Bruce's Away Side

Villa Ranger wrote:I just don't get this apparent confusion over why we bought Whelan. It couldn't be simpler.

He's rotation cover for Jedinak.

Why?

Because Jedinak was so vital to us last season that we failed to win a single game when he didn't play and couldn't keep clean sheets either. Our dismal run in Jan / Feb coincided with a lengthy injury spell for Jedi.

Bruce has looked at this and decided to get a similar holding midfielder with PL experience so that we aren't so reliant on Jedinak, who is inevitably going to suffer lay-offs through injury.

And as @AstonThriller points out, they're both the wrong side of 30, and can't be expected to play 46 Championship games, plus sustain any kind of cup run, without cover.

It's not genius on Bruce's part but it is plain common sense, and he'd be rightly vilified for not trying to solve such an obvious deficiency from last season.

The reason we play Jedi or Whelan is Bruce sets up his sides defensively and believes the best form of attack is to defend stoically while letting the opposition tire themselves out, hoping they overcommit going forward so with luck a long ball might be converted into a goal by our lone striker who is hopefully somewhere over the halfway line. This is the same strategy employed by Lambert when we were in the PL and he didn't have the budget to try to work out how a midfield operates as an integral part of an attack. Bruce might not have the budget to buy the rest of the Hull squad but he does have some excellent players, including midfielders like Hourihane (who he forgot to play until he'd run out of other options) and Adomah (who he's bought in players to replace), who had shed loads of assists (and even goals) in the Championship before moving to us to be benched. This is how you win the Championship, by somehow not losing matches by playing defensively and hoping the ball goes in the opposition's net and not yours. Playing attractive, attacking football and closing down the opposition is not relevant, nor is having a fit squad after six matches. This is why we need defensive players with no legs, like Whelan, Jedi and Terry. And for me, this is why we're not outscoring our opposition. It doesn't really matter if we concede goals as long as we're scoring more ourselves and Bruce appears to be spending his time and money addressing defensive frailties. That old adage of attack being the best form of defence? Well, it seems to work for teams we'd have thought we should beat, but all they have to do is use their superior energy to keep us under constant pressure, fight every ball and deny us possession. But for the mighty Villa? Defend! Defend! Defend!

Broken record but we looked miles better last season when we played Brighton with Hourihane and Lansbury in the middle and no sodding defensive midfielder.