Alright chaps just been reading a thread on a different forum and its quite scary when you look at the squad then with the quality we had compared to now. At the start of that 10/11 season Brucie added some young, quick and quality additions to the squad in Mignolet, a young Belgium goalkeeper with plenty of potential to be back up to one of the best when fit Craig Gordon, John Mensah the powerful CB who was absolutely outstanding the season before while on loan with us, Nedum Onuoha the highly rated defender from Manchester City, Danny Welbeck from Manchester United who it did take a few games to get going but once did was outstanding for us and not forgetting record signing Asamoah Gyan who had looked quite impressive in that summer's world cup. These were very good players being added to a very decent squad which contained Craig Gordon, Lee Cattermole, Kieron Richardson, Steed Malbranque and Darren Bent to name a few. Coming into January and we were fantastic we were 6th in the league and we were looking certainly like a top 8 finish would be on the cards, we entered January and then it started we lost Bent who handed in a transfer request staright after our 1-1 draw with Newcastle and he left going to Aston Villa for a fee reported to be around 18m rising to 24m. That was a big blow for the club but we had up until then looked really good with the partnership of Gyan and Welbeck up to and with Bent's poor run of form, maybe to do with him being unhappy at the club. Come the first of Feb and we had signed 2 quality footballers that we wouldn't of been able to attract before in the form of PSG's playmaker Stephane Sessegnon and Inter Milan's former Portsmouth star CM Sulley Muntari. It didn't really work out at all with Muntari, he never showed anything at all what he was capable of, the lad is probably the best CM we have had since we came back up but his attitude let him down. You have to give Steve Bruce credit he put together a very good team with a fantastic group of strikers but within 12months he destroyed it. No one knows the ins and outs of the football club, we had sold Bent in Jan and the summer came and Henderson was off for 20m a long with the loan players Welbeck, Onuoha, Mensah and Muntari all heading back to there parent clubs. Maybe Brucie asked the board to go out and spend 35-40m to replace these players with quality which we had seen arrive at the club with previous window in Sess and Muntari but maybe they said to him no, whatever happened we ended up signing average one paced footballers, Brucie's quick, powerful teams that got the ball forward quickly which had goals upfront had turned into a one paced very ordinary side. Westwood, Brown, O'Shea, Gardner, Vaughan, Larsson, Ji and Wickham were signed along with the loan signing of Bentdner and then a day or two after our transfer window closed our star man Asamoah Gyan decided to join Al Ain on a season long loan deal. Since then we have done **** all, that summer was crucial for us especially after the second half of the season when we dropped down the league dramatically due to injuries and suspensions, then was the time to put money into the club and add the quality, replace Bent and the loan players and get Gyan focused in being SAFC's main man but instead we never and we are seeing the repercussions now. MoN has certainly got a lot on his hands to get us back up to how we were then let alone being better and it is going to take quite a bit of money and time, we have got a squad bar 5 or 6 players that is very, very ordinary and these next two transfer windows are absolutely massive for the club. If we get them right I fancy us to have a really good season next season if not then we will be struggling like we are now.
Yep we have to give oneil the time he need to sort out this mess there are two many average players at the club now , hard to think the game when we beat chelski 3-0 we lined up with a front 3 of wellbeck gyan and bent goodays still we have to look foward good post my manthink next season we will start to see the rewards but I hope oneil learns that every game is different and in that respect you need to try different tactics were so 1 dimensional it hurts
I think the key word in all of this is 'pace'...In particular the lack of it at the back, which was so cruelly exposed at Liverpool last night..
Its quite frightening to think that the departure of Bent led to the almost total collapse of the club. We lost a manager and a host of players since and find ourselves back to square one here in January 2013. However, rather than the scatter gun transfer approach of Bruce, MoN has a formula and a game plan and will require time and patience to right the wrongs of 2 years.
We had too many loan players that needed replacing, that's what screwed us. We ain't got the money people keep talking about. Oneil will build slowly simply because he can't spend much.
Funny that, just commented on Huddlestone thread and my thinking entirely. PACE, but also in the middle. Colback, slow as ****e. Gardener, slower, Larrson, not sure but looks (unfit or just plain lazy) very slow, Catts, slow. Huddlestone, probably slower than the lot. Need some pace badly in that team. Have we gone back. At an alarming rate. Just thought this was going to be a poor season so didn't renwew and haven't been to one game this season. Needs to change to get me back.
The one thing that does look positive is MON is signing quality. You can't argue with: Johnson, Fletcher, Rose and (Cuellar for free) as bad signings. If he makes another 3 of 4 decent signings like this and gets rid of some dead wood we might end up doing well again. Bruce was not a bad manager for us. He got shat on really by Bent and Gyan.
