Re: Aston Villa vs Sheffield Wednesday match thread

[FoxyAV]

We still have Elphick.

I'll get my coat.

[Wriggle]

Not signing another defender was foolish, yet another in a long line of poor decisions in the transfer market by us. Whatever happens in the meantime, in the summer the club needs a big shape up.

Letting Baker go and keeping Samba was foolish...

[Wriggle]

Another inept performance until it was too late. We seem to be in a cycle of play well in 1, average in a couple and awful in the next.

The playing well, and the results around us are keeping bruce

Whelan really is terrible and offers next to nothing to the team.

For me Grealish, O'Hare, Hourihan and Davies need to be playing together as they can all pass and move, I'd play them with Sdomah and Snodgrass outside them.

[deadbuzzardalive]

I'm feeling negative after today, but I think those saying that our season is over because of Terry's injury are going slightly overboard. Jedinak, Samba, Bree and Elphick can all do adequate enough jobs at the back.

[FoxyAV]

Not signing another defender was foolish, yet another in a long line of poor decisions in the transfer market by us. Whatever happens in the meantime, in the summer the club needs a big shape up.

Letting Baker go and keeping Samba was foolish...

I actually like Samba but it says a lot about Bruce when he plays him up front because he's tall enough to get on the end of more hoofballs than anyone else. We should be better than this. Again it stinks of Lambert and our defeat in whichever cup it was in the semis to Bradford, where we ended up with something like five strikers on the pitch and just one midfielder to watch the ball flying over his head whenever our goalie or defence hit it long.

As defensive cover I think Samba will be more than adequate. Sure, he was nutmegged today but he'd been on a few seconds and cancelled it out with a goal of his own.

[Guest]

Another inept performance until it was too late. We seem to be in a cycle of play well in 1, average in a couple and awful in the next.

The playing well, and the results around us are keeping bruce

Whelan really is terrible and offers next to nothing to the team.

For me Grealish, O'Hare, Hourihan and Davies need to be playing together as they can all pass and move, I'd play them with Sdomah and Snodgrass outside them.

Agree with large parts of this. Whelan is as you say a waste of space. Which is why it amused me when people called him MoTM last match, when in my eyes he was just a little bit less shit than usual. The first half of that match he was more on his arse than Heskey. His legs are well and truly gone and you simply can't play Whelan in a 2 man midfield. It doesn't work. No idea why we signed him. Another Steve Bruce magic trick. Added to his box of genius signings with Hogan and Elmo.

[DelboyVilla]

Another inept performance until it was too late. We seem to be in a cycle of play well in 1, average in a couple and awful in the next.

The playing well, and the results around us are keeping bruce

Whelan really is terrible and offers next to nothing to the team.

For me Grealish, O'Hare, Hourihan and Davies need to be playing together as they can all pass and move, I'd play them with Sdomah and Snodgrass outside them.

We are consistently inconsistent throughout Bruce's reign and we never seem to have the confidence or composure to cope with the 'better' teams in this poor quality league? We have the most expensively assembled and experienced side in the league and it has taken our current retard of a manager 12 months for us to scrape into the play off places? We seem to have a side not quite sure what to do from game to game and therefore when something goes against us we are at a loss as to what to do? Now normally you would look to the manager but I think we all know that there is little point in doing that as potato head is just sitting there thinking up his latest excuse for the post match press conference? I really do hope that Xia is a truly rich man as he seems to have managed to piss many 10s of millions up the wall and brought only failure due to poor managerial appointments!! This football ownership is a quick way for a rich man to become poor?

[deadbuzzardalive]

With Terry's injury, I think we need Kodjia back and scoring more than ever. They play in completely different positions of course, but we'll probably concede more from now on, so need Kodjia's goals to compensate for that.

[De Kuip]

With Terry injured I've changed my mind about crap international breaks. Can we have about another ten between now and January please.

[achilles]

As an additional problem with Terry's injury he will obviously lose fitness as a result, so it could take him even longer to get up to speed again.

Having said that we have to cope other teams do and we keep on saying that we have a big enough squad!

