In Came Bent, out went Jones In Came Gyan, Out went Bent In Came Bentdner, Out went Gyan In came........................ Left with Campbell - Injured Whickham - Inexperienced Bentdner - Poor goalscoring record Dong Won - Unknown Unproven Sunderland look more likely to keep a clean sheet than to score goals. Not the greatest start but after Stoke should be beating teams like Stoke at home, Norwich away and WBA at home.
The difference been Stoke have been in the Premier league and grown from strength to strength we are into our 3rd season of building a new side.
I hate Stoke and all they stans for with regards to their style of play but ya gotta hand it to Pulis, hes doing the business while Bruce is STILL trying to assemble his best 11!
Bruce is 5 transfer windows on and we are still buying a new team every one. He is no closer to knowing his best 11; best formation; or which players play where best. It's shocking and a little alarming to be honest, that so many still place any faith whatsoever in him as the manager of our club. It's not the fans, the players or the board that have failed here, its the management 100%.
Keane's for buying such a **** group of players when he was manager? The players, for not being available when Bruce wanted to buy them? The players, for being injured (Mensah) when here on loan or just plain **** (muntari - who on paper should have been a sure shot)? the players for walking out for the cash (Bent/Gyan)? The other clubs for wanting stupid money for players they want to move on? (Hutton, Onouha) oh, right you are blaming bruce again? sorry i was a bit slow there....
Haha, so nothing is Bruces fault then? Are you being serious? Sorry marra but the buck stops with the manager, always has and always will, you or Bruce can come out with as many excuses as you want but it doesnt change the fact that the problems we have as a club are the same for every other club in and around us in the table and above! Every club has bad luck in all kinds of situations but this can not account for all the downfalls of the manager!
I think his point was that Stoke have been building on.what they have season on season where we have been building a little then dismanting, then trying to build from the bottom up each year. How many first team players have left Stoke in the past 2 or 3 years? They are where we should be, just adding 2 or 3 where needed at the start of the season.
16th...13th...10th **** me, that's some failure rate Bruce is responsible for. Simplistic I now but I believe it's what the league base the prize money on each year.
I am a BI/BO fence sitter of the highest order but IMO a few things that are certain is that we all love the club - we all know deep down that SB has (by luck or judgement) been part of the improved league positions over the last 3 yrs - we all have reservations about how SB has performed in the transfer window(s). The real issue is how we can contribute to an improved performance by the team on the pitch - we don`t do it by jeering and booing and screaming "Bruce Out" or "You`re ****" after 20 minutes or so as has been the case recently. We do it by trying to get behind the lads - urge them on to better performances and by trying to intimidate the opposition... Let`s do that and see if the positive reaction from the terraces (I wish!!) has an impact on the lads on the pitch - if it doesn`t and we continue to struggle then at least we have tried to do our bit rather than contributing to the problems... Remember the e-mails last season (Jan/Feb) when everyone was renewing passport applications - so long ago now!!! Happy days
Okay I admit it. None of this is Bruces fault at all. He is not to blame for the appalling home record for 2011, the failure to keep his best players, not replacing those that leave, picking the team, the tactics or the positions they play in. He isn't the man who has lost two 1st round cup games v lower league opposition and if isn't to blame for a 5-1 thrashing by our local rivals (the biggest in my 36 years) . Nope, Bruce isn't responsible for any of that. So given that, what use is he then? Apparently, he is only responsible for finishing 10th and any other good things (whatever they may be) and all the bad things are our fault for having a in at him. Bloody hell, I'll take that for a job. He is more a liability than an asset and once that happens, its curtains. We are in a relegation fight 4 games in, only some just can't, or don't want to see it.
"We are in a relegation fight 4 games in" Bit of a desperate statement that like. Which I of course will blindly disagree with.
It may be a bit strong to say after 4 games we are in a relegation fight...but after every game goes by, all I see is my team getting lower in the league table. I wish I had the hope that things will improve in the coming weeks. But with his record..do you think he will turn it around? I see us picking up a maximum of 2 points in the next 3 games..after that, I conceed...we are in the brown sticky stuff.
Theres people who are judging him on this season alone and then there are people who are judging him on his overall job since arriving, those same people dont disslike him they just dont think hes up to the job based on what they have seen till now! its not like we havent given him a chance to prove his worth!
