I havent been on here for some time now, which is due mainly to a mixture of other commitments and a large amount of fatigue of the message board circuit. However, yesterday was the catalyst for a return and to pose a thought to all Sunderland fans.
As was well documented at the time, I threw 100% of my support behind Steve Bruce and despite the current circumstances would still love to do so. However, with a heavy heart it must be said, I am beginning to have some very grave reservations about his continued tenure-ship of the clubs team affairs.
We have all been down this route on far too many occasions (discussing the respective managers position so early into a reign) and on nearly all previous occasions with some justification. Buxton, Crosby, Butcher, Sgt Wilko and Sbragia etc, all deserved the critique but with Bruce, it is definatley with a very heavy and saddened heart indeed that I find myself depressingly asking some very searching questions.
Unprecedented financial investment; unprecedented boardroom stability; a former SAFC football legend for a chairman; top quality international players at his disposal (most of them his players) and above all universal fans support have still seen us plummet into the depths of the relegation dog fight. 35 points on January 1st and a European challenge very much on the cards and now 38 points on April 10th is an absolute disgraceful position to find ourselves in. Humiliated into admitting we are a total shambles yet again after building up our hopes (for the umpteenth time in my case) that we may have at last turned the corner of being able to compete at this level, have all turned to dust again.
I do hope Niall shuts his mouth now about fans turning up or not as he now looks and sounds extremely foolish at best and downright obnoxious at worst, having a go at some fans for not coming to watch this garbage week in week out when 40,000 still turn up to be ritually made twats of home and away.
Since January and the shock announcement that DB wanted away, the whole thing has disintegrated into farce. What has happened behind the scenes that we are being kept in the dark about because trust me, something catastrophic has occurred to effect this swiftest of demises. Quinny knows the game is up and rushed a contract through for Bruce to sign. I know of not one fan that was clamouring for that contract to be offered or signed and indeed the consensus of opinion in my circles was the close season would be the correct time. However, mirroring the Capello contract rush, Bruce has been secured in his financial status, by a chairman who is just far too cosy with his manager. Quinny is a good man but far too soft and nice to be a chairman of a club. In any other club in Europe, given the same scenario, the manager would have been asked to leave. Its all well and good to support the incumbent manager but there has to be chinks of light to aim for and I am sorry to say, I saw none at Man City and worse still, none at home to WBA yesterday not to mention the previous 8 or 9 weeks debarcles.
WBA totally played us off the park in that 2nd half and thoroughly deserved to win. A relegation haunted club, coming to our home ground and totally outplaying us for 45 mins. Indeed, if it were not for the impressive Mignolet, we would have conceded 8 or 9 last week and probably another 2 or 3 yesterday. That is unacceptable.
Its clear to a blind man that Bruce has lost the players and the dressing room. Nothing he is saying either publicly or behind closed doors (so much for the supposed clear the air talks this week with the players), is even remotely sinking in. Those players don't care if Bruce is manager next week or not. Take Muntari (please take him someone), a triple winner of the Scudeto, Italian Cup and a European Champions winner in one year, star player for Ghana at Wembley the other week and yet a total waste of space at SAFC. How can that be? Granted he has played with better standard players but he looks more like Shaun Cunnington than a European Cup winner in a red and white shirt and dont get me started on Sessegnon. Has any player looked more busy and yet offered so little than him? Did Brcue actually have him watched at all? The pace of the game has just passed him by so why chuck the lad straight in at the deep end. I think it has pissed off some of the other lads who had got us to 35 points before they came along and caused a deep split in the camp. They dont play like a team at all and thats the management team to blame not the players.
