A lot of people on this board seem to be getting more and more frustrated with Bruce. Even his biggest supporter would have to agree that some if not many of his decisions have been bizarre. With the success that Palace/West Brom etc. have seen with new managers would we be doing better if we had got rid of Bruce. So to see where opinion lies, with the benefit of hindsight would you have sacked him in January?
It depends, I think he's a nice bloke and he got it right last season when it mattered, but this season has been an unmitigated disaster. Injuries haven't helped, but our strength in depth is **** and we rely on a blanket of Championship players who 'deserve' a chance to keep us up. Well, they kept us up last season so why are they still here? Yes it's nice that they got us up and kept us up, but we didn't make enough improvements to the whole squad and instead we've only seen flashes of what could've been a comfortable Premier League side. It's down to Bruce to sort sentiment from ability and he hasn't done that. The likes of Alex Bruce, David Meyler, Yannick Sagbo and Stephen Quinn shouldn't be anywhere near a Premier League side. I don't care if they 'put a shift in' or 'give 100% for 90 minutes', they lack the ability to consistently perform at Premier League level. Look at the likes of Dawson, Chester and even Davies before his blip (I'd love to know when he's getting another shot, his injury hasn't helped but still) and you can see that we have the quality, we just choose to accomadate these average players. If one of our 3 Cb's get injured, revert to a 4-4-2, don't keep the same system and play a player that isn't good enough, that's how you get beat. His tactics have also been questionable; 3-5-2 was fine in the Championship because teams didn't expect it and didn't know how to deal with it. But we've had a season of it and Premier League managers do their homework. It's so easy to exploit, as we've seen on many occasions this season and our plan B seems to be a mix of 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. At Southampton, once they went 1-0 our players looked a bit confused, unsurprising given that there were 4 centre halves defending while Rosenior and Robertson were sat on the bench. It isn't good enough, not at this level and you wouldn't see any other Premier League manager doing it, so why should Bruce? We can go on and on about strikers and not scoring enough goals, but we've lost Jelavic and Hernandez and different times this season and it's killed us. Hernandez might not be a goal machine, but he brings something different to the table and defenders hate playing against him. I'm thankful to Bruce for all he's done, but he's made a right royal cock up of this season in more ways than one. If we go down we might as well keep him given that he's just signed a new deal, but if we aren't in the Championship top 4 at Christmas he should be well gone, we literally can't afford to be in the Championship.
Sacking your manager doesn't always work. There isn't a mircale cure all the time. Also, who in their right mind would want to work with Allam.
Sadly Hank, that's finally become my view too! Also, if Brucie stays, I would back him to take us back there.
I thought at the time in December he should of gone, partly because the managers like Pulis and Sherwood were going to be snapped up if we didn't act fast and partly because our form was horrendous. I don't see why we would keep Bruce if we go down (which we will though). Say we go down and he manages to get us back up, are we going to give him another chunk of money to spend? I don't see how you can trust him again with the type of funds he has been given this season.
He's a good guy, but his tactics, especially when under pressure, are woeful. I said at the time a change was not a bad idea, although I didn't think it was essential. His failings have been compounded by an incredibly bad and unlucky run of injuries. Like him or loath him (and I certainly don't loath him, as he is a great professional and has been good for us) I don't believe we would have been in this situation with just a bit more luck. No matter what happens now I would want him to stay and have an opportunity to re-establish the team's winning ethic and his own credibility, he deserves that much- regardless of the league. There will always be managers who would want to come in and work with Allam (Bruce was in the dark), but would we want them - not me.
SB has just signed a new contract... AA lets SB manage the team. Just cos AA has hurt a few fans, calling them names. Shame some of you can't get over it.
I personally think we should have got shot of him in January, BUT, having said that, he has been in relegation dogfights before and his experience is vital.
It's looking increasingly unlikely that big Sam will be at West Ham next season. He would bring us back up at first attempt I think.
You should of bumped this thread. http://www.not606.com/threads/to-all-the-steve-bruce-out-brigade.284933/#post-7343052
Just a better version of Steve Bruce. I know he's had West Ham playing some lovely stuff this year, but personally I'd rather see some football after three years of ****e.
We will see how his tactics go tommorrow If he goes 3/5/2 I can see Bolasie giving us a torrid time and Murray might also bully our defenders out of it
Yes I'm sure we'd have been better off. We're an unbelievably poor side at the moment and the squad isn't that bad at all. But he got us here and deserves to see the job out. He deserves more than one poor year before being sacked, after two excellent years.
Regardless of what you think of 'Bruce the Man' he is trying to play Chess with one Knight, one Bishop, one Rook and a Queen that is only available for half the games. It has been like this for most of the season. Hernandez was brought in to be the Queen, has played like a Pawn most of the times and/or has been 'taken' out for most of his games. This has left Bruce with the unenviable task of trying to replace key players with Pawns. When Long went for a fee just too good to refuse there was a huge hole up front right alongside Jelly and nobody has come anywhere near close to filling it. The strain on Jelly was far too much (imo) and with injuries to our other 'key' players we have done remarkably well not to be already relegated. Against the teams we have yet to play we could get 4 points at best which (imo) will not be good enough. Bigger upsets than those we need have happened in the past so there is still hope but I doubt ANY Manager could have done any better with the players we have got as well as the injury list we have sustained this season.
