Brucey admits that Curtis Davies gave the half-time talk to the players and that he 'just had a cup of tea': http://www.football365.com/hull-cit...uce-believes-Curtis-Davies-is-a-dying-breed-? The Tigers were trailing 2-1 at the break, but four second-half goals confirmed the club's first appearance in an FA Cup final, with Arsenal awaiting next month. After a poor first half, Bruce refused to take the plaudits for their comeback and praised his skipper Davies, who delivered a dressing down to his team-mates. "I didn't say much at half-time," Bruce said. "My captain did it all. "It's a long time since I've been in a dressing room where the captain takes over. It used to happen a lot in my day. "I just had a cup of tea and let him get on with it. He is a bit of a dying breed with the way football is nowadays." Ahead of the final on May 17, Bruce believes the pressure is all on Arsenal and insists his side will enjoy every minute of their historic match. "If you had said 10 years ago that Hull will play Arsenal in the FA Cup final, people would have been scratching their heads," Bruce said. "It just shows you what can be done. "I've been in the competition 15 years and never been anywhere near. I've had good fortune being involved in FA Cups and today was a proper FA Cup tie. We don't see games like that very often at Wembley. "A bit like last year when it was Wigan versus Man City, Hull play Arsenal. All the pressure will be on Arsenal because they haven't won anything in eight years," he said. "We've still got five weeks to go. We will enjoy it, we will enjoy the occasion and gain from the experience of today."
Nice to know that Davies can add leadership qualities to being a bloody brilliant player. You have to give credit to Sheff Utd - I thought they played bloody well.
Several signs of a tremendous man manager. 1) Admit you've made a mistake with your initial starting line-up and tactics associated with it. 2) Have the courage to change it a half time & get it right. 3) Allow your captain to highlight the deficiencies and inspire his team-mates to redress the situation. I doubt neither Bruce nor Davies gave them the old hairdryer treatment...they're above that sort of negative feedback. More likely encouraged them by saying it's a team game, it's not working, so we'll tweak it. It looked a lost cause in the first half....must give Sheff Utd some credit of course, but we played the worst we've done all season. Second half reflected some of our best team play of the season. On the second half showing, Arsenal have something to worry about. Brilliant demonstration of the character of the team & manager we all know is there. I'm sure the attending supporters helped as well - although it was hard to detect nuch of that on the telly broadcast I watched. My dicky heart is still pounding !
Davies was interviewed on farvlarv and said it just kinda happened. He likes to get in to the changing room quickly anyway, then he just set about them telling them that wasn't acceptable. expletives all over the place and picking out individuals. Bruce just left him to it. Did the trick winning the 2nd half 4-1. The perfect club captain and he fully deserves to lead the team out in a Wembley final.
Shows the trust & respect the team has in their manager & captain, who are clearly on the same page. I guess most of them deserved a bollocking after the first half performance. It also shows the desire of a closely-knit set of players to pull their fingers out the way they did. Mutual self-motivation goes a long way...'effing & blinding in the right way can work only if the trust & belief exists. Lot to look forward to with this bunch.
To be honest I was amazed at our first half formation. Very negative. No-one getting up to support Sagbo. Even so we seemed content to play it around our own half without going forwards. Bad decision to start 4-5-1. But I was relieved to see the change at half time. Such a difference. Credit to Curtis if indeed it was him to give them the kick they needed.
Bruce is a genius, pure and simple, the substitutions were inspired too, Boyd was maybe a bit unlucky but I reckon Bruce would have had it in his mind that he's a good kid and would take it, same as Figuerora, unlike Boyd who deserved to go off. Genius man-management. I hope we can keep this manager as his man-management is outstanding
As much as the subs worked brilliantly he made huge errors in the initial selection and against a better team (Arsenal) the game could have been out of sight. 4-5-1 against a league 1 side was an absolute joke considering we have played two up top against some of the best teams in world football.
Figgy shouldn't play again this season, his head is not right, he just looks totally disinterested. Maybe his off field problems are affecting him.
Someone worked wonders at half time. I couldn't understand why we played a lone striker against a third tier club. Elmo didn't get forward in the first half and Boyd was non-existent. I thought Aluko changed things considerably with his movement. Fryatt did really well. The first half was as bad as I've seen for a long time. The second half was outstanding. For the first twenty minutes we ripped them apart. The next twenty minutes we totally dominated possession and passed the ball around our midfield and defence, running the clock down.
I think yesterday probably sealed Figgy's fate(if it wasn't sealed already), there's no way he's going to be our starting left back next season, he might not even be here.
Figgy didn't do anything yesterday he hasn't been doing all season, maybe even more exposed and error prone. Our left side was a disaster in the first half-even Boyd was running around like a headless chicken. Meyler had his work cut out. Dudgeon or even I would put in a more convincing no 3 performance than Maynor. As a friend of mine texted, even Pat Heard wouldn't have let half of that crap go on at left back!
When he let the ball go under his foot, it was close to where I was sitting, and the look on his face was as if he didn't care. If your confidence is gone, at least you can be angry with yourself if you make a mistake.
and this kid is going to represent his country at the world cup! he's going to get ripped one by Ribery..
