It was about time he changed things around, sick of the loyalty given to those that dont perform, I liked Gardener and Vaughn, saw vaughn in the friendly at Beilefeldt, with Smithy NL and his wife, took a Man u and a Chelsea supporting pair of mates with us, all agreed Vaughn was a steal, a complete bargain for Sunderland, and after paying good money for Gardener, a player who can potentially get us ten goals, is for me a no brainer. so Brucie, does this mean you are learning something the fans on this board have been saying for a while now, IE you dont do tactics and you dont change losing teams, loyalty although a great and admirable thing, will not guarentee success on the pitch, you should take a leaf out of your mentors book, and be more ruthless, seems to work for him. keep watching Brucie the lads on here will keep you right. ................................................................................................................... For Steve Bruce, there were plenty of up sides to his bold decision to drop Lee Cattermole. Now comes the down side. A 4-0 win over Stoke City - their first in six games this season - minus his erstwhile captain, relegated to the bench in favour of a central midfield pairing of Craig Gardner and David Vaughan vindicated the manager doing without the services of a player he had previously been unstinting in his loyalty to. So far, so good, perhaps. Now comes the difficult part. Given the absence of any training ground injuries this week, it's hard to justify making changes for the trip to Norwich City, so the ex-England Under-21 midfielder can expect further bench warming duties at Carrow Road, with John O'Shea again wearing the skipper's armband. Clearly, it's far too early to write-off Cattermole's Stadium of Light career simply due to one, albeit significant, snub. However, the longer his absence from the team continues, the more difficult it will be to justify any return as captain. Eventually restoring the Teessider to the team is one thing, but if that isn't accompanied by him leading the team out, what does that say regarding Bruce's assessment of both the player's ability, and, more pertinently, his character? The manager, insisting the £5 million arrival from Wigan in 2009 remains a key part of his plans despite being dropped for the first time in his Sunderland career, said: "Nobody epitomises what I like about a footballer more than my captain." At least he's still calling you his captain, Lee, things can't be all that bad. Bruce had hinted at his thoughts ahead of Stoke by substituting Cattermole the previous week at home to Chelsea. His captain wasn't injured at the time, though his pride was no doubt hurt. The manager added: "At the moment, it's not going too well for him, so we gave somebody else a go in Vaughan. He brought that little bit of composure we were looking for and had a wonderful debut." Whether Cattermole is still struggling with a back problem that blighted him for much of last season would seem to be perhaps a reasonable assumption. Certainly a player who has built his reputation on dynamism and work-rate doesn't appear to be his normal self. Maybe he just needs time to rediscover his sharpness and peak match fitness. He's hardly going to do that sat on the bench, though, is he? And how telling was it that Bruce chose to bring on Jack Colback instead of Cattermole in the closing stages against Stoke when he was looking to shore things up? Bruce added: "Lee has been in and out of the side and had two or three serious injuries. I'm a big believer, and have been for a long time, that you don't really get your form back until you have been back as long as you have been out." Should it come to pass, Cattermole's reaction to a recall but without the armband will be fascinating, especially as Bruce strongly denied reports of O'Shea becoming his captain when the defender arrived from Manchester United in the summer. The longer the Irishman has the armband, the harder it will be for the manager to reverse the situation. Bruce has been rewarded for making a brave decision. He must now hope the potentially uneasy ramifications are worth it.
He should be man enough to field the players in form Catts is not therefore catts should be man enough to realise that just because your Captain does not guarantee a first team place. Hopefully he gets his head down and works hard if not another £15-£20m off Liverpool will come in handy Personally Brown would be my captain anyway.
Totally agree with the bold red bit!! I would personally leave O'Shea as captain as he looked excellent (from what I saw) against Stoke. Would like to see the same side... We on 4-0 and looked good and settled - Vaughan was superb
lets not forget there are all squad players and bruce should pick the the team required on the day thats why he gets paid
Love Catt's passion and commitment but if your not on your game and others are then they should get a chance. No offence to Catts but O'Shea is a far better captain both in experience and getting others to play for him and IMO should remain captain even when Catts gets back in the starting 11.
Froggy. I'm passionate and committed about SAFC, but you wouldn't want me playing for us (mind you, 30 years ago...!) Cant change a 4-0 winning team, methinks. x
