A brilliant post. People slating any of our players is a ****ty thing to do, especially those who give 100% every time (again, "we support them as long as they try" proven to be bollocks) but to slate a reserve is just ridiculous. If Bruce was playing Jnr every week you might have cause to criticise the manager - not the player - but he isn't. Done, end of. He's there for when others can't play and he's an able stand-in who doesn't ****ing whinge or grumble like certain others. In case anyone hasn't noticed, we're Hull City, we're in our 3rd ever top flight season and we're £80m in debt, we can't afford top quality reserves.
We're paying him £10-15k a week, we could be paying that for decent player, no other Premier League club would let him anywhere near their first team.
You've no idea what we're paying him, as the 33% variable in your estimate shows. You're probably in the right ball park... That's the going rate for an EPL back-up player. I reckon he'd make the Burnley squad, who are the club most alike us in the top flight next season. I know you don't like him and you've always had a thing about him being here but like it or not he played a massive part in us getting promotion.
He did, I think he should be at a Championship club helping someone else get promoted, he's simply not good enough for the Premier League.
Again then, blame the manager who thinks that he is good enough. Alex playing and getting a new contract is no reason for anyone to criticise him.
He surprised everyone against Liverpool and had a huge amount of praise on here. Like other people have said we just have to go with it and hope he can surprise us again. If any match needed the whole team to be working for each other and giving their all its May 17th and as long as every one of them can walk away from that game saying they did their absolute best and are practically on their knees then I won't complain.
Slagging off your own players does no good what so ever. So I agree with the above post. I wonder how far Faye is off starting a game ?
Bruce did nothing particularly wrong after he came on yesterday, and as others have said Davies had an appalling game. Alex did at least try to make a couple of runs into their half, which no-one else seemed willing to do. That said, I'd probably prefer McShane and Davies for the final if it's a back four. Aluko is a bigger loss than Chester. Sagbo up front is no bad thing. We could have done with him properly up front yesterday instead of stuffed out on the wing when he did come on.
I don't disagree with any of that, but that is a matter for the manager and the boardroom. Regardless of who he is or what contract he's on, I don't see the point in describing him playing in the FA Cup final as a joke, when the only reason he'd get anywhere near the FA Cup Final squad is due to injuries to others.
Bruce lost his man for the third goal and gave him a free header, but he certainly wasn't alone, it was a comedy of errors.
It is obviously a matter for the manager, but we're always going to have injuries and we need our second string to be able to step in when required, without weakening the team. Otherwise Peter won't go...
to me it looked like Bruce shirked responsibility for the marking Wiemann as he was in the best position for it and pointed to Davies to mark him , neither did our defence has looked nervous for quite some time .
Bruce is similar to when we had Gerrard in that he gets stuck in but tries ridiculous long passes, normally straight to the opposition. He'll be useful as cover next season as he has this, but just tell him to give it short and concentrate on marking better. We needed Aluko yesterday to try something different - crosses were never going to undo Villa from deep. Will miss him more in Cup Final than a defender I think.
I don't think Harper is helping with that, there was another occasion yesterday when he didn't give a clear call so Davies hoofed it out for a corner, Greegsy is much better at organising the defence and telling them exactly what to do
Not sure who was marking who but it was Davies who failed to challenge Weimann when he was perfectly positioned to do so. He was like a rabbit in the headlights for much of the game.,
It was a ball crossed into the box at head height and Bruce was in front of Weimann, he had to deal with it, Davies couldn't deal with it from behind him.