Let me say straight off, I’ve never seen first games as really meaning much.
They’re sort of in-between, as not really a friendly, but not really a proper game, where you can judge much at all.
You only have to look at some of the opening day results to see that.
But if I’m going to judge, I have to say that I thought Hull were awful and we weren’t much better.
Was I alone in thinking Jack was playing generally way to deep, to keep him out of any real trouble? Maybe.
I thought Steer had a pretty good game and I wouldn’t blame him for their goal. He did all you could ask in getting the ball away, only for our defenders to be half asleep.
But the MOTM for me was easily Hutton.
He’s the only one that I saw actually drive at the opposition and when you consider that’s not really his job, you have to wonder what’s going on?
Isn’t that exactly what Hourihane was bought to do?
Don’t get me wrong, he does get up there occasionally, but it’s nowhere near often enough.
And although I keep hearing he does the dirty work, I don’t see he does that enough either.
He’s far too anonymous for my liking, as much as the stats might say otherwise. Ok, he got a decent return, last season, but how good could that be if he was given his head?
Elmo produced the goods, but I wasn’t impressed overall.
Kodjia was greedy, yet again, but I’ve previously said I can live with that. But he looks out of sorts.
I seriously suspect he’s just not up to speed and it’ll come back.
And those players apart, I’m struggling to see anyone else as being anything more than total average.
Taylor? Oh dear.
Interestingly, Bruce is just saying that things are going to change, in that we need to go with a younger side.
Which is just as well, because I don’t see the new owners living with Bruce for long if things don’t change.
Hull, as poor as they were, made a couple of driving runs, straight down the middle, that had me thinking “why don’t we do that?”
And there lies Bruce’s problem for me.
His midfields are far too much designed to be an extension of the defence and they offer nothing in the middle.
Yes, Bruce brought on a couple of kids, but they need to be thrown in quicker, as much as I’m cautious.
It’s just that I see the current midfield going nowhere fast, especially against better sides.
Ok, we got three goals today, which is great.
But I just see us as frankly average and Bruce’s defensive attitude will not win him any favours from the owners.
Unless we’re top two, come October, Bruce will be gone.
It’s as simple as that for me.
As much as I think he’s been our best bet in giving us stability during some torrid times.
We could play Kodjia up top with Grealish just behind floating around picking up the ball as often as possible. Have Green/Adomah on the left/right wings..Mcginn and choice of either Whelan, Jedinak or Birkir in the middle. Sounds pretty good to me. Plenty of players as backup too like Hourihane, Lansbury. Might even get Snoddy back. Things are looking bright. Can see us having a good run now and winning the next 7 or 8 out of 10.
Let’s take stock, we’re all happy with what’s happened over the last week, now lets forget the piss taking players that’s sitting on arse at the Villa and move forward on knowing we come through a tricky time. Its time to embrace the luck Villa got and thank our history for giving us two billionaires to take us forward., tomorrow is going forwards and may it be the beginnings of a new Aston Villa still making history.
Amen to that Bill
The thing is Hitch, I’m not a church person, I suppose it sounded like one.it’s that I’m so in to the Villa I get carried away, I now have that feeling we are on the move.
Just agreeing with you 100% – and hoping this is the real dawn we’ve all been hoping for!
I’m glad to see Steer went out on loan today. After the last two seasons he just needs game time and it looked as if he wasn’t going to get a full season at Villa, so good for everyone.
While I predict the same squad at the start of tomorrow’s match (minus Steer), I am excited to see Nyland, McGinn, Tuanbeze all get a run out.
The cheers for Grealish tomorrow should be something else though – and if he score I’m not sure what will happen.
I wished I could go tomorrow but looks like watching the highlights instead. Let’s hope we can get a good early start to the campaign. Wigan won’t be a walkover so hopefully Bruce will play a bit more attacking line up to try and break them down. I think Hourihane will keep his place tomorrow and apart from goalkeeper I don’t expect any other changes to first eleven. New signings will probably be on bench at this early stage. You never know though!