To be fair to Bruce, the supporters played a big part in his sacking. Bruce arguably built the best team safc had, and played the best football we have seen at the club for the last decade. He got slightly unlucky with bent and gyan both wanting away, plus Henderson being sold, welbeck returning to Man U, and didn't quite replace those players. On Bruce's first real dip in results, the crowd turned, the atmosphere turned toxic, and he didn't get to January to correct his summer transfer window. I do believe if the fans stuck with Bruce, he wouldn't have been sacked, and our downwards spiral wouldn't have happened. He built the most exciting team we've seen this decade, and any SAFC fan would struggle to deny that. So yes, I do believe Bruce has a point, we were partly to blame for his sacking, and I'll hold my hands up to say I wanted him out at the time. But hindsight is a wonderful thing, and if I could turn back time, I would have supported him through that bad period.
That's all quite fair mate. But my point is that he blamed the supporters and took no responsibility .... .... some of his tactics and selections were idiotic and that's why the supporters cracked imo. They'd accepted a lot but his actions in the home game when people voiced their opinions deserved criticism
Nah, they aren't pro-Mag, journos have just become lazy. Take a look at (and I understand if you don't want to) how David 'Winning Is What I Do' Moyes has also got away with airbrushing his own history.
Yes, the crowd turned on Bruce, but it wasn't because he was a Geordie! They turned because results were crap, his team selections were wacky and his tactics (including use of subs) were ****e.
.....which is something he had a history of doing at other clubs. Great scout and great start but couldn't manage a team mid-term, let alone long-term. Not exactly "mr loyal" either.
Can't argue with much of that but he lost 3 strikers and replaced them with Bendtner. That's why he ultimately failed. Perhaps giving him January to correct it might have helped. We were to blame for his sacking as much as any set of supporters anywhere ever is. We turned because he messed it up. He'd taken our best team for years and undone all the good work himself.... a pattern he has repeated almost everywhere he goes. Him being a mag just became a stick to beat him with but had nowt to do with most turning.
Agree with a lot of this although he had went 14 games without a win in his first season (7 defeats/7 draws) and 9 games without a win in his second season (8 defeats/1 draw) and was supported through it so it wasn't his first real dip in results.
Morning mate, don't know if you've seen or not, oddbod from over the road is blaming you for the takeover failing. He is getting pelters for it like. Just thought I'd let you know incase you were not aware.
Cheers, it's ridiculous mate. Despite the fact most of what I've posted has turned out to be true, in the main, there are still people who would prefer me to be wrong than see the club taken over and progress. The internet is a wonderful thing but allows imbeciles access to a world outside of their bedrooms.
You seriously saying some bloke is blaming Smug for the takeover failing? Have a word with yourself Smug and get it sorted.
I won't go over what others have said about previous winless streaks or how he replaced the above players extremely poorly, but I will add that, along with what Smug pointed out about him taking zero responsibility and blaming the fans, he also went the entire 2011 calendar year with only 8 wins, which was serious relegation form, and nothing suggested that he could turn it around. That never gets picked up by the media and is conveniently glossed over because it encompassed 2 seasons, but it still doesn't take away the fact that it was the whole of 2011 (nearly), which can be construed as a whole season (2 half seasons). Bruce likes to rewrite his history at Sunderland and constantly points to the 10th place finish (last day results, some teams already on the beach etc.) and leaves out his winless runs and that 2011 calendar year. Add to that the fact that SAFC were comfortably 6th in January as well until Bent went and he replaced him with Sess, who as good as he was on his day, was not a goalscoring striker anywhere near what DB was. That was the beginning of the end for him as he sold others and replaced with bargain basement players.
Poyet had us playing far better football. Bruce weaknesses were covered by bent being prolific, I’d actually go as far as to say he got lucky with how bent turned out in that first season, and when bents goals dried up slightly in that terrible 13 game winless run, he had no solution
Aye it's on the "safc developing story thread" on RTG. Poster known as oddbod, you might need a translator as he has the equivalent literary skills as a three year old would be expected to have.
Keane went through a much worse streak at Ipswich yet he is still regarded ( by many ) as the answer to all our problems. Not a big fan of either but bruce always was and will be twice the manager keane ever was or will be.
It literally doesn't matter. All of that is entirely logical, I understood all of what you were saying first time around, but you are missing the biggest, most fundamental point: People do not evaluate price based only on assets. They do so based on revenue, costs, and potential. How much is it going to cost to get us up to where they believe we can be? So you might believe, we have a £13m squad, but upkeep of that offsets the benefit, particularly if all or part of that squad is redundant at this level and achieving the £13m value at any stage is next to impossible. The asset is there, but the cost of ukeep far outweighs it. It is not a net benefit to someone purchasing the club because even with success, they will all need replacing. Apart from player contracts running out, we have high earning, under-performing big chunks of that like Grigg who we would struggle to recoup cash for. So when you say that it would cost £15m, the problem is that someone looks at the books and sees: 1: cost base of £28m vs revenue of £20m = £-8m per annum (roughly based on Methven etc) 2: Squad with potential value of £13m 3: Fixed assets (Stadium, academy etc) = ££m? 4: Cost of renovating football side of club over next 5 years in league one and the championship: ££m? 5: Potential upturn in revenue commensurate with achieving goals on pitch : ££m? The point is that when you tot it all up, because we're a loss-making business, people know that in theory, to fund the next 5 years at the current situation, they'd need £40m to cover the operating costs. That's the assumption they have to make. They'd then need to spend money on top of that to get up and stay up, let's say £2-3m in league one, maybe £30m minimum in Championship over that time just to have an outside shot at the playoffs. Let's say £35m. That means that you're buying the obligation to spend £75m over the next 5 years just to keep progressing in the right direction, with no guarantees that it will actually pay off with a Premier League spot. There are clubs spending double that in a single season right now, so I'm being extremely conservative. You could potentially double that if you wanted to look at worst case scenarios. So offsetting that £75m is the £13m squad, and the stadium + AOL, and the intangible value of the opportunity. I don't know what your valuation of the fixed assets would be, but realistically, because of the difficulty in selling those fixed assets, you could make the case for anything between £50m-100m imo. I think we're of nominal value now. The question is not whether someone values us at £15m or £40m, it's 'who will be willing to take the risk associated with a company this big, convoluted, loss-making, and in competition with dozens of other companies?'
As for Bruce being hounded for being a Geordie and a mag, I refer to the Geordie and a mag, who has a statue built for him outside the sol Bruce was sacked as we went about 8 months where we barely won a home game. It was simply down to performances, selection and results
So the people stamping their feet, jumping up and down, etc may be nothing to do with this board Glad that's clear ....
