Match Day Thread Toon v Oxford United / Oxford v Toon

We will draw liverpool away next

 

Hopefully. Liverpool are playing kids.

 

I just dont get this cup run nonsense!! Win it yes , but a cup 'run'??

 

Who's saying that?
I wanna win the ****er.

 

All i hear is fans saying I want a cup run.. we need 40 points!! Its all very well having a cup run, but being in the prem matters and a cup run doesnt...

 

Which fans are you talking about? I want ****ing names.....you hear me.....NAMES I TELLS YA !!

A cup run would be nice but not at the expense of premier league safety. It doesn't matter anyway man, we've got that many injuries that SB can only play a weakened team anyways so by the time we are out our crocks will be back in action ready for a charge to the 40 point line.

We only need another 10 points, 3 wins will probably be enough from our remaining 14 games, piss easy league this is man !!

 

Tbh we have been ****... we must beat norwich at home..

 

So was McNamee

 

To be fair I was 6/7 when we last reached cup finals and remember them vividly, especially how **** we were both times. Also the Europa League semi-final and that run under Pardew still lives long. To have the memories at all I guess is a bonus, imagine if we ever actually won something.

League has to take priority though.

 

Class, might just stay in the bar til the 93rd minute

 

Na, why spend over the odds in this window for the sake of finishing 7th or 8th instead of 10th or 11th. Might as well soldier on with the reserves in the shop window for the Summer Sales.
Training ground pace for the returnee first teamers on Saturday, easy win, nice draw, and suddenly the smell of Wembley starts to filter oop North.
Did i just read 44,000 tickets sold already for Saturday? I will go 7-0 at a canter.

 

Whats the point though?

 

Nah can't see them doing that. They were the realists on here it turns out. I can't believe anyone would think:

A: The football has got much better under Bruce (maybe slightly less negative)
B: Still think Rafa is a God when Bruce, with all due respect to him, is proving at least as capable (though the table does convincingly suggest he's doing slightly better than that)

 

I've said elsewhere, they're two different managers - Rafa about discipline and tactical rigidity, Bruce about atmosphere, man management and togetherness - which have yielded quite similar results, because of the common Ashley denominator.

Both have discovered they have a very limited squad bereft of ambition. Rafa approached it by simply drilling them to within an inch of their life to scrape results in the 1st half of the season, then finish stronger 2nd half. Bruce quickly - to his credit - discovered being attacking or having possession simply doesn't work when you're working with untested kids, god-awful players and signings you never asked for. So he switched to managing the club's attitude and asking the players to just play out of their skin, defend for their lives, which in terms of results has also worked. Someone like Mourinho would do well here, someone like Klopp or Poch would fail miserably.

The common theme is a complete lack of support, from the owner down. Facilities are poor, scouting is limited, structure is threadbare, and everything is a knock on effect. We still adhere to purple players rule, which is why you end up with good players like St Max or Willems being replaced by Atsu and, erm, nobody. We desperately need a change of owner, as I don't believe anybody - from Guardiola to Carver - can achieve anything worthwhile at this club. Rafa, and now Bruce, performed/are performing their own miracles, in their own way. I was probably too harsh on Bruce. He seems like a genuinely decent bloke and it's worth a shot to try the nice approach with Ashley, see if it works. But then we've been there with Hughton (nice bloke), Pardew (nice to Ashley, at least) and it got us ****ing nowhere. So the clues are there - we're not moving anywhere, playing any better football and eventually will be relegated again with Ashley in charge.

 

Pouchy where did you dissappear to!?

Well it's odd because I have seen them do just that.

Posters who moaned about the negative football under Rafa are now desperately clawing around to say this Stoke-lite football under Brucie is more enjoyable, rather than just admit it's still as ****. These were the same people heralding a new attacking age with the change in manager. It's almost like there's a bias in favour of Newcastle's prodigal son with these 'realists' as you call them, each to their own and all that but its worth noting.

