I assume the posters who criticize Bruce do so because the manager's son kept them away from their childhood teams, otherwise there's no reason to fault a good squad player.
Seems like Bruce is doing OK like Ivy Tiger says. Can only go on what he's done for us and been mostly very solid. Rather him than Mcshambles anyway.
Simpson's goal was correctly ruled out. If you challenge an outfield player when you've no chance of getting to the ball first then it's a foul, why should it be different with a keeper? There are times when keepers are overprotected but this wasn't one of them. In a similar situation I've gone as far as saying an opposition striker (Morison or Holt I think it was) should be booked for making a challenge on our keeper when he couldn't get to the ball before the keeper had caught it. The actual incident is irrelevent though, after the fuss the Bolton players kicked up about Faye's goal despite it being a perfectly good tackle there was no way we'd get another one when the keeper had been challenged. The directive for referees to follow by the way is that if the keeper has gone up for the ball with his hands above his head, if there's any contact with the keeper before the ball then it's a foul so that players don't intentionally go in to hurt them when they can't protect themselves. The referee who told me did think it was giving them too much protection, but that's what they're told to do.
There appeared to be about 3 or 4 good tackles that the ref called back and the advantage that was called back after about 15 seconds when Bolton had wasted their chance was a disgrace.
Bruce had his best game yet. His block just after our 3rd goal was very important and he was a bit better on the ball than in his first few games too. He still needs to stop hitting it long so much but defensively he had a good game and that's the main thing. That said, I don't see why people like OLM and roseniorsgranisfromhull should be forced to praise him. He wasn't a standout player today. He did his job and did it well, but there are 9 other players who did their jobs too and don't have their own threads. I don't think anyone's disputing that the ref's do as their told. The thing is that what they're told is wrong when it comes to these challenges on the keeper. How many perfectly good goals have we had disallowed under those circumstances in the last few years? If the ball is in the air and two jump up to get it, miss it and bump it isn't a foul, there's no special rules to make it any different for a keeper are there? So why does he get the benefit of the doubt?
Because if it wasn't a default foul dirty players like Holt would go in and give the keeper a dig in the ribs in an effort to injure them and pass it off as a 50:50. When outfield players go up against each other they have the use of their arms to protect their body, a keeper reaching into the air for the ball doesn't. We haven't had any perfectly good goals ruled out, the challenges we're making are outside the rules whether we agree with the rules or not and are correctly penalised. Complaining about it disallowing "perfectly good goals" is no different to McDermott last year complaining about the Brady goal being allowed. Both cases the rule is known in advance, if you break it you can't complain it's not fair.
Do you not remember the Windass against Charlton incident? Or even worse the Barmby/Freidel one? They were most definitely perfectly good goals. In both cases, the attacker was actually fouled by the 'keeper, but the ref didn't have the balls to give either of the correct decisions (goal or penalty) so just gave a defensive free kick.
To be fair to those who criticise Bruce (who i was one before today) is that before today's game he was mainly at fault for a goal in every single game he has played so before today anyone who said he has played solid didn't actually go to those games. However today he was superb and i even had a go at someone sat behind me for criticising him, if it wasnt for two last minute blocks who knows. His defensive work was superb today. His job is not to ping balls forty yard passes to Aluko so not sure why he gets criticised for that, the midfield should really take it off the defence. The reason i think he gets so much criticism bar those goals before in previous matches is the fact that Cooper could do exactly the same job he can.
We're getting better every game which is what you expect with a few new players and new manager.. There'll always be something for the glass half empty fans to moan about though. Bruce is a solid defender. The fact he is ex Leeds and the managers son is the main reason people whinge about him - seems like on the pitch he is doing well.
You're crackers, with his new haircut Paul McTorres is bound to be world class in every department. He should be starting every game in a free role!
Oh, he was!! He was stood throwing up on the half way line when Faye scored, i've never seen anything like it, I can't think of a single possible benefit to forcing yourself to be sick during a game of football but clearly he does.
Have to say on what I've seen this season and when Cooper played towards the end of last season, Bruce is better. There's always going to be claims of nepotism but he seems to be improving every game and he made a fantastic tackle yesterday to stop them from scoring.
He needs help to stop doing that its just wrong on so many levels- can't be good for his system or anything like that