[Wookster]

Hogan reminds me of a kitten chasing a laser dot. He runs around most of the game chasing shadows, but earlier in the season when he did score it was when playing off the clever runs and through balls that O'Hare. Maybe while Kodjia's out and Jack & O'Hare playing we may see a more intelligent way to play as they need ball on the ground

[Guest]

Hogan reminds me of a kitten chasing a laser dot.  He runs around most of the game chasing shadows, but earlier in the season when he did score it was when playing off the clever runs and through balls that O'Hare.  Maybe while Kodjia's out and Jack & O'Hare playing we may see a more intelligent way to play as they need ball on the ground

Lol best analogy ever.

Hogan has been horse shit for us, but he would probably score goals if we had a coach that understood the concept of pass and move. This hoofball bullshit really doesn't do him any favours.

[AstonThriller]

Yesterday was one of those performances/results that just didn't make sense. But we've seen that particular movie against the likes of Barnsley and Ipswich at home, haven't we? Obviously, we can't win them all. But I must say that I was slightly baffled at his decision to totally change around the team when they put in such a strong performance at Preston. And this is where Bruce constantly falls down tactically. He failed to change it at Wolves, then changes it from out of nowhere against Wednesday.

Now we've got two weeks to digest this sh/t result whilst many of our players will be away on international duty. So the coaches probably won't see them until a few days before we go to QPR. Just a crap day all round and I guess we just have to put it behind us and hope the lads can get back on track in two weeks time.

[deadbuzzardalive]

To add to the disaster, Middlesbrough are now beating Sunderland, which means we drop down to sixth place.

[AstonThriller]

To add to the disaster, Middlesbrough are now beating Sunderland, which means we drop down to sixth place.

6th or 5th, does it really make a difference? The objective is still the top two. If that doesn't happen then it doesn't matter what spot we're in, just as long as it's sixth or above.

[Wookster]

Can De lat play CB?

[achilles]

I think Bree has played centre half in a EFL cup game?

[Villa_Dan]

Samba didn't do too badly after the fuck up for the 2nd goal.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt - he's not played much recently, and was sat on the bench in the cold not expecting to come on or given any time to warm up. Did he drop a bollock? Yes. But he was much improved once he'd gotten into the game.

Bree and Jedinak can play centre half as back up.
I'm a little gutted about JT as he's been great the last few weeks but it isn't the end of the world.

[Wriggle]

With JT out i'd line up like this

Johnstone
Hutton Chester Samba Taylor

Jedinak

Snodgrass Hourihan Grealish O'Hare

Davies

Get some ball players on the pitch and give us all what we want to see...

[De Kuip]

Well if we have choices thus:
1. Out of position player, but would likely do a credible job without pace = Jedi.
2. Slightly out of position player who could do a decent job, has pace but has played very little = Bree
3. Out of position player but has bags of pace and has played loads = Lyden.

I know who I'd choose. Pretty sure it wouldn't be the one Bruce chooses.

[deadbuzzardalive]

I'm of the opinion that both Samba and Elphick are more than good enough. I could be completely ignorant here, but do the likes of Cardiff, Bristol City and Sheffield United really have much better defenders than those two? You don't have to be amazing as central defender in this league to be affective.

[achilles]

Really don't rate Elphick at all, although he must be better than what he has shown so far!

[FoxyAV]

Samba is going to be great. We're discussing who'll cover defence if something goes wrong, and Elphick is still a good central defender if he's given enough of a run. Probably. Hopefully. Two months until the transfer window opens...

[deadbuzzardalive]

Lyden will never be used as centre-back in the first team, Samba, Elphick, De Laet, Bree, Hutton, Jedinak, and then specialist centre backs from the youth like Suliman and Clark, are all ahead of him in the queue.

I suspect this will be his last season with us; as a soon to be 22 year old, he'll be wanting to go somewhere where he can get regular first team football.

[De Kuip]

I suspect this will be his last season with us; as a soon to be 22 year old, he'll be wanting to go somewhere where he can get regular first team football.

And that's sad as he's been turning in some storming performances on a regular basis.

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