Aston Villa: Fire Steve Bruce

Aston Villa’s manager leads an uninspired, under-performing squad that looks tactically sophomoric and ill-prepared for another promotion push.

Steve Bruce’s time as Aston Villa manager has run its course.

On his 100th game in charge, Bruce led an uninspired performance in front of a 33,000+ Villa Park crowd as mid-table Sheffield Wednesday dominated from beginning ’til end. With The Owls star forward Fernando Forestieri suspended for the match, a defense, yet again featuring an out-of-position Mile Jedinak, conceded chance after chance. Marco Matias and Steven Fletcher scored on either side of John McGinn’s incredible left-footed screamer.

It’s one thing that Villa looked tactically inferior (again) to Wednesday, despite possessing superior quality across most positions on the pitch and on the bench. There’s another damning piece of evidence in Bruce’s pre-match press conference. In which, he had no idea Forestieri had been retroactively suspended three games for a pre-season fight.

Seriously. 24 hours before the match, Aston Villa’s manager had no idea Forestieri wouldn’t be playing. This team has now won just one competitive match in its last eight games. Across nine league matches, Aston Villa have been clearly out-played in seven of them. They are out of the Carabao Cup after defeat to League One’s Burton Albion. Across the four domestic tournaments under Bruce’s reign, he won a total of three matches.

Worrying still, Bruce, a rather pragmatic, defensive manager in perception has conceded joint 4th-most across the EFL Championship. And he did this as he shipped one of the club’s few natural centre-backs, Tommy Elphick, to a club rival on-loan, for nothing. As a result, his over-reliance on Mile Jedinak has back-fired while Bruce’s ego and stubbornness clashed with local media after Tuesday’s 2-0 victory over Rotherham.

In which, he made sarcastic remarks over criticism of his management style (both of the valid and invalid kind).

It’s clear, Steve, that you do not know what you’re doing at the moment.

Four of Aston Villa’s last five goals dating back to the 4-1 thrashing at Sheffield United, have either been wonder strikes (Hourihane free kick, McGinn screamer), or garbage-time goals (Bolasie’s late header, El Ghazi’s 4-1 consolation). Despite possessing the league’s best attacking midfielder, two very solid hold-up forwards, and two other quality central midfielders/attacking midfielders, Villa rarely attack through Zone 14. Instead, there’s a huge emphasis to attack on the wings, where the club is far weaker, especially at fullback.

No matter the formation or personnel on the pitch, Bruce continues to throw stuff at the wall, hoping something sticks. Kind of like today where Conor Hourihane and John McGinn predictably struggled in a midfield double pivot against Wednesday’s 3-4-3. The loss wouldn’t be complete, either, without Jedinak struggling immensely as Axel Tuanzebe wastes away on the bench.

We’ve seen enough. The lows of Steve Bruce’s reign continue to bury this club out of promotion contention, just as it had in the two seasons prior. This team doesn’t even look like a top-6 side right now.