Keep playing Huddlestone and see what happens, I will see you back at the KC when the Allams have gone (apart from the Rochdale match)
You'll all be pleased to know that I am attending the Preston fixture (I'm a lucky competition winner, just a donation to charity, no payment to the Allam dictatorship) so I shall be the judge of City's current plight thereafter. No need to thank me. We need someone to cut a swathe through the bullshit, and tell it like it is. Don't worry, I'll do it. I'm super serial. From here to excelsior.
Plenty did in the who would you get to replace SB thread of last year. Did we have a chance? well he was out of a job and i would have thought we were the type of oportunity he would go for.
Huddlestone has missed games and we've been no better. As a team we're just so ****ing defensive and boring. That's all it is. If Tom signed for someone else he'd pretty soon become the player we want him to be. Like all our players, he's just stifled in our team.
I'm going to the Rochdale game despite it being a scabby thing to do so when I get back I will feel secure in the knowledge that my comments are match validated! Wasn't even me who started the Hundredstone thread and I'm sure Chazz wasn't at the match either!
I must admit I don't see any evidence of us improving players. We seem to pick a team and formation and then let them get on with it.
If Bruce doesn't bring on some of those young lads like Luer CJM and so on this season I will be joining the Bruce out brigade, no point picking young 'uns for the bench first game then not using them again
The most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. ESSEX GULL
Steve Bruce appears to have a reputation for ruining players with potential, probably due to the fact he doesn't appear to study how to get the best out of them and then play to those tactics. On that basis Andre Gray, whether by default or not, probably made the right decision in joining Burnley as I'm pretty sure that he'll flourish under Dyche. The latest blunder that he appears to be making is with Odubajo, he has tried him at fullback with Elmo ahead of him in each game that he's played and it's clearly not working, not for either player, yet, once again, he seems to be oblivious to it. The obvious thing to do would to swap their positions but I'm not holding my breath. The thing that concerns me in all of this is what, if anything, is Phelan's role in all of this? His impact appears to be absolutely minimal, so what was the point in bringing him here in the first place? If he was brought here as an adviser to Steve Bruce I'd suggest that he isn't earning his money.
Where has that come from mate?? Valencia Palacios Asamoah Gyan Darren Bent makes that bollocks. We're fifth in the table without playing well yesterday .First half v Fulham was good. Its still early days. Things will settle once the window closes.
It's just a combination of what I've read on forums, along with Bruce's, at times, baffling selections and tactics Chazz. Hernandez is clearly a player that thrives on diagonal through balls rather than crosses lumped in from either wing. How many diagonal through balls do you see us play? I realise that it's not all doom and gloom, and appreciate where we are in the league table, however our performances so far this season have been, at best, disjointed, and at worst abject. Yesterday topped them all, we were ****ing dire all over the pitch, until, eventually, Abel and Hayden were thrown into the fray. Why the **** weren't they on after 20 minutes? They were clearly needed. Oh but that would have meant Bruce owning up to the fact that he got his initial selection wrong. Obviously everyone saw what they saw yesterday so there's little point going over it again, but the one thing that I'll say is that when you are on course for a point and you're in added time you should secure that point. We have repeatedly lost points at the end of games, it's one of the things that cost us our PL place last season, and will likely cost us a promotion place if it isn't addressed. My concern us that he hasn't addressed it so far, so when will he? Edit:- and naming six players that he's succeeded with over a managerial career that spans, I'm guessing, 20 years, does not equate to success, quite the opposite in fact, I'd say it's feeble.
Bloody hell that was off the top of my head those names. I agree Bruce got it wrong. I picked Hayden with Meyler in my team on the match thread. So Bruce got it wrong But he cant legislate for Michael Dawson losing his head for their second goal. He stays where he is and he clears the knock down. Bad day at the office. 8 points from 4 games would have been great for a team finding its feet. 7 is none too shabby.
To be honest I thought the subs were **** too. I know Hayden and Hernandez were an improvement on the players they replaced but it wasn't enough. Individuals weren't the problem. We needed to change it up and get behind them for once. But he goes for 3 like for like subs. Clucas for Robertson in particular, how ****ing pointless was that?
I think our tactics yesterday were to start slowly, absorb pressure as they sparked out in the heat, then dominate the last 30 minutes. It sort of worked in an unappealing way, except Charlton's spirit and enterprise never waned and they got what they deserved. Their manager looks a very promising prospect - the kind of boss we will need when SB departs.
It's not based on one game. Yesterday showed no lessons had been learned. It was just like the worst games last season, slow and very painful buildup leading to either nothing or a poor cross.
