No it wasn't, It was in relevant to the OPs point, a point I was replying to directly. You know, it's hard to be friendly over here when you're being like this. Why not just not be sound for once in your life? Your attitude doesn't suit as it's clearly relevant to the op, you're just making yourself look a dumb arse. Can you be nice? Or you want to continue to derail this thread.
Well, ok then, as you seem to keep bringing it up, Simpson aside, most of them were pretty prolific strikers; Altidore was young and banging them in for his country, Graham had a decent season at Swansea (12 in his first season) and didn't get a look in at Sunderland, Proschwitz had 17 in 33 before his move to us, while Sagbo had 25 in 99 appearances. These players are scoring goals, they just seem to stop scoring goals as soon as they come to us. Jelavic spent half a season with us last year and finished as joint top scorer. He already had 4 in 6 before getting injured. He's one game back from injury and you're already complaining that we don't have enough firepower upfront, despite the fact that the bloke who's never played in England before, let alone the PL, has also managed 3 Premier League goals in 8 games. If both our strikers keep up that ratio, Hernandez would finish with 12 and Jelavic would end up on around 27 for the season (injury to Jelavic aside). How is that not good enough for you? I mean what do you want? 2 goals a game from each of them? A Lionel Messie-esque performance everytime out? By your own curse ruling, any striker we bring to the club will stop scoring goals anyway, so why waste the money? Aside from giving Meyler a picture of a Spitfire and a rolex in January, I don't really think we need to do anything transfer-wise urgently, maybe a back-up goalkeeper with Harper retiring and make Ben Arfa a permanent deal. We probably could do with another striker as cover, but it's not urgent and I'd have thought a RB to cover Elmo would be money better spent. As I said, Meyler out; we have 3 LB's out on loan, perhaps consider selling two of them (Dudge and Figueroa) and using it to cover the midfield with some extra quality options from the bench. But that's what I'd do, I don't predict we will see much happening in January.
13 games isn't getting a look in is it? That's not even half a PL season. He signed in January 2013, almost 2 years ago, since then he's been loaned out to three different clubs. My point was that Brucey signed him based on his performances for Swansea, not your lot.
It was a sarcastic remark, it really didn't warrant a response. I thought you spent enough time on here to recognise my sense of humour by now.
The last thing we need is any more midfield players, we've got them coming out of our ears. We definitely need another striker, it's our only real issue, if Jelavic is out we're completely screwed.
He's been an excellent squad player for us, but we could do better. Elmo and Ben Arfa were decent on the right yesterday, but neither is a defender. A better right back would complement Robertson on the left and give us a really strong back 4, (and give Elmo more opportunity to attack).
Rosenior's a good player, he never lets us down, there's no way we're going to look at bringing in a right back.
Don't know you that well, it's hard to pick up on sarcasm in the written word but fair play, my apologies fella.
He's good but he isn't phenomenal, our options from the bench are just that, they're alright. A CM from the bench wouldn't be bad, if we ship out Meyler and Quinn (who I think is most effective at wide left anyway), we don't have much in the way of cover. I think another striker would be a good shout, if only as cover for our current two.
I agree that we definitely do need another decent striker but as for midfielders, we've got plenty of predominantly wide and attacking midfielders but we could do with a good defensive midfielder. Livermore's more box to box, Meyler really doesn't look up to this level and Huddlestone can be easily bypassed as we saw yesterday by slick one touch passing. I would like to see Chester given a run as a deep lying defensive midfielder alongside Huddlestone, so he's got someone next to him who can pass it but then we're struggling to fit everyone in again once Diame's fit. It would have been interesting to see how we'd have done yesterday once we went down to 10 if we'd brought Chester on in front of the back four rather than Meyler.
I agree, I have always thought Chester could play in a defensive mid-field roll. Certainly when Meyler came on it just looks slow and ponderous.
Meyler looked way off the pace yesterday, but he hasn't had much game time this season so maybe he could be excused that. Last season he was a useful centre mid, and the fact he had a goal in him was more than a nice bonus. He just doesn't look fit to me. Then again,if he isn't going to get the game time,then he's never going to get the match sharpness every player needs,so yeah it's unfortunate for the lad,as i actually think he is up to this league,but he'll probably have to leave us. I think that's a shame because he did have a touch of the Ashbee about him,and that's something many (including me) believe we are missing.
Chester can play DM, I belive he did a few times under Pearson, which is why it was all the more frustrating when Bruce kept playing his lad there.
If we had Augero, Diego Costa and Falcao, you'd still criticise our attack. You're a bit odd, aren't you?
The season prior to Steve Bruces's sacking, 2010/2011, this was his Sunderland record.... May 2011: P38 Won 12, Draw 11, Lost 15 = 47 points This means Sunderland went undefeated in 60% of their games, W31%, D29%, L40%. Every manager goes through a bad run but if they come good in the end who cares? So you're saying he deserved the sack with that record are you? I'd be more than happy to get 40 points this season which would normally mean premiership survival.
I've explained why I felt he had to go, take the time to read it, you took the time to quote it and respond to it, you might as well do the first part. You're being incredibly naive with how you view that season for Sunderland. 10 of those defeats were in the last 15 games, we were in free fall and it continued into the following season. He not only built his own team, he had the chance to evolve it which is where it all went wrong. Bad results at great expense. It's a results based industry powered by cash. Hence why he was sacked. It's really not rock science. Oh, and then there's fact I saw most of those matches and the Football was shocking.
I find it relevant to point out that Bruce's expenditure at Sunderland was before the existing premier league tv deal was in place and therefore his figures would compare favourably to today's market. I have forgotten the amounts in difference between the current and previous tv deals, but I think his total spend over his 2 and a bit seasons in Sunderland would be approximately £130m in today's climate. It's a lot of money. He did deserve the sack at Sunderland no doubt.
