I read an article by Martin Samuel in the Mail yesterday about Mourinho, it had a fantastic line in it that can equally apply to our manager Steve Bruce. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...g-boss-Jose-Mourinho-sabbatical-save-him.html He is not just any employee. He is one who can command a salary of roughly £7million a year, and be considered worth every penny. So think of businesses in which the top performers are of that value to the company: banking, marketing, the financial sector, law. Let’s say a senior partner in a legal firm, an expert strategist, a brilliant mind, an employee who delivered year on year and whose gift could be measured in commissions worth millions, went through an erratic spell lasting several months. Would he be sacked? It is extremely unlikely. Elite performers in elite industries are not casually jettisoned. A sabbatical might be proposed; or simply a long break with the family. Spend a few months on a Caribbean beach, regroup, recharge, come back refreshed. Good businesses don’t burn bridges with their best talent; and that includes other departments at football clubs. Would Abramovich be prepared to lose Marina Granovskaia, his senior advisor of 18 years’ standing, brought over from Sibneft, if she endured a drop in performance, for whatever reason? The line is: Why is loss of form, or direction, only considered irreversible in the field of coaching? I've backed Bruce consistently since he's been here. I was as disappointed as anyone when we were relegated but took a view Bruce is a good manager and he's building something here, he wants to be here and isnt looking for another payday somewhere else. All through the summer he got stick, right up to the Ipswich game we had people abusing his ability/tactics/motivation. So why is it not allowed for a manager, not a novice manager either, to have a dip in form?
One of the hardest things to manage is expectation. Predicting failure is fairly easy, especially if 'failure' includes not winning in the right way, or some other vague concept of it.
I wouldn't have called Bruce's decline a dip. He finally looks to have beaten his phobia of enemy players and is starting to arrest the slide, after almost 2 years. We'll see how that turns out long term. If he can guide us to victory in every game up to the Man City game and then put out a strong team against them that can give them a game and plays with the desire to actually get a result (see Boro at old Trafford last night) rather then be piss scared and field a defensive heavy team that barely ventures out of its own half and plays with the hope it can protect a 0-0 (see hull city from January 14 to September 15) the ill be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and back him til he goes on his next downward spiral or we win promotion, whichever comes first.
Relegation was a fair measure of success or failure, PL survival was the target he was given, it reflected the salary he was on, there was nothing vague about it. The Cosy FA Cup run (and eventual fail) was an exception, dire, uninspired football, poor man-management, round pegs in square holes was the norm. As a PL manager I did not see a dip in form, I think he performed to the best of his abilities - he will do that again.
It's an odd comparison to Mourinhos advisor, given that he did get rid of an (apparently) very skilled and well respected club doctor simply to make a ridiculous point, when it was his own player's fault for pretending to be injured anyway. As for Bruce, it's simple. At this level with our squad and wage bill our expectation has to be automatic promotion. If we fail to achieve that, particularly if it's down to a lack of attacking ambition and intent, then he'll have majorly ****ed up. In general I agree about the dip in form thing. It's the same with players who are world beaters one minute and nothing the next. It doesn't apply to Bruce's situation very well though.
The issue most of us had with Bruce was his negative approach and poor selections were costing us points, while serving up dire football. He seems to have addressed this in the past couple of weeks, so well done Brucey, please keep it up. I don't think most people have unrealistic expectations, they just get annoyed at the manager repeating obvious mistakes week after week.
The day we were relegated last season, the backing the fans gave Steve Bruce was loud and clear. I don't think he has anything worry about in that department. There's a noisy minority on here but the support he gets at games is plenty.
But there's no allowance though is there. A lot queried Odubajo, me included, but look at him now. He needed time to settle in, he was a steady 6/10 now look at him. Bruce didnt say dont go forward dont be confident and attack. He allowed him to settle in and flourish. Now he looks fantastic.
I think there's a key difference in that a poorly performing Banker/Lawyer etc. does not have as much of a direct effect on the success of the firm as a Football Manager does. A firm can often carry a poorly performing employee but it is much more difficult for a Football Club to carry a poor manager. There is also a much higher risk to failure in football. Perform poorly for a couple of months and you can be relegated, losing a huge amount of your income. Can you really say that changing the manager was not successful for West Brom/Sunderland/Newcastle etc. in recent years? Teams that have looked destined for relegation suddenly had a boost in form which kept them up. Although I think Bruce should have been sacked long ago for completely underperforming I an extremely glad to see that he seems to have finally turned things around. It will be interesting to see if he can maintain that and then if he is trusted to be a Premier League manager if we go up.
Agreed. Although if I was in charge, I would put Steve on gardening leave after drawing Man City in the cup, giving his temporary successor time to assess the squad and decide on his best line up for the cup game. We know Bruce will park the bus with 9 defenders and a winger playing up front on his own. I want to win the ****ing thing and win it in style.
What OLM said. It's the repeating the same mistakes, mismanaging injuries in the same way, and never seemingly learning from them, when it's clear as day to some of us what needs to be done. He's doing it now, and lo and behold we're getting our best performances in a fair while.
Thats the way it should be. At some clubs there's constant hate for the manager at games and they're the perennially struggling clubs. This is the place to moan about tactics and stuff. If everyone uses outlets like this to vent frustration but backs Bruce at games, that's fine by me.
I went to the man utd game last night with some clients and north ferriby would have beaten them last night they were terrible Middlesbrough were not much better, facing man city is a little different
Well this certainly wasnt the case last season away at Man City. We pushed up the field and pegged them back, nulifying their attackers. We created few chances but we took them and should have won the game if it wasnt for a poorly timed Huddlestone challenge. It was far from 9 defenders and a winger up front. Apart from Ramirez, McShane and Brady we have the remaining 8 players available. I suppose the question would be asked if those players were still here and coming back from injury would you swap any of our current league 11 for them. On current form I would think not.
