da supremo： After failing to break down a side who were reduced to ten men – and deprived of one of their most potent attacking threats – after just three minutes, it is the home side Aston Villa who will be the unhappiest after the highest-profile Championship game of midweek turned out to be a drab affair.
da bet vitoria： Just a few games into the season is perhaps not the time for pointing fingers and calling for the heads of managers, but as the Villans find themselves much further down the table than they would have hoped – not to mention expected – at the start of the season, patience with the boss might be wearing thin.
The most disastrous element of all of this for Villa fans is surely not just their league position but the thought that this now seems to be their level. It’s not easy to bounce back up again from the Championship, especially when your team is in the kind of disarray that Villa’s was upon their relegation. The money spent and the manager they’ve appointed clearly means they should be doing better than they are, but it was never going to be easy.
But there’s a more fundamental question that Villa should be attempting to answer over the next few weeks, especially if Tony Xia is considering the future of his manager: is the Championship really the place for the sort of ‘old school’ manager that Steve Bruce seems to be? So far this season, Neil Warnock and Mick McCarthy are towards the top of the league, but you do wonder how long they will they stay there.
The idea that the Championship is about abstract notions like heart and passion above organisation seems outdated. There is a reason that sort of idea persists, though, and that’s because it genuinely is a tough league where physicality is important even if it’s only to put up with a 46-game season in which most teams are as good as each other. In such a situation, anything which sets you apart from the rest – even if it’s just team spirit – will help a great deal. Usually, though, that extra factor setting one team above the others is organisation and management.
The last time Bruce was promoted was with Hull City back in 2016. But what really should have set his side apart from the rest wasn’t their heart, spirit or organisation, but the fact that they had one of the best teams in the division. This was a side who were unlucky to lose an FA Cup final to Arsenal just a few years previously, and their relegation was something of a shock, even if it was just a small one. And finishing 10 points behind Sean Dyche’s Burnley was hardly a triumph, though no one doubts that promotion, in any form, is all that matters.
Over the last few years, the landscape of the Championship has changed. The fact that the physical demands are so high and the teams are so evenly matched means organisation and tactical nous is often what makes the difference.
Last season, Huddersfield Town were the perfect example of a team who were galvanised in every way by their manager. It wasn’t just the tactical setup which was imposed by David Wagner that saw the Terriers climb from relegation fodder to promotion. It wasn’t just the manager’s attention to detail either, but also his insistence on team ethic, too. Taking his side on trips to the woods with no running water or electricity to build team spirit is the kind of small gesture which changes your season in the Championship just because that helps set you apart from everyone else.
In the end, this won’t be the final nail in Bruce’s Villa coffin. He’s likely to have another game or two to save his job, but although drawing with Brentford seemed like a greater disappointment to the Villa faithful, it was perhaps the nature of the draw with Middlesbrough which shows just how difficult it will be for Bruce to claw this back.
On Tuesday night, the playing field wasn’t level. There was a big difference between the sides for a whole hour of the game: the difference of one entire player, before Henri Lansbury inexplicably gave away his side’s advantage. Not only could it be described as toothless, but giving up the extra man through thoughtlessness speaks to a lack of awareness of the situation, something which doesn’t reflect well on the team spirit: had Lansbury thought about his teammates, he might not have made a silly challenge whilst already on a yellow card.
And so are we looking at a team, in Villa, who don’t have the sort of manager to hammer home that advantage? Who don’t have the man in charge to give his team the mix of spirit and tactical nous needed to turn the investment into the playing staff into an actual team capable of winning promotion?
A draw at home to Middlesbrough, even after the sending off, shouldn’t be the end of the world. There should still be enough time to turn things around this season at Villa Park, especially as the Championship is known as a league where a rich vein of form towards the end of the season has catapulted sides from below the playoffs right into contention. But the question remains whether that can happen to Villa under Bruce. On the evidence so far, it looks as if it’s organisation, not man-management, that will be needed if promotion is to be achieved.