Fan reactions… yet another loss. Aston Villa away to Newcastle United:
I know we need stability and I like Bruce as a person but we need a serious shake up. I think the time had ended for old school managers like Bruce and we should cut our losses and plan for next season. Look at Hull, look at Huddersfield, we need a young passionate foreign tactician to take us into the future of football. Give him the rest of the season to play around and work out how stays and goes etc. Bruce is making at the wrong calls and the lineups are getting worse. Kodjia out wide left crossing the ball into where he should be is ridiculous. We’ve spent 80mil and we have no width, no full backs, no decent cb pairing, no keeper and just no style or identity. We are in a serious hole and it seems to be getting worse and worse. Sorry to say Bruce has to go. I’m not upset, I’m just angry now, what is happening to our once great club.
AdzVilla11
is there parachute payments in league 1 ????
Ali Arab
We can’t even give them time, because now we don’t have any.
AV Dave
To be fair, I thought that was generally better. No luck to get the first goal . Bad luck to concede the second. Rotten luck with Hogan. We fought though and some hopeful signs to go along with, from me, lots of deserved criticism of Bruce of late.
stennyvilla
Do not agree with some reports that we played well in the first half. We did not. Yes we were worse second half but throughout the game we were totally incapable of putting three passes together. That is when we tried to pass rather than just hoofing hopeful balls up front. SB if you want to play 2 up front ok. If you want to play 1 up front ok but to play 1 and then accommodate the second striker on the wing ( Kodjia ) is stupid. Hogan needs balls into space to get around the defense – not one tonight. Why drop Baker, sorry I just do not understand that even if he has made a few mistakes – look at the result. My main concern though is that we did not show any real sense of collective urgency. Hutton has his limits but, apart from Hogan, he put in more effort than anyone. It is going to take 2 bottles of red wine to remain optimistic at this rate.
DJFRANCE2
Come off it. All this calling for Bruce’s head is ridiculous. We’re in a hole right now. Confidence is low. Changing management personnel again is not the answer. We were more than holding our own in this match until the first goal. This is a confidence issue.
AVFC4ME
How Thor starts in front of Adomah is bewildering. Look better with Jedi in there. Kodja wasted out wide. Well he won’t be now after Hogan’s injury! 2 new centre Half’s, defensive midfielder and a keeper needed in the summer. I truly believe there is a team there given time. Need to play 2 upfront with wide support. Just can’t rely on the defence. Not happy at all with how it’s going but I think we should give Bruce till the end of the season. Let’s see if this team can gel and perform. I don’t think we will go down. Not great by anyway tonight but better than the last few games. A team is built on its defence and for me that’s why we can’t attack as it’s so poor. Give me Earl Barrett, Shaun Teale, God and Steve Staunton in this team and we wouldn’t be where we are. What’s troubling though is the manager and his assistant are defenders and we are dire in that department. That in my opinion is why we can’t attack we are wasting a midfielder to help them out. Big game against Derby at the weekend. Lose that and the knives will be out………..Rightly so too
DSK78
AVFC4ME the game goes for 90mins not 40mins. Do you think holding our own is good enough? We are Aston Villa and we should be going at teams. We had heaps of ball yes but as usual did absolutely nothing with it and created no chances what so ever. If you think Kodjia (the only one who can score at the minute) out wide is a good call then I’m blown away. Also playing the 3 new boys in the middle does not work we need width and we have Adomah, Bacuna and Amavi sitting on the bench. Sorry but Bruce has it ALL wrong.
AdzVilla11
For our last 3 seasons in the Premier league we fought to avoid relegation now nothing has changed in the championship except now we are not fighting to avoid relegation it’s inevitable Division 1 will not be any easier.
HonestDave
ADZ no I do not think holding our own is good enough. I just cannot see how changing the manager AGAIN is in anyway going to help. Yet again we have a team completely drained of confidence. It is up to Bruce to instill that confidence but he must be given the time to do so. Changing managers again has the adverse effect. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy with the result, I’m not happy with the tactics, I’m not happy with the passion, I’m not happy with the effort (although as noted I thought we started pretty brightly), but I refuse to believe that turning over managers as quickly as we are is in any way productive.
AVFC4ME
It’s about developing partnerships and understanding across the team. The one Bruce had got right and the key reason in my book for his earlier quite lucky run of results was Baker and Chester. The reason they have not looked as good of late is the players behind, around, and in front of them. He persists with Johnston, and I hope and pray it works out – he did do better tonight. But agree with others, Baker and Adomah deserve their place. Yes, some slightly better aspects tonight, but with Hogan out, Green and Adomah wide, and Baker back with Chester in middle will give me more hope of both stronger defence and creativity.
stennyvilla
AVFC4ME I know you’re right but it’s beyond frustrating
AdzVilla11
Once again we setup with our tail between our legs trying not to lose. Again we lose. There was no pressure on us to get a result so why doesn’t he take the shackles off, play two up top and say go get us some goals and have some fun. But no he plays our only goal scorer on the wing and we wimper out to another boring boring loss.
