Dignified Bruce puts Villa defeat into perspective
STEVE BRUCE walked into the coffee shop that doubles as a post-match press conference room at Craven Cottage and took his seat behind a small desk.
The Aston Villa manager was dignified in defeat and full of praise for Fulham. But there were other things on his mind and when he was asked, he did not attempt to play them down.
Sometimes it feels strange when real life bursts its way into football’s bubble and collides with the game’s more prosaic concerns.
So some asked Bruce about how badly Villa had missed the injured Jack Grealish, some asked him if this reverse had been a wake-up call and some asked him about the death of his father Joe.
Bruce’s dad died two weeks ago, soon after his mother, Sheenagh, had been taken seriously ill and rushed into hospital. Bruce stayed away from the training ground and leaned on his staff to prepare the team for the past few games even though he still picked the side and attended the matches.
He was asked yesterday if football had given him an escape. That is what we always like to think. That football lets us flee real life for 90 minutes and lose ourselves in a game. But Bruce shook his head slowly. He was not about to provide an easy answer.
‘An escape?’ he said. ‘I don’t think so. It’s put my mind on something else but when you lose your father — and I have got a really sick mum at the moment, too — it puts it all in perspective.
‘It is a game of football. Yes, we all want to win. Yes, we all want to get promoted. Yes, it means a lot. But I’m not in that cliché where I’m going to say it’s everything. It’s not everything.
‘I have had an extremely difficult couple of weeks but it’s life and you have to get on with it.’
It was hard to reconcile Bruce’s grief with the more tribal aspects of the game but football’s rhythms do not alter when its protagonists have to deal with normal life. Football does not moderate itself. It gets on with it, too.
And so the Fulham fans booed Villa’s centre-half John Terry every time he touched the ball on his return to west London and taunted him when Fulham took the lead. Just as they were entitled to do. Just as t hey would normally do. Football does not brook interruptions.
Bruce understands that, of course. He has been in the game his whole adult life. And even though he was not going to give any easy answers, he has been getting on with it admirably, too. He has been doing his best.
His team came into the game looking to win their eighth successive league game for the first time since 1975 and consolidate their place in the automatic promotion positions at the top of the Championship. But they came up against a Fulham side who are in irresistible form as well and after a slow first half in which both s i des struggled to make any clear chances, it was the home team who made the breakthrough. Seven minutes of the second half had gone when Ryan Fredericks, who had a superb game at right back for the home team, burst on to a through ball down the flank and pulled the ball back for Ryan Sessegnon to sweep his shot past Sam Johnstone in the Villa goal.
Bruce knew then that his side would have to chase the game. He opened them up. He knew the risks of that and Fulham took advantage.
They started to threaten their visitors with almost every attack and 19 minutes from the end they sealed their victory.
The goal was assisted by the unlikeliest source. Johnstone took a free-kick from wide on the right side of his own penalty area but hem is kicked it and it fell to Floyd Ayite about 45 yards out from goal.
Ayi te controlled the ball beautifully and then sent his shot sailing back towards goal. Johnstone scrambled frantically to recover his ground but the ball arced effortlessly into the goal.
A few minutes later Scott Hogan, Villa’s centre forward, fluffed his side’s best chance when he volleyed over on the turn. After that chance, Villa never looked as if they would force their way back into the game.
Fulham, who have won seven home games in succession, moved to within four points of Villa, who were knocked out of the top two in the table by Cardiff’s victory over Middlesbrough.
There are many who feel that Slavisa Jokanovic’s Fulham are the best footballing team in the division. Momentum, certainly, is on their side.
Bruce was not dismayed by the defeat. ‘Was it a wake-up call?’ he said. ‘Not really. We knew coming here would be a difficult game. Fulham are a very good side.’
Before he got up to go another journalist mentioned Bruce’ s circumstances again and thanked him for turning up to answer questions. Bruce smiled. ‘It’s my job,’ he said.