Yet we still finished 10th last year which was my whole point. I never suggested the team has been great this season or how we'll do etc.
I am not sure that Bruce will be able to take us to Europe --> unless he gets us playing the same football we were doing when we hit the heady heights of 5th 1st half of last season. This is what gets me with Cest's "last 11 months" argument - how about the 6 months before that? I know that Bruce is not the best manager in the world. I know Bruce is capable of turning us into a top 10 club and keeping us there while we consolidate that position for a couple of seasons. Whether he will or not is another thing - the next 4 games are key, after which a decision will need to be made. I know Short is a business man. I know that SAFC need to live within their means, as the FFP rule are going to have a huge impact. I know Gyan left for the $$$. I also know Bent left for the $$$. Should we have expected Short/Quinn to offer them 20K more per week? 30k? 40k? Just to make them happy and stay here? Or should we have forced them to stay, without a pay increase, even though they wouldnt be motivated to play and probably wouldnt have done much? No to both of those for me. Short is doing what any responsible owner would do, and I am happy with that. The man bought out the Drumville lads, turned a loan into shares to make the club financially secure and is supporting steady progress.
Its difficult to argue with hard facts and the hard fact is we did finish 10th. Thats not the point though. Its like saying I drove up the motorway at 100 mph with a blinfold on and didnt crash. It doesnt make it a good policy to repeat though does it? Bruce had absolutley no impact in that 10th place finish and relied on another team to move him up the 3 or 4 places from where we were when our game finished, to where we actually ended up after 5 mins injury time at Sid James. Up until 5 games from the end of the season and that Wigan game, we were right in the clarts of another relegation dogfight and we managed to lift ourselves out of it at the very bitter end. If thats progress, saving ourselves from another relegation with a mere 360 minutes of football left to go then its not my descrition of progress lads. Nowhere near. We only won 6 of the last 20 competitive games of the 2010/11 season and have only won 8 out of the last 32 competitive games in this calendar year? Is that progress too? Someone mentioned a sarcastic reference to Rafa Benitez and Barcelona. **** me lads, Bruce doesnt even measure up to Mick Buxton never mind anyone else.
The way I see it is we will never finish above 7th with the economics we have within our club, no matter who the manager is. If we continue to fall short of the big six in spending terms we can't blame the manager if we fall short in the league. I don't see that the club has gone backward this season. Bruce did very well to get Bendy in. A player we can't hope to keep hold of for two reasons. He wants Champions league football (never going to happen without major investment) and we can't afford his wages anyway. Sad really. We can't afford the wages of a player considered a reject at Arsenal.
I don’t expect us to bow down to players greedy demands at all and that’s never been my point. What I do expect though is for the manager of our football club to ensure that when a player ****s off for whatever reason, greed, homesick or just a total knob-end, he replaces those players with ones that do not put the club into jeopardy EVERY 6 months. It is 100% Bruce’s job to make sure we are not left with kids and unproven players to replace 20+ goals England strikers and African player of the year ones. Yes Bruce brought these players in the first place but both wanted away after 12 months of the Bruce management prowess? Anyway, the crowd will tell its own story on Saturday and only the 10 quid kids tickets will save a sub 30k crowd imo.
David Moyes finishes regularly top 6, 7 or 8 every year with even less money and a stricter wage policy? Our manager is the problem, not just the money available to him or the wages we pay.
David Moyes has only had less cash to spend (without selling) in the last 2 seasons, and they are not going great guns atm either, in Moyes 2nd or 3rd season, Everton finished 16th just above the relegation zone. For me you cant use Moyes as a catalyst, as he has spent lots of cash as well. (same as most managers actually)
Ha Ha you have to laugh. I cant use Moyes as it doesnt suit you? Yeah, Bruce is better than Moyes anyway. FFS
How do you know all this Cest? You don't know how much money we have never mind Everton. From the evidence we do have however, Bruce has spent nowt in real terms. Why?
Did i say that Bruce was better than Moyes no. Everton have brought through a lot of good players that they then sell on Rooney for one for 32 million, cost them nothing at all, sold for a tidy profit. Felaini (SP) cost 20 million Yakubu cost 15 million (ish) they got Cahill when i thought we should have done, they were in the top 6 though we were in the championship (or languishing at the bottom of the PL anyway) so no chance of us getting him, but great buy for them. The truth is, after the top 6, the rest are distinctly average teams, Everton/Villa were the best of the rest, they still might be, but the gap isnt that great these days, even for us. I am forever the optomist, do i think we can pull this around, of course i can, do i think we will get relegated, of course not, but weirder things have happened at sea, so we very well may, I am just not a doom and gloom merchant.
You can't claim that it's all about cash, if it was, NUFC wouldn't be where we are. With good management, lots of cash is not a necessity to achieve highly.
Like i said its a marathon not a sprint. We are going to get relegated in November, and you are going to get CL in the same month, 1 might happen the other definately wont (us getting relegated might in case you are wondering) We are 11 games in, and this was about short not Bruce, but its turned into yet another Bruce in out debate, and we havnt even played a game for 2 weeks. There is still a lot of the season to go, if we get 0-5 points over the next 4 games then i think Short will seriously have to question Bruce, and he may very well go, but only the next 4 games will tell.
Lets see where you are in May. Many teams punch above their weight before Xmas. Maintaining it for a full season is a little harder.
Neither am I but I am also a realist. Do you really think I enjoy seeing my club so badly managed? Dont you think I'd sooner be discussing how good we look to watch and how our home games are akin to an automatic 3 points because we are so strong there. Dont you even for one minute think that I simply want someone with the balls to just get hold of my club and stop it from being so ****ing ****e decade after decade, afer long bloody depressing decade? Bruce could be manager here for the next 20 years and have a buget as big as Katie Prices tits but he will never make us any better or bigger. He just isnt up to the task. The fact we have lost Bent and Gyan and had some injuries (so did a helluva lot of other as well mind including Everton) has merely covered up his inadequacies and short falls. He has been able to hide behind the lame excuses and con you supporters i nto thinking he is actually just unlucky. He hasn't conned me kidda and I can see him for the rank amateur he really is, out of his depth even at our club and flapping about like a dying fish in shark infested waters waiting for the inevitable to happen. I'm no doom and gloom merchant either but I am also not so easily conned either as some on here.
Short employs the manager and thus his impact on us reaches out to the manager too. Its part of the story Steve.
I ws just thinking about the injuries the other day, and btw chelsea had Lampard/Terry/Essien and went on an 8 game none winning streak, including our 0-3 hammering of them, Everton didnt have a striker at the start of the season, and were in the bottom 3 for the 1st 7-8 weeks of last season. So what chance did we have with 11 first teamers out, and Bent ****ing off to pastures new. But anyway back to the injuries, Do you think more players these days are getting Knee ligament injuries than in the past, seems not too long ago it would be career threatening, Gazza and not long before that it was career over, Cloughie, but not many got them (as far as i can recall) now it seems everyone is getting them, and not just from us but elsewhere as well. Surely something is ****ed up somewhere.
So Bruce is a con man who deliberately throws the derby games 'cause he supported Newcastle as a kid!!! And if us fans are being conned by Bruce how must old Ellis feel? He even has to pay the "****er". Strangely, I don't think Short is the type to get conned to easily. But what do I know?
Remind me where both Everton and Chelsea finished up again and under their onw steam not reliant on others failings!!!! As for the injuries such as ligament and metatarsals, I blame the carpet slippers the players use for boots these days. Fashion items not proper boots imo and the studs are effecting the way players legs are twisted on impact.