Quinny may have the decision taken out of his hands because Ellis Short made it very clear 2 years ago that Bruce had one major remit and that was to stop the club being a yo yo one and not be involved in an annual relegation scrap. Bruce has failed now 2 years running and that's the reason fans are staying away not pubs showing the game. Its the pile of dog-**** they are being asked to pay to watch that keeps them at bay. I swear that were I not already a season ticket holder, it would be an easy decision at the minute to choose not to go to the game and spend more time with my family on weekends, especially on warm sunny days like yesterday. I am just pig sick of always coming back to this situation at SAFC. Continually been force fed promises of jam tomorrow are our dietary nightmare and its a diet I am sick of having to eat. I'm on my 6th or 7th 5 year plan and unfortunately, it may be my last. Like so many others I speak to, yet another relegation will be my last and even if we do escape this time by the width of a gnats foreskin, do I really believe we have any kind of positive momentum at all to take into next season?
Bruce is unfortunately a dead man walking which ever way the season pans out. Will Ellis Short open up his cheque book for Bruce again to spend ã20m or ã25m, just to be a relegation haunted club in 2011/12? Absolutely not. Therefore, he will be forced to get in sub standard players or loan ones who have little or no impact. If we had gone down fighting yesterday I would be fiercely defending Bruce and urging everyone to get behind the manager but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all to get behind. Bruce looked like a man who knew the game was up in those last 10 mins or so and in the interviews afterwards. Flushed of face and down in manner he looked like a man waiting for the inevitable call from the Chairman. Whether it is at the behest of the owner or the Chairman himself, that call has to come. Bruce has lost the dressing room and he knows it.
With Matin O Neill sitting at home watching old re-runs his past glories on Video/DVD, there is an obvious answer which would cost us nothing more than Bruce's severance package and he would have 6 games to ensure we are safe from the drop and then offer something we can galvanise around for the season to come next. To simply offer the line that changing managers isn't always the answer I offer this thought. Not to change things now will result in a desperately sad and ultimately very damaging season of horror next time out. Will that put bums on seats? Will that move the club forward? Will that ensure Short doesn't lose interest? We are once again the butt of jokes and ridicule from our bretheren up at NE1 and who can blame them. The club talked big and got us all excited and have then deflated us all quicker than a blow up doll in a sad Benwell bedsit.
Massive decisions to be made in this next 48 hours and I only hope and pray someone at the club has the balls to actually make them before the whole thing collapses around our feet. Lets not kis ourselves everything will be okay. Without this change, they wont.
As was well documented at the time, I threw 100% of my support behind Steve Bruce and despite the current circumstances would still love to do so. However, with a heavy heart it must be said, I am beginning to have some very grave reservations about his continued tenure-ship of the clubs team affairs.
We have all been down this route on far too many occasions (discussing the respective managers position so early into a reign) and on nearly all previous occasions with some justification. Buxton, Crosby, Butcher, Sgt Wilko and Sbragia etc, all deserved the critique but with Bruce, it is definatley with a very heavy and saddened heart indeed that I find myself depressingly asking some very searching questions.
Unprecedented financial investment; unprecedented boardroom stability; a former SAFC football legend for a chairman; top quality international players at his disposal (most of them his players) and above all universal fans support have still seen us plummet into the depths of the relegation dog fight. 35 points on January 1st and a European challenge very much on the cards and now 38 points on April 10th is an absolute disgraceful position to find ourselves in. Humiliated into admitting we are a total shambles yet again after building up our hopes (for the umpteenth time in my case) that we may have at last turned the corner of being able to compete at this level, have all turned to dust again.
I do hope Niall shuts his mouth now about fans turning up or not as he now looks and sounds extremely foolish at best and downright obnoxious at worst, having a go at some fans for not coming to watch this garbage week in week out when 40,000 still turn up to be ritually made twats of home and away.
Since January and the shock announcement that DB wanted away, the whole thing has disintegrated into farce. What has happened behind the scenes that we are being kept in the dark about because trust me, something catastrophic has occurred to effect this swiftest of demises. Quinny knows the game is up and rushed a contract through for Bruce to sign. I know of not one fan that was clamouring for that contract to be offered or signed and indeed the consensus of opinion in my circles was the close season would be the correct time. However, mirroring the Capello contract rush, Bruce has been secured in his financial status, by a chairman who is just far too cosy with his manager. Quinny is a good man but far too soft and nice to be a chairman of a club. In any other club in Europe, given the same scenario, the manager would have been asked to leave. Its all well and good to support the incumbent manager but there has to be chinks of light to aim for and I am sorry to say, I saw none at Man City and worse still, none at home to WBA yesterday not to mention the previous 8 or 9 weeks debarcles.
