Unless the manager tells the players to start the game slow and be outplayed how can it be the manager who is to blame ? That is the stick that some people use. Once the players cross the line it is the players and ONLY the players who are to blame when it all goes wrong. Last night proved it. The players themselves after last night said that they had been poor at the start. Steve Bruce does not send his players out like that. The true fans know that. Look, I have no issue with anyone being critical of anything when it is needed. But constructive criticism more than what some post on here. Forget Hattie as he is just a wum. The Bruce Out crap is just that. He is a long way from the exit door for sure.
But the players play in the formation that the manager sets out and uses their tactics. He picks the players, decides when to make the substitutions and who to bring on and off. He's culpable even if the players don't perform. I'd love to have been sat next to you at half time and heard your reasoning as to why we played so badly. Or when 70 minutes ticked by and we still hadn't changed a floundering team around. If this was a marketing company and the board had assembled an expensive, crack team of people to achieve a task and a manager to oversee them and the team kept underperforming, do they get rid of the people who are good at the job but not doing well, or the bloke who's job it is to get the best out of that team? If it's the manager's job to get his team playing to the best of their ability and they aren't doing that, then he's failing, isn't he? Regardless of the results. Think of where we're trying to get to; do you honestly think that playing like that would get us anywhere in the Premier League? You can point to the league table all you like, but face it, we're playing like crap with players that would easily get into a Premier League team. It's like watching Celtic fail to win the SPL, you wonder how on Earth they've managed it. The exact same scenario has today panned out at Chelsea, do you blame the players for Mourinho's sacking, or the fact he couldn't get them playing the way they are capable? Same players that won him the league last season, so what's changed? You could say "well we got the 3 points", but so ****ing what? So we should be doing against a **** Bolton side and an indifferent, managerless Reading team. If it was a one off, or even twice, I could forgive it, chalk it off to experience and move on. But it was the first load of games and now the last 4. That isn't the players, it's Steve Bruce. He's the one who's in the firing line because he's ultimately responsible and it's no good claiming 'true fans' are right behind him, because I pay money to watch my team and have done for the last 10 years (before that my Dad paid) and have followed us all over the country. I'm as truer fan as any you'll see, I just don't see through black and amber tinted specs. Now the fans are saying we need to spend in the transfer window, so how much extra do the Allams have to cough up? Another £10m? £20m? Why haven't the players we brought in during the Summer done enough? Honestly, I like Brucey, he's a likeable guy and he always says hi to me at Ferriby when the stiffs are playing. He's a good manager with a decent standing in the game. But if he can't motivate a side brimming with internationals and Premier League quality, then he's not going to get my kudos unless he works out a way to make us play to the best of our ability. I said all this earlier in the season and was lambasted for it, it's disappointing that it's taken our team's performances to drop off for people to really see it for themselves.
I always think he's quite funny, doesn't bother me at all, but he's not managed to keep a team in the PL. Maybe he could do the job, no one will ever know though as he won't get the chance!
"Or when 70 minutes ticked by and we still hadn't changed a floundering team around." Errm he allowed the team who played so **** in the first half to redeem themself. Which they did. We werent floundering for 70 minutes but 45. We got better second half. He was about to make changes but Hernandez scored on 62. We were then all over them, Akpom had come to life and it was the right thing to do to continue with them. For another 10 minutes. He then injected new life into the team. "Honestly, I like Brucey, he's a likeable guy and he always says hi to me at Ferriby when the stiffs are playing." Why dont you ask him?
This stuff about 'true fans' is cobblers of the highest order mate, contrast how Bruces team start matches with Peter Taylors teams for example, it is down to how the manager sets them up and the instructions he gives them! Blind faith is very dangerous indeed, it's what leads Lemmings to jump off cliffs...
Bruce only normally makes tactical changes around the 75th minute, it doesn't matter whether the game has got better or not. He's just not that flexible.
Last night he was about to bring Maloney and Snodgrass on - and then we equalized - so that was around the hour mark. Perhaps he's realized that players need a bit longer to have an impact on a game? Anyway as a result of us drawing level, the subs were held back for a further 10 minutes or so.
Sorry, if this seems long winded. In any sport, any profession without help you reach a plateau. Many of us will have gone through seminars, training courses to improve our skill set, bring something new to our jobs, as an example very good amateur athletes then get elevated to professional coaching etc. The problem with Steve Bruce, much like Van Gall on a bigger scale, is that he's a dinosaur and he reached his plateau in getting us promoted and to a Cup Final. He cannot change, he will not change and thats the dilemma. He did exactly the same at Sunderland, Birmingham and Wigan, when he goes into a club he seems to magic improvement which elevates him to messiah levels and it then evaporates. There are then some who actually see what is going on and there are others who say, Ooooo but he did this and did that, the best manager in out history. DID is the operative word and HISTORY is just that. This season he has had everything drop his way. The supposed exodus of players didn't happen (**** knows I wish some of them had). the players we sold for good money and at a profit weren't even bought by him. He got a freebie with Livermore and Snodgrass coming back, in short a squad which should be good enough to muller most teams in this league. Instead, we have a 'let's try and sneak a 1-0 philosophy' which is endemic in his mindset. I want to see us succeed, I want to be promoted this season of course I do, but if someone said, choice promotion under Bruce this season and he remains in charge, or someone new dynamic who will make our team exciting to watch for us and scary for the opposition and no promotion this year, i'd take the latter.
"Everything has gone his way?" Injuries to Dawson, Diamande, Davies, Meyler etc haven't gone his way, Unforseeable goalkeeping howler (which cost us 2points - and with which we would be joint top of the table) didn't go his way. Long term injuries to Snodgrass, Diame and to a lesser extent Jelavic - who missed a lot of games last season - were key factors in our relegation last season. Had those 3 been fit I honestly believe we would have stayed up. To say we should be able to muller most teams in the championship is a little disrespectful to the league - perhaps Middlesborough and Derby fans think the same about their club - but as we were reminded last night, even mid table teams have quality players and no game is easy. We do not have a right to win any game just by turning up - and any team who wins any league sometimes has to win ugly. I'd love to see us beat everyone 3-0 and play free flowing football every match, but the reality is teams are going to come to the KC and set themselves up to stop us playing - and we have to work out how to break those teams down. In your little scenario I'll take the former - Bruce in.
The whole 'we should be ripping teams apart' thing is obviously ridiculous. Most teams have at least three or four players who'd walk into our squad if not first team. It just seems like an incredibly undeserved arrogance based on literally nothing.
No, no, I thought everyone knew the story behind that. Lemmings do not commit suicide in mass by following their friends over the edge. The original video you are referencing was a Disney documentary called White Wilderness in which it later came out that they had pushed them off, or straight up tossed them over by putting the lemmings in buckets and then dumping them over the edge.
Agreed. We look clueless more often than not. Oh, aye, I forgot the unbroken run; doh. With this squad, even with the injuries, we should be romping it. Folk blame the players but I think they are more confused than us. I an starting to dislike the approach of Phelan, but more on that later. Look back at Newcastle in their promotion year and Brighton now, the common factor knows how to inspire a squad to play football. Chris Hughton is not as unsung as he once was, which is very good for football management.
It's based on the fact we have an absurdly good squad for this division. How many teams in this division can name a bench anything like as good as ours the other night? Jakupovic Hayden Huddlestone Diame Snodgrass Maloney Diomande. That's why we should be smashing teams.
