Bristol City v Aston Villa post-match thread

[PeterWithesShin]

Terry...hmmm

Brucie revealed that he has done great meet and greet in the dressing room with young players. He even goes the extra mile in his own car! Turning up at games he is not involved in. Great value.

Hopefully he'll start turning up for the games he is playing.

/baddumtish

[manic-road]

The three centre halves thing is odd.

Odd in the sense that I don't think we tried it once during pre season, despite Bruce previously expressing an interest to go that way.

And now he is trialing it in games where we actually need to win. He is a spoofer. Our hopes of going up seem to rely on enough leadership or chemistry coming from the senior players themselves.  Because there will be little>no guidance from Bruce at all.

Bruce played three at the back in all of the pre season games.

[chrisw1]

Am I alone in thinking that was much, much better away from home?  This is a game that epitomised last season we lost it in ignominious fashion with very little fight.  This season okay we haven't won but we were a lot more composed and played much better football.  I honestly don't think we are that far away from really clicking this season.

You're not alone.
Jury is still out for me but on the back of two wins that was ok for me given our prior away record (and their home record)

It was Bristol City we were playing, not ( insert premier or champions league) team.
Fk off Steve(I have all the right media excuses) Bruce.

If you can't, or don't want to, see any progression then fair enough.  For me not losing was important.  It helps keep momentum and is good for confidence.  I'm hopeful we will go on a run and maybe in a few weeks time we'll look back and consider this as a good result in terms of confidence and just stopping the away losing streak.

[old man villa fan]

Man for man we had far better players than Bristol but Andrews got it right at half time when he said that Villa are all individuals looking to make something happen (or words to that effect).  On the other side you had lesser players playing to a system of movement and working the ball through the middle and up the pitch.  We would walk this league if we had a tactical coach in place of Bruce who is just trying to join the dots.

Some of his comments show him up e.g.:
1.  We brought players in at Xmas that statistically were at the top in the Championship.  So no thought as how they fitted the team
2.  Players showed no desire last season to put hard effort in and just rolled over at times.  So he brought Gabby back - great example to the other players!

I could go one but I am fed up with not getting the best out of what we have got.  It's a criminal waste.  I am getting fed up with his comments about it being down to everybody else.  I have said it before that my impression of him before at other clubs is that he always feels sorry for himself when things don't go for him.  If we get promoted it will be because of the players, not the manager.

[nick harper]

The formation was wrong but he made the change so that's fair enough. Sometimes you can just hit on a formation that clicks so I can understand why he's tinkering around looking for something to break the pattern away from home.

It's easy to say just play the same way as the last two games. It rarely works that way and the we clearly have a psychological barrier to overcome.

We recovered from being behind and we got something from the game so something to build on.

4 of the next 6 games at home. September will make or break the season.

[four fornicholl]

Some crazy comments. A point is fine. Bruce will get us up this season. He's done it 4 times before. A platform to build on, some great talent to come in.

You're taking the piss, Shirley

[Rudy65]

The three centre halves thing is odd.

Odd in the sense that I don't think we tried it once during pre season, despite Bruce previously expressing an interest to go that way.

And now he is trialing it in games where we actually need to win. He is a spoofer. Our hopes of going up seem to rely on enough leadership or chemistry coming from the senior players themselves.  Because there will be little>no guidance from Bruce at all.

Bruce played three at the back in all of the pre season games.

Not sure he has the personnel to pay three at the back. Those three dont fill me with any confidence

[London Villan]

de leat for samba might work as a three.

[charleeco7]

I thought Samba looked excellent before went off but the system didn't work

[chrisw1]

The formation was wrong but he made the change so that's fair enough. Sometimes you can just hit on a formation that clicks so I can understand why he's tinkering around looking for something to break the pattern away from home.

It's easy to say just play the same way as the last two games. It rarely works that way and the we clearly have a psychological barrier to overcome.

We recovered from being behind and we got something from the game so something to build on.

4 of the next 6 games at home. September will make or break the season.

Excellent post - completely agree

[AlexAlexCropley]

Three at the back is a dead duck.A mantra for defensive minded dinosaur managers.
It says let's not go on the front foot.Let's be scaredy cats at Ashton Gate ffs.

[TonyD]

I think the last time we flowed forward as a team was the Wembley semi. 

[Marlon From Bearwood]

Well Chris was saying how good they are at home, so I was pointing out they aren't.

And maybe we'll stop being a shit division 2 side if fans, manager and players stop thinking a draw away to crap sides like Bristol City is a good result. It's not a good point, it never has been and never will be.

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

[chrisw1]

Three at the back is a dead duck.A mantra for defensive minded dinosaur managers.
It says let's not go on the front foot.Let's be scaredy cats at Ashton Gate ffs.

Are you serious?  Have you not seen Chelsea or numerous other top teams playing this recently?

It may not have been right for us tonight, but to say it is for dinosaurs when some of the most progressive managers in the world play it is a bit odd.

[KevinGage]

The three centre halves thing is odd.

Odd in the sense that I don't think we tried it once during pre season, despite Bruce previously expressing an interest to go that way.

And now he is trialing it in games where we actually need to win. He is a spoofer. Our hopes of going up seem to rely on enough leadership or chemistry coming from the senior players themselves.  Because there will be little>no guidance from Bruce at all.

Bruce played three at the back in all of the pre season games.

Of those that I seen (Telford, Shrewsbury the German games and Watford) I don't recall three at the back being used.  Starting formations indicate we didn't either. But with 23+ substitutes allowed per pre season friendly, admittedly it's hard to keep track. 

When did we go to 3 at the back v Shrewsbury?  Fairly certain we ended up with defensive lynchpins Richards and Hutton as our two centre halves, replacing Terry and Chester.