WBA totally played us off the park in that 2nd half and thoroughly deserved to win. A relegation haunted club, coming to our home ground and totally outplaying us for 45 mins. Indeed, if it were not for the impressive Mignolet, we would have conceded 8 or 9 last week and probably another 2 or 3 yesterday. That is unacceptable.
Its clear to a blind man that Bruce has lost the players and the dressing room. Nothing he is saying either publicly or behind closed doors (so much for the supposed clear the air talks this week with the players), is even remotely sinking in. Those players don't care if Bruce is manager next week or not. Take Muntari (please take him someone), a triple winner of the Scudeto, Italian Cup and a European Champions winner in one year, star player for Ghana at Wembley the other week and yet a total waste of space at SAFC. How can that be? Granted he has played with better standard players but he looks more like Shaun Cunnington than a European Cup winner in a red and white shirt and dont get me started on Sessegnon. Has any player looked more busy and yet offered so little than him? Did Brcue actually have him watched at all? The pace of the game has just passed him by so why chuck the lad straight in at the deep end. I think it has pissed off some of the other lads who had got us to 35 points before they came along and caused a deep split in the camp. They dont play like a team at all and thats the management team to blame not the players.
Quinny may have the decision taken out of his hands because Ellis Short made it very clear 2 years ago that Bruce had one major remit and that was to stop the club being a yo yo one and not be involved in an annual relegation scrap. Bruce has failed now 2 years running and that's the reason fans are staying away not pubs showing the game. Its the pile of dog-**** they are being asked to pay to watch that keeps them at bay. I swear that were I not already a season ticket holder, it would be an easy decision at the minute to choose not to go to the game and spend more time with my family on weekends, especially on warm sunny days like yesterday. I am just pig sick of always coming back to this situation at SAFC. Continually been force fed promises of jam tomorrow are our dietary nightmare and its a diet I am sick of having to eat. I'm on my 6th or 7th 5 year plan and unfortunately, it may be my last. Like so many others I speak to, yet another relegation will be my last and even if we do escape this time by the width of a gnats foreskin, do I really believe we have any kind of positive momentum at all to take into next season?
Bruce is unfortunately a dead man walking which ever way the season pans out. Will Ellis Short open up his cheque book for Bruce again to spend ã20m or ã25m, just to be a relegation haunted club in 2011/12? Absolutely not. Therefore, he will be forced to get in sub standard players or loan ones who have little or no impact. If we had gone down fighting yesterday I would be fiercely defending Bruce and urging everyone to get behind the manager but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing at all to get behind. Bruce looked like a man who knew the game was up in those last 10 mins or so and in the interviews afterwards. Flushed of face and down in manner he looked like a man waiting for the inevitable call from the Chairman. Whether it is at the behest of the owner or the Chairman himself, that call has to come. Bruce has lost the dressing room and he knows it.
With Matin O Neill sitting at home watching old re-runs his past glories on Video/DVD, there is an obvious answer which would cost us nothing more than Bruce's severance package and he would have 6 games to ensure we are safe from the drop and then offer something we can galvanise around for the season to come next. To simply offer the line that changing managers isn't always the answer I offer this thought. Not to change things now will result in a desperately sad and ultimately very damaging season of horror next time out. Will that put bums on seats? Will that move the club forward? Will that ensure Short doesn't lose interest? We are once again the butt of jokes and ridicule from our bretheren up at NE1 and who can blame them. The club talked big and got us all excited and have then deflated us all quicker than a blow up doll in a sad Benwell bedsit.
Massive decisions to be made in this next 48 hours and I only hope and pray someone at the club has the balls to actually make them before the whole thing collapses around our feet. Lets not kis ourselves everything will be okay. Without this change, they wont.
An excellent read any some very good points raised Cest. 