Big Dubs Header
My issue with Bruce is that he’s just signed players that have done well in the Championship, rather than to suit a style of play or game plan. Square pegs, round holes springs to mind. It’s actually a very arrogant approach that you can just sign the best players and win games without any form of strategy. What we need is for him to make a decision about how he wants to line up and play, stick to his guns and go for it. Because not making a decision is far worse than making the wrong one.
Richard Price
Bruces boofheads. he needs to find the balance of boofhead and flair because at the moment there is too much of one, and it ain’t flair. Bruce is struggling with finding the combo.
leftfoot
Played with a bit more bite in midfield but no guile or vision. Bit school boyish in fact, bang it up front and chase it. Easy to criticise I know but this is not good enough. Another change of personal is not the answer.
Paul Cogin1
Ok, now I’ve calmed down a bit. Very disappointed like everybody. But let’s be a little realistic. This was probably a game that we didn’t think we could win, but it appears we very much competed and edged the first half, both their goals were ridiculous, but the bad luck continues. I don’t like hoof ball tactics, but in your own box lets do just that and get rid. No promotion this season, but we would be well underprepared if we had done. This team like all teams needs 18 months to find top form. No, we won’t get relegated, although we are in a bit of a battle, but that in itself will show us those that are up,for it and those who should not be here. It’s better to show bottle now than just plod on in mid table and wait for next season. I don’t like the expression, too good to go down, but squad wise, this will not happen. Finally more leadership needed on the pitch. I reckon in the squad there are at least 8 players who have been captains at various levels, including internationally. Please now stand up. VTID
Colin Cognac
The great thing about being a Villa supporter is that we do things differently to any other club-we have goalkeepers like Enckelman and his error-Stephen Warnock tries to head an own goal and the following week he succeeds, Lansbury cannot kick a simple ball off the line–every game it feels that someone volunteers to make a complete hash of it. So the solution is —I don’t know– do we get rid of Bruce and get Rowett in while he is unemployed or do we stick ,with the possibility of relegation to the ‘third tier’ We cannot defend,we cannot pass -Chester was guilty of the most misplaced pass I have seen for a long time last night -there is no link between our alleged midfield and forwards and I agree there is no leadership on the pitch and no direction from the manager—it all seems S.B guesswork to me -must win against Derby
Tammy Villan
I’m not going to get too upset as the majority of us were expecting to get turned over last night. Even when we were decent a few years back St James’ was one of those grounds we never had much joy at. For the first 40 minutes last night we looked comfortable and they hadn’t managed 1 shot on goal, but then comes the inevitable balls up when trying to clear a set piece, just like the 3rd against Barnsley, we had 2 or 3 chances to clear their first goal but our players seem scared of conceding a penalty and stand off. I like Lansbury as a player but another shocker for the 2nd too, look how slow it rolled over the line! Bruce has historically set his teams up to be solid defensively and difficult to beat, using pace to score on the counter attack – this worked when he first came in but unfortunately with calamitous defending like the 2 goals we gave away last night, that game plan isn’t going to work. Further up the pitch we are standing off teams far too much instead of closing them down, not sure if this is down to fitness, tactics or they cant be bothered. Defensively our problems certainly seem more of a confidence issue than anything else, but going forward we need to be getting more bodies in the box as well. Whenever one of our players has the ball out wide he only ever has 1 or 2 Villa shirts to aim at in the middle. We need to gamble a little more and get an extra midfielder or 2 making late runs in there. At the moment we are relying on Kodjia or Hogan coming up with a piece of magic to create something. 2 home games up next that we really need a minimum of 4 points from. Fingers crossed for Hogans scans, hopefully Kodjia will be back for Saturday as well
garygaryshaw
For all those who are reflecting on this and saying ah not so bad we were never going to beat Newcastle anyway….why the heck should we not expect a result at Newcastle?? We have a squad that is player for player right up there with Newcastle we have every right to expect them to go up there and grab a result even if that’s a draw. Just because Bruce wants to set us up with our striker on the wing and 5 in midfield does not mean we should be apathetic to getting another sub acceptable performance and result. DEMAND HIGH STANDARDS of our villa or don’t come back complaining later when we watch it go down the chute. Rise up villains!!!! Were not going to take this!!! GET MAD
Big Dubs Header
It’s hard to get mad Big Dubs . I’ve lived the last 5 seasons in an apathetic stupor & only livened up as this season started. Surely things must improve ,new owner, new manager ,new division ,new players, but no we were still rubbish, so back in the stupor I went ,then along came Bruce Almighty & a miracle happened ,we started winning & playing well & I awoke & started hoping again ,no not for promotion ,far too soon but for a few wins & decent football. But alas a false dawn & I’m back in my stupor. Mad ? I just can’t be arsed
AstonBilla
big dub you need to wake up from 1982. this is 2016 and brentwho whipped us 3 nil. to expect to lose against Newcastle is reality….. their is no point in getting rid of bruce. but when his contract runs out in summer 2017 no way in a million years is this man deserve an extension. hopefully we will survive relegation and in the summer we get a manager with a brain. we have gone from brain and dim (RDM) to an idiot who can shout.
Ali Arab
This is just a nightmare. Never in a million years did I expect this, I thought at worst we’d be moaning about being just outside of the play off positions.
The Fear
The anger in the forum thread (and strong language at times), won’t be for everyone.. but if you dare: Click Here
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