Get the **** in! Best news I've had for ages! He might not play against Chelsea now! please log in to view this image
I know no one likes him in midfield, but if the season started tomorrow he'd have to be in the squad wouldn't he? In fact it'd be a toss up between him and Koren to start.
We could do a lot worse than Bruce. He does a Job and could certainly put a shift In against some of the big boys when we need to addopt a more defensive approach.
This is actually a WC qualifier, as it was originally postponed. Still ridiculous timing though. FIFA and UEFA don't know what the **** they are doing.
I know you don't rate him, but who else is there? Quinn and Meyler would be nailed on and the third spot would surely be between those two. It's academic because we'll have to sign someone else, probably more than one in fact. I agree, it's been exaggerated how bad he was in midfield. The first time it was tried was Milwall away, everyone was shocked to hear it but by all accounts he did really well and we won the game 1-0. Since then he was played there a few more times, and wasn't great against Watford in a game where we obviously needed to keep possession but overall I don't think he was that bad and that's why he kept getting picked, not because his dad's the manager.
You've answered your own question there, I'm sure Brucey is well aware that his lad is not good enough to be in a Premier League starting XI. At least I bloody hope so. As he was played ahead of Corry Evans and Tom Cairney, I think that's exactly the reason. I don't think any other manager, faced with the choice of those three players for a midfield role, would pick Alex, he simply can't pass.
The thing is, it looked like nepotism because we needed a defensive midfielder. Playing a CB in the DM role isn't rare, but he should've at least considered James Chester, who'd played there numerous times for us in the past under NP. As had Faye. Bruce did well in the Millwall game, but we weren't playing Millwall every week and once he became ineffective we didn't change it up. He can't pass a ball; it's all well and good being able to tackle and win the ball, but once you've got it you need to pass it about. Chester as a ball playing defender would have been the natural choice for the position. Or play Quinn, Koren/Cairney and Evans, with Meyler in the tackling role. It just struck me that when it looked like there wasn't a position for Alex Bruce to play in, SB created one and justified it by saying we needed a tackler, when we already had plenty of natural defensive midfielders at the club. I have no doubt that we're close to completing at least one deal, as we'll want to bed our new signing in using the friendly. That could be Tie Bi or somebody else. We now have just Meyler, Koren and Wilson that are natural CM in the first team and that's assuming that nobody picks up an injury in the meantime or during the Chelsea game. We could play Faye there, but I don't think he has the pace to play CM anymore. At least we know we can't play 4-5-1 as we don't have enough people!
Whatever way you look at it this is great news. At the very least Bruce is getting some game time, but after this he'll probably be too tired to play on Sunday in front of better, fresher players who aren't the manager son or better yet he could even get injured and not take up one of our own substitutions in a league match.
Why does AB get such a hard time on here? He isn't a CM player he'll probably admit that himself SB would prob admit that(which shows how much he rates the rest of the midfielders) When he's played centre back I carnt remember him doing enough wrong to get the **** he does. If koren got this much abuse on here there'd be a board revolt!!
We're only discussing playing him in midfield. Though I personally don't think he's capable of playing at CB at Premier League level either. There's actually quite a few on here who thinks Koren goes missing to much and shouldn't be in our starting XI this season either, though I'm not one of them.
I'm sure Alex only plays there because he's asked to, so it should be SB who gets the abuse as its his squad, so if we havent got a suitable defensive midfielder its hardly alex's fault is it? To be honest OLM he might struggle in the premiership but he won't be the only one I'd put Meyler, Quinn, fryatt in that category aswell. Unfortunately that is the squad we have a lot of average championship players and untill Bruce gets the resources and time to change that we'll have to live with these players and hope they do a job when needed.
Meyler and Quinn aren't average Championship players though. They were the 2 most present midfielders in our team that got promoted if you don't remember.. Bruce did a job vs. Millwall in CM, but it pissed me off when he was played there vs. Watford, when it was evident he couldn't do a job against a good footballing side. Next year, every team we play will be even better than Watford, so I hope SB doesn't think it'll a good idea to play his kid there.
Not Alex's fault though, he played were he was asked. Alex also played in a promotion side but he's a bag of **** apparently I do remember Quinn and myler played in a promotion side, that doesn't make them premiership players or even good championship players. Why couldn't myler get in a poor Sunderland team?
