its crunch time now 6 points better off than last season palace a burnley h soton a we need points or were hes officially doing worse than rafa and he cant hide the mess behind the points tally. tbh if we get 6 points from them.3 ill be amazed and will say bruce has done amazingly well. we finished so strong last season , so ill be amazed if we do as well come may.
Jetro Willems looked like a useless ****e in his first game, ironically also against Arsenal. Too soon to judge him cos of one game imo. I think we didn't sign one because our board and our scouting team aren't very effective. @Roy Munson People looking at the points tally had nothing to do with us not signing a striker, every single person on here, on social media and everyone I asked was fully on board we needed a midfielder and striker.
Anyone else see Steve say of Joelinton “he’s played most of his career not being the main striker”. Then says he’s got to learn. So we basically have Steve Nickson telling the club “look, he’s not a main striker, even he doesn’t think he is, but trust me on this one - he’ll be great”. Then everybody has to act surprised that it’s not working. The whole ****ing club is just a complete mess. Everything about it is just broken and wrong.
??? Ummm.... How? We were never out of the relegation zone that season, we've never been in it this season.... And we didn't sign a striker cos Ashley spent everything he was willing to in the summer, and we just have to rely on loans in January. I don't for one second buy Bruce's speil about how we nearly made out record signing.
I'm (obviously) talking about the dinosaur manager, the inept comments, the clueless "tactics", the mis-use of players, and so on. We are a only out of the bottom three because of several utter fluke results - Chelsea & Everton spring instantly to mind, but Wolves, Villa, and more have given us at least 8 more points than we should have. We didn't sign a striker because we have a one-man board and inexplicably have given Steve Nickson - a youth development coach - the keys to the kingdom. Goes without saying this all boils down to Ashley being unfathomably thick, but we're back where we were under McLaren - a flawed recruitment model, a purple player squad, a hapless head coach and dismal performances. This would be a better relegation squad than McLaren's too, so Bruce's feat would be all the more remarkable. And if we did go down, he'd 1) keep his job anyway and 2) point to the fact Rafa was in charge when we last went down.
The table doesn't lie - we're 7 points clear of the drop zone, haven't been in danger all season, and are clearly mid table rather than relegation threatened. After 26 games you can't say it's a fluke that with always been clear of relegation, your fluke results are balanced by the better performances vs Man City, Man U, Sheff Utd etc. In the McClaren season we had a far better team, but had massively worse results than this season, at this point of that season we had 24 points. Not that I think Bruce is any good, nor do I want him here, but there are degrees of crapness, and Bruce has done a far better job than McClaren did, and with a much worse team.
Our overall squad is terrible, it's impressive we have been so mid table. I thought we would go down irrespective of a management change, just didn't see us have nearly enough in the tank to pull off another escape. Been very positively surprised how mid table we have been.
Not to defend this regime but January is an absolutely awful time to try to buy. We are banging on about a striker. Lets remember this is the single hardest position on a football pitch to obtain the required quality for a sensible fee. Add in the January factor and I think its 100% understandable why we didn't sign anyone for that role in January. We tried to get Tosun on loan supposedly but he chose Palace, fair enough. We clearly didn't think Bowen was worth the money rumoured. Time will tell if that was a good call. Look around though, there wasn't much business of significance done - same as every January. Its a ****er because we are sat with two injured forwards in Muto and Gayle, and one who I assume we've accepted will generally be injured at least 50% of the time. However we are still paying full wages for two of them. I know as supporters we like to think its all bottomless but it isn't. We have spent 80m trying to improve our forward line in recent windows and replace players who wanted out. We certainly look to have got that business wrong with one of them. However I don't see the lack of signing a striker this January as a worthy stick to hit the club with to be honest. There appears to be a big desire from some of our support to get at Bruce despite him doing very little wrong. Supporters seem upset at him proving their doomsday predictions wrong so they are trying to focus on whatever negative thread they can pull at.
He doesn't help himself, though. He is quoted to have said he'd have "everybody" fit for Arsenal. However, nobody knows what's happening, other than Carroll injured his hip - possibly permanently - kicking a football!!! I'm surprised there wasn't anyone available better than two very injury prone players and one hapless nobody (Muto). But I understand - Charnley/Nickson will be pushing Bruce on Joelinton, the owner will have every right to ask "what did we pay £40m for if we now need a replacement". So to beat Bruce up about the personnel is misguided, though fans have just had enough of pretty much every aspect. I'm gobsmacked myself that we got relegated twice allowing scouts to bring in players with little input from the manager. Yet that's exactly where we are again.
