Aston Villa have been unable to deal with set pieces all season – and Steve Bruce’s Sunderland suffered a similar problem.
As Henri Lansbury bundled the ball over his own goal line to seal a sixth defeat in seven Championship fixtures for Aston Villa, Steve Bruce’s reputation for defensive organisation took another huge hit, as reported by the Birmingham Mail.
The four-time promotion winner may be perceived in some quarters as a rather pragmatic tactician but, despite a solid start to life at Villa Park, the old vulnerabilities that plagued the reigns of Tim Sherwood, Paul Lambert and co have returned with a vengeance.
In Monday’s 2-0 loss at St James’, Newcastle profited from dismal set piece defending to send Villa home pointless. Bruce described the defending as ‘awful’, ‘hideous’, as reported by the Birmingham Mail.
He is a manger who plays the percentages so he is more than aware that an inability to prevent a simple corner means forward momentum is almost impossible to achieve.
Villa have struggled from set-pieces all season, no more so than during this recent dismal run, and the fans will surely resonate with Bruce’s claims from all the way back in the early days of his Sunderland reign in 2009.
“It’s certainly been our downfall. We simply cannot defend the ball well enough from set-pieces,” he said after Dave Kitson’s winner consigned them to a 1-0 defeat against Stoke City, as reported by Goal.
“We should be taking the nil-nil and going home. Defending at set-pieces should be bread and butter stuff.”
Bruce could be forgiven for showing symptoms of déjà vu. After all, his Villa side appear to be making the same mistakes on a weekly basis.
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