Brucie is doing a good job to be fair, as much as I dislike him and didn't expect it. A lot like Pardew or 'Wor Sun God Rafa' did a good job. But the football hasn't changed, how you can call all your defenders out-scoring your attackers slightly less negative football is beyond me.

 

Fair comment. Different managers, same outcome. My argument with the Brucie style is concerns with longevity since it relies on work ethic and less tactics, especially as we're fully committing back to the 'sell em high' strategy that ensures players aren't bought on mentality as much as their potential (Joelinton). As we've seen, Bruce won't realistically say no to whatever is picked for him.

He is doing well at this stage of the season though so got to say fair play on that front. Just think when that defence eventually goes it's going to be hard to recreate and we're totally reliant on it. Before we got that set of players in we invested so terribly in that area we had to force an ageing Coloccini to stay. Fernandez's contract is up at the end of the season I believe and I wouldn't put it past us to sell Schar/Dub if teams are interested. If this happens they'll all be replaced with talented but inexperienced players whose mentality and ability to fit in to the team will be near irrelevant, which was the downfall that led to Schteve's season. It all ultimately goes back to Ashley, but we're stuck with him forever and there's no chance he'll change. Two relegations have taught him nothing. Bruce might do a Pardew and paper over the cracks regardless, I just don't see it going like that over his 3 year contract the more changes are made to the squad.

 

Spot on. Under Ashley, relegation is when, not if. Very similar to Pardew time, for Cabaye read Bentaleb, for HBA read ASM. They will carry us a while but all are bought with one eye on a £50m+ sale eventually. ASM most likely to attract that, I’d agree Dubs and Schar both most saleable right now. This is the crux of why Ashley is such a buffoon. If he just allowed players to be brought in on ability, the knock on effect of better football and apparent ambition would help young players grow, help the value of others and ultimately be much more profitable than his current approach of trying to find some golden nugget somewhere. He seems oblivious to the massive scouting networks at Man C, Liverpool, Man U, etc, somehow thinking he’s going to sneak one last them. If anyone else in the world thought Joelinton was a £40m striker we wouldn’t have him, simple as that.

I reckon when Ashley trusts someone, he goes balls deep. He’s there now with Charnley and Nickson, and they seem to curry infinite favour no matter what they do. But he’s also frequently mugged off, like with Tony Jimenez. In this case, I think Nickson has completely mugged off Ashley and clearly something ****ing funny has gone on with Joelinton.

Honestly Ashley genuinely seems like a bit of a thick twat. I’ll never understand how he got the money he’s got.

 

I'm one of the Rafa cynics, and indeed was looking forward to a different style which is my major gripe with him. There are bits and pieces of change, most particularly some players clearly playing with more freedom.
As far as 'style' goes, all the time the team is half full with reserves like Atsu, not much will change.
We shall see what happens next season, in the meantime, there is a buzz about results and a positivity about the future. Virtually safe from any relegation battle, a cup run happening, and a couple of new faces to look forward to.
Imagine where we would be if our forwards had been doing their job this season. I'm loving the points tally and the absence of negativity from all internal aspects of the club.
Clearly, Bruce has never managed a big club but he has a very solid record. It will be interesting to see what he achieves here. I don't see him doing a Leicester, but I do think he will do OK.

 

Generally agree.

I also believe the talk regarding Bruce's record was unfounded, as a man that generally manages penniless football clubs he has overachieved with practically all of them. I think Bruce specifically did a fantastic job at Birmingham, Wigan and Hull, where he took clubs with almost no chance of any real success and made them competitive and difficult teams to face.

Those clubs did not achieve any success when they removed Bruce, and Sunderland floundered around for years without ever reaching anything close to what he achieved there. Sunderland also sold all his best players, consistently.

I am not surprised he's doing a solid job, it's what he's done almost his entire career.

 

Genuine question- what formation do we play, and what are we likely to play under Bruce?