The interview I watched with Bruce before the weekend suggested he was hopeful rather than certain on Muto and Gayle. He also accepted Carroll wouldn't be fit. Literally nothing to see here. Regardless of what is or isn't said, Carroll, Muto and Gayle weren't fit, end of very short story. Nothing to do with Bruce. Again regardless of whether there was better than Joelinton, whether Muto is hapless, the other two are injury prone, all 4 are on our books being paid and until they aren't there isn't anything that can be done. We were rumoured to be trying to shift Gayle. Looking up and down the January business, I'm not seeing much at all. As I say West Ham were brave and gambled on Bowen, fair enough. You could argue Tosun would have been an improvement but he has been poor since arriving in England too. So you could easily argue that signing him was just replacing one ****hawk with another.
? Strikers are able to be bought in January. Yes, it’s harder but that’s no reason to not try. Yes we have spent money on attackers but not a mainline striker. None of Joelinton, Miggy or Maxi are the “main striker” type. Andy is but even the Club knew what they were getting otherwise why give him the type of contract he has? Muto will never make it in the PL and Gayle has Christmas invites from so many Doctor’s surgeries he has no time to play football. So with that background why are the Club excused from criticism?
We don't know we didn't try. Indeed the suggestion is we did try for Giroud but he didn't want to suly himself by playing for Newcastle. All Bruce said is we wouldn't sign anyone he didn't feel was better than what we had. Looking around, unless you were willing to gamble or pay way over the odds, I think signing strikers must have been nigh on impossible as no one did so. Villa paid 10m for some Tanzanian. We were supposedly offered Tosun but deemed him no better than Joelinton. We didn't get involved in the Bowen situ as we allegedly didn't feel the fee was correct. Who knows if that is just Chronicle type chit chat. We've bought Joelinton as the main striker. I don't agree with it and think he looks far from even being capable of playing there as it stands. Certainly you'd have to question the scouting. However it does not change that the club bought him to be number 9. We are still paying Muto and Gayle wages so until we are able to offload them we can't just go spunking more money I would imagine - our budgets are tight. Again you'd have to question the scouting and I suppose Benitez for sanctioning the signings of Muto and Gayle. However there are reasons for that. We are stuck with them now and for the reasons you mention, its not gonna be easy to shift them. So yeah club, scouting, previous manager all have culpability of how we arrived where we have. However in terms of getting a striker in January, I think its a daft thing to pinpoint because there are a myriad of genuine reasons why it didn't happen. If we were sat on September 1st 2020 and haven't signed a striker then yeah they deserve hit with a big fat stick. But January against the background of already having 4 strikers on the books, and having invested heavily in the forward line over the previous two windows, I think its a bit daft and misguided personally.
Have to admit that I am becoming somewhat confused. For Rafa haters Rafa sanctioned and agreed and wanted everyone that was bought during his time here including wanting a £6M striker to lead the line in the PL. But Brucie doesn’t have any say in who we have bought but did did say we wouldn’t get anyone who he thought wasn’t better than what we had. Doesn’t really make much sense when we have the same “Management” team of Ashley and....well, Ashley. And whilst in the window just gone we couldn’t find a striker who was 1) a main line striker and 2) could score more than 1 League goal in 26 games we could look to pay (but ultimately not pay) a £45M fee and wages on top for a midfielder although in fairness he was probably being lined up to cover for Dubs. I accept we are guessing but my guess is that the Manager/Coach draws up a list of “wants” in positions which need strengthening and then the Club wait until the last week of the transfer window and then decide they’re to expensive and we go for either 4th or 5th choice in any position or someone cheaper. Neither Rafa nor Brucie had or have much say in who we get. For me, it was probably one of the main issues between Rafa and the Club leading to Rafa looking elsewhere and leaving. Brucie on the other hand was just delighted to get a still “big” job. Ultimately until Fat Boy learns from his repeated mistakes the fault will continue to lie at his door step. And for that reason he is open to any and all criticism for his continued failings in running the Club on anything that resembles a properly managed Club.
Wasn't it like repeated ad nauseam that Rafa was heavily involved in the day to day, board level, running of the football club? Even Keegan conceded in an interview that it's very clear Rafa had a completely different relationship with Ashley than he did, as Rafa was actually able to communicate personally with the owner. Neither Keegan, Hughton, Pardew, Schteve and now Bruce have had that level of role and responsibility at the football club, where they sat personally as an almost director of football and could demand increased spending on the training facilities. That's the difference really.
No. Quote from after Rafa left. ‘I must say that I have had more meetings with the Chairman, the President and the General Manager this week, than I had in 3 years at Newcastle. They haven’t just been work meetings, rather signs of respect in which we have been able to appreciate the differences and similarities in our cultures.’ Can’t be able to communicate personally if you don’t meet.
Ah fair enough. I have been coming at it from a place of misinformation then. In that case the problems I point out still persist minus the Rafa digs, we simply do not have the tools available to produce good football, not for the past 4 years. Steve McClaren was blessed with a good side, with a top, top player like Gini. We completely wasted it all.
