealish’s red-card / injury he would have been ahead of Green in the pecking-order, which has now been reversed. I think Bruce is now showing that he’s effective as a motivator and at galvanising teams and making them hard to beat. I still don’t think there’s much there tactically though, and he’s heavily reliant on his attacking players individual ability to win us games. Still, it’s working at the moment and long may it continue!
Are we really playing much differently to Newcastle?
Quote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:16:22 AMAre we really playing much differently to Newcastle?Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.
Quote from: mr underhill on April 05, 2017, 09:10:54 AMyou can't and fortunately, the last two sides we've played, possessed zero threat up front - had they had a Kodjia results might well have been different.Had we had different players too the games might have panned out differently too. We have what we have, they have what they have and at the end of it all we keep clean sheets and win games. It'll do for me. It's the start of our return and it sure beats getting the piss taken out of us every week, we aren't no Barcelona but we aren't a joke anymore either. Good stuff Villa.
Quote from: aj2k77 on April 05, 2017, 10:17:56 AMQuote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:16:22 AMAre we really playing much differently to Newcastle?Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.Not recently.Newcastle 2-2 Bristol City (same as us).Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (first goal from Diame was a total and utter fluke, the sort of luck that has deserted us at times this season).Huddersfield 1-3 Newcastle (good win tbf)Reading 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 1-3 FulhamSHA 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 2-1 Wigan.They just had a good start to the season. 7 wins out of the first 9 wasn't it so miles clear of us. They really haven't impressed me that much when I've seen them on TV given what they have spent on their squad.Now given their position in the table they're in lockdown mode.We just need to have a good start to next season. At any level it's not a good idea to be giving rivals 10 point head starts as RDM expertly did between August-October.
Quote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:29:16 AMQuote from: aj2k77 on April 05, 2017, 10:17:56 AMQuote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:16:22 AMAre we really playing much differently to Newcastle?Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.Not recently.Newcastle 2-2 Bristol City (same as us).Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (first goal from Diame was a total and utter fluke, the sort of luck that has deserted us at times this season).Huddersfield 1-3 Newcastle (good win tbf)Reading 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 1-3 FulhamSHA 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 2-1 Wigan.They just had a good start to the season. 7 wins out of the first 9 wasn't it so miles clear of us. They really haven't impressed me that much when I've seen them on TV given what they have spent on their squad.Now given their position in the table they're in lockdown mode.We just need to have a good start to next season. At any level it's not a good idea to be giving rivals 10 point head starts as RDM expertly did between August-October. They've got 27 more points than us, have scored 31 more goals and conceded 6 fewer goals. They have quite clearly been better than us in every department all season. Hopefully that will be us next year.
Quote from: Meanwood Villa on April 06, 2017, 10:26:14 PMQuote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:29:16 AMQuote from: aj2k77 on April 05, 2017, 10:17:56 AMQuote from: SoccerHQ on April 05, 2017, 10:16:22 AMAre we really playing much differently to Newcastle?Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.Not recently.Newcastle 2-2 Bristol City (same as us).Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (first goal from Diame was a total and utter fluke, the sort of luck that has deserted us at times this season).Huddersfield 1-3 Newcastle (good win tbf)Reading 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 1-3 FulhamSHA 0-0 NewcastleNewcastle 2-1 Wigan.They just had a good start to the season. 7 wins out of the first 9 wasn't it so miles clear of us. They really haven't impressed me that much when I've seen them on TV given what they have spent on their squad.Now given their position in the table they're in lockdown mode.We just need to have a good start to next season. At any level it's not a good idea to be giving rivals 10 point head starts as RDM expertly did between August-October. They've got 27 more points than us, have scored 31 more goals and conceded 6 fewer goals. They have quite clearly been better than us in every department all season. Hopefully that will be us next year.I meant more from the turn of the year. Obviously at the start they lost their first two league games and then won something like 16 of their next 18 games while we were struggling to even win one game.Point I'm trying to make is for all the stick SB gets for our style of play I can't honestly say Newcastle excite me more when I watch them as a neutral on the Sky games. They are another team to me that just grinds their way to wins most of the time.