Dress it up any way you like, the fact is that in the past month's game our form reads W/0 D/3 L/3 and you don't get promoted dropping that many points.
We can't rely on the defence to keep a clean sheet all season. Our defensive record is generally very good but over the last month or so we haven't done the business at the other end.
According to the poodles on here, we should have got rid when lost at Leeds and Rotherham. Good job we dint. We would have had to sack his successor by now too
Yeah, we could be in Burnley's position with a manager with some better tactical nous. Heaven forbid.
No, but since that defeat he's changed tactics and altered his team. We've just played the same players in the same formation. They're now pissing it and we're out of form and very unlikely to get automatic promotion. They've spent nothing near as much as we have on their squad, they've just got a better manager who can get the best out of the players he has.
The fat lady hasn't finished singing. If we get promoted it doesn't matter how many points we've dropped over the last 6 games.
Indeed, but we need to start winning to have any chance of promotion and we need to start doing so fairly sharpish.
There is nothing in our performances or moral which suggests we won't beat the teams we have coming up. They are not as good as Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday, Brighton, Forest or Birmingham. They won't play the anti-football that MK Dons did, which gives us a good chance of getting the wins we need.
It appears as though the ****ness of the opposition isn't the issue (evidenced by failing to beat the likes of MK Dons and Rotherham), we just aren't gelling as a team or performing to anywhere near the standards we are capable of. Every team in this division presents its own challenge, we just need to stop doing the same thing every week because (unsurprisingly - that'll happen when you don't change your tactics) teams have worked out how we play and know that if our wide players and only goalscorer are stifled, we offer nothing going forward. So pack the midfield, double up on Hernandez and boom, that's us beaten.
To be fair, everything is just fine, we've played good teams, the ones coming up are ****e in comparison, going backwards in the league is just dandy; especially when games are getting in short supply for everyone, they'll all do ****e, we'll pick up and no one will even consider bringing that bus we can't get around. In Bruce We Trust. arf.
Except it isn't. Not many teams have beaten us despite our tactics being the same all season. Any competent football scout would know all our threat comes down the wing. However, despite knowing that not every team has the ability to nullify the way we play. The league table shows, with the exception of Derby County, we will be playing teams that have conceded more goals than they've scored. Our whole approach is based on not conceding and getting the first goal. If we score first we usually win. If that happens enough times before the end of the season we'll get automatic promotion.
Martin O'Neill? Oscar Garcia? Chris Coleman? Bob Bradley (if he didn't want too much money)? Avram Grant? Garry Monk? Brendan Rodgers? Zola? All have had successes and play good, free flowing attacking football, I'd say all of them were feasible targets(maybe not O'Neill if we don't go up) should Bruce leave. I have more if you'd like?
Your comment about 'our whole approach' sums it up well recently, we need more than one approach as it stands, maybe Bruce has figured out a plan B in the last two weeks