Pre-Season Friendlies

[olaftab]

Noticed Johnstone is wearing 1, is that his squad number?

[paul_e]

That was really boring. We never seem to have any creativity in the middle, we just shove it out wide to Green or Amavi and say beat 3 players on your own. We could do with a creative player playing behind the strikers.

Samba played well again.

I agree with the bit about Green adn Amavi and would say it's also worrying how none of our players go to support them either.  3-4 times Amavi had it on the left agianst 2-3 Walsall players and there wasn't a Villa player within 20 yards of him.  it means he either loses the ball or sneaks half a yard of space and has to try to pick out the one player we have in the box.  Bree got a bit closer to Green but there was still a huge gap inside them.

[Risso]

Usual Bruce 'inspired' dross. Should have tinned him last season.

[The Edge]

Usual Bruce 'inspired' dross. Should have tinned him last season.

Did you mean binned or canned?

[olaftab]

Binned as far as I am concerned.

[LukeJames]

It looked like we were 'attempting' to use Lansbury in some deep Pirlo creative mode to spray balls around, naturally it didn't work. The only time we looked like scoring was from a couple of Hourihane corners in the first half, we created fuck all in open play but thats nothing new. Bjarnasson still looks lost. No optimism for the new season at all.

[AV5nobs]

People need to seriously chill out, it was turgid enough but to suggest bringing on a DM player to check fitness and match practice instead of trying to win a truly awful warm up game is scraping the barrel.

Relax. In Brucey we trust.

[The Edge]

Binned as far as I am concerned.

Joking aside I was all for giving Bruce a good crack at it this season but I'm starting to think it's beyond him. Team shape, team tactics, style of play, team selections. All things we were very poor at last season and I know it's only friendlies but I'm not seeing any improvement in any of these areas. If he's disguising some great masterplan to spring on our rivals once the season starts he'll go down as  a genius.

[Villafirst]

Where is RHM and Grealish? Only watched 25 minutes of that dross - watching paint dry is more entertaining! This stupid tactic of isolating the one attacking forward who is surrounded by 5 defenders!

[Risso]

Usual Bruce 'inspired' dross. Should have tinned him last season.

Did you mean binned or canned?

Tinned.  From 'tin tack' meaning sack.

[Matt Collins]

Binned as far as I am concerned.

Joking aside I was all for giving Bruce a good crack at it this season but I'm starting to think it's beyond him. Team shape, team tactics, style of play, team selections. All things we were very poor at last season and I know it's only friendlies but I'm not seeing any improvement in any of these areas. If he's disguising some great masterplan to spring on our rivals once the season starts he'll go down as  a genius.

I thought the shape was good first half - the problem was gabby and Thor. But second half we looked clueless

[aj2k77]

Fucking Blues. What this side needs is another slow right back, that will really do the trick.

[SoccerHQ]

Where is RHM and Grealish? Only watched 25 minutes of that dross - watching paint dry is more entertaining! This stupid tactic of isolating the one attacking forward who is surrounded by 5 defenders!

Yeah is Hepburn-Murphy injured or going to be loaned out shortly.

All this hype with him signing the new deal yet he's barely played for us. He made his debut in March 2015 so he really should be loaned out if he's not going to figure.

[paul_e]

Usual Bruce 'inspired' dross. Should have tinned him last season.

Did you mean binned or canned?

I assume he's taken it for tin-tacked.

On topic I agree with Risso, I just can't see it working.  I get he's got promotions with other teams but it's been with backs to the wall underdog football where he's let teams get drawn forward and then caught them on the break or snuck one from a set piece.  That won't work with Villa because teams don't let us play the underdog, we're a massive scalp who flashed the cash last season and hoovered up some of the best players in the league.  I remember seeing a few times on here comments about us being everyone's cup final and whilst I don't agree entirely I do think we need to approach games knowing that teams want to give us a black eye.  For me Bruce just isn't the sort of manager you want managing a team like that.

[kippaxvilla2]

Attendance: 7,022 (3,310 Aston Villa supporters).

They don't fcukin deserve it.