He signs a new team every 6 months mate and that is half the problem. If it were simply a case of this season and letting players gel there wouldnt be an argument but our form and results for the last 9 months have been appalling. 7 wins, 5 draws and 14 (FOURTEEN) defeats in 26 games. Were it not for Quinny, Bruce would have been sacked before now. He has had every chance to get it right in the last 9 months and plenty of time to resolve the left side issue and find a replacement for Bent, who left back in January. He has failed. If last nights lacklustre and hugely disappointing performance doesnt set alarm bells ringing then dont know what will. If there were signs that Bruce has a plan or some direction then there would be something to cling to. There isn't. We are 2 years and 5 transfer windows into the Bruce regime and I still dont see a settled team, plan or direction. A relegation battle, not necessarily being relegated, looms largely for us this term. Make no mistake, we are in it right now.
Newton. Thats not what we want to hear about fellow fans. By all means have an opinion and welder has his. I disagree 100% with his stance on Bruce as do you but this kind of language isn't going to help. Keep it reasoned. I think I have put a very reasoned and level headed argument as to why Bruce has to go. The derby discussion may well be less reasoned for some but the facts and figures for him to be sacked are very damning.
I think I'm going to throw my 2 pence worth in as everyone else has. Last night we were dull, no pace, no edge to our game and in all honesty, from back to front they all had shockers. The only thing that stood out for me was Bendtner. How good can he be if given the opportunity to play the right way. Getting back to it - Bruce has to have a long look at himself to justify what he's doing as a manager. The thing that stood and slapped in me the face most of all was the fact he took Seb & Sess off, and subbed them with two tall strikers?????? I don't understand it. Before the game the pundits were banging on about how Seb is one of the best crossers in the prem. We make a change and there is no logic to it. Surely the right decision would have been to take off elmo, move sess to the left, Seb to the right and Play Ji up top with Bendtner. We would have two wingers/creative players wide with two tall strikers in the middle. Basically guys - I'm one of the Bruce out clan. Sick of him, he's useless and it's clear to see now that he really is under pressure, the sooner the better if you ask me. We so need a win at the weekend but if it takes us losing for him to be sacked then so be it. Bruce Out!
If we win the next game, IF. all it does is paper over Bruces inability to manage, nothing more, and the rose tinted brigade, instead of standing up and admitting they were wrong, will get a reprieve, and us ultimately relegated, then they will whinge, saying they knew this would happen, but I will remember them, and will remind them from time to time, as will all the rest of the bobs.
Tuned into your match yesterday, saw the first goal go in, then went to play video games, returned and caught most of the second half. Now, I haven't seen many other of your matches apart from the derby and the football show summeries, but I think it's too early to get worried quite yet. You got so many new players in, it's normal to a certain extent to look utterly disjointed. It's a bit funny that you happen to field a back four of 3 manU rejects and a toon reject, and let's face it, Brammer was bad yesterday, really poor. Richardson looked totally lightweight and kept giving it away, and I was wondering why Bruce didn't drag him off, but hey, then he goes up the pitch later on and scores a really good goal, so whatcha know. Am I right that there was no Catts again yesterday? I didn't see him at least. Now, Sessegnon up front isn't working out. What a waste of talent. You'd have to be blind not to see that. he's a midfielder, not a striker. You're playing the wrong formation anyway. I understand Bardsley is still banned, when he returns put him back in lb, keep things tight. Play Catts behind Sessegnon in the middle, play Bendtner upfront alongside the Korean, who looks like your best player atm. Larrson on the right, and Ricco or Gardner on the left. Elmo... well, he can come on later to run at people when Larrson gets tired, or the other way round. Bendtner is alright, and he will get goals, but it's a bit much asking him to go from reserve player to leading the line by himself. He needs support, and Sessegnon is a playmaker not a second striker. Get him on the ball. So overall, I wouldn't too be concerned about the players yet, but Bruce needs to make changes, now and get them at least remotely playing to their ability, otherwise Bruce has to go. Concern is where the goals are supposed to come from. Sure Bendtner can get 6-8. But he's not getting you 15. Larsson, Ricco and Gardner might chip in, but apart from those, where are your 30-40 goals gonna come from that you need to stay in the league? What does everyone think your formation ought to be? gk oshea brown ? bardsley Larrson Catts Ricco Sess Bendtner Korean/Wickham sorry, what's the korean's blokes name, this is bad, I wanted to call him Lee... I'm sure he has ling or Kim somewhere in his name.
At the end of the day, you have to look at your playing staff, what's available, and you do have a lot of defenders, and you have a lot of gritty central sided midfielders, who can put balls in the box, but theyre not all out wingers. Bruce needs to take a lot at everton. They're playing 4-6-0 at the moment and it's working quite well for them. You're not going to be scoring 2 or 3 every week, you'll be maybe scoring 2 in 2 weeks. The managers needs to make your team hard to beat. Shore up the defence, put someone in front of the defence to clean up and hack away all loose balls. And then have 2-3 people up top who's job is offense. The rest needs to sit back and avoid conceeded silly goals.
TRavelsick - thanks for your 'words of support', however disingenuous they are. I can well imagine how much every barcode follower desperately wants Bruce to stay as our manager because your getting some very cheap easy laughs at our expense watching him bluster and bumble his way on a day to day, game to game basis. Bruce is slowly turning us into relegation fodder and that will certainly be good news for the barcodes but as a Sunderland fan, I want to see some action from our boardroom this weekend. The Bruce bandwagon is knackered and he doenst know what to do to put it right. This trend of failure dates back now 9 months and 26 games not just this season. 14 defeats and 5 draws in 26 games is relegation form. We have played 24 league games and returned 26 points from a possible 72 available. Bruce has to go, even if it does ruin your b&w party.
Hello! My words weren't disingenuous. I on purpose tried to avoid the whole managerial question. All I said was, I wouldn't be worried about the entire season right now. The playing staff isn't too bad. Bruce or more likely his successor just has to get them playing to their ability. Which at the moment just isn't happening. I don't get much joy out of Sunderland playing drab, sure, when you lose i get a lift, just like you do when we lose. I'm here to discuss football not poke fun, or kick people when they're down, I don't do that. There are 32 games left to play. Plenty of time. Talk of the season going to waste or relegation is way too soon. But I'd be very surprised if Bruce wasn't working on a timer now. What's been on show has been pretty woeful. monday night, away at norwich isn't an easy game. If i was the board I would give him the game on saturday and evaluate the performance, not only the result. There has to be progress, in the tactical and strategic decisions of how the team plays. The way your team was set up yesterday, you might even struggle against a west brom side who haven't won anything so far. Also, leadership needs to be addressed. Catts is out of favour or unfit or whatever, fine. But right now there's no leadership in your team.basically your entire midfield and front line is new. There aren't any partnerships in there yet. Even though I don't think he deserves a place in the team due to how he has played Catts needs to go back in for the time being just to be captain.
The squad is decent and the players we could put out far better than what we witnessed last night and to be honest, for most of the last 9 months. Another manager could get far more out of them imo. Bruce can't motivate before, or be tactically clever during games. He looks totally at sea before, during and especially after games where his after match interviews, after yet another poor defeat, seems to be a pre-prepared pile of nonsensical crap, that has simply been heard far too many times now. WBA game AGAIN becomes a last chance saloon. How many more of these will we have to endure? Only the man at the very top can decide that.
I fully agree that Steve Bruce isn't an exciting manager to have, or very good to listen to in the post match interviews. However, that doesn't have to mean he's a totally uninspiring manager. There is a risk in sacking Bruce now, I think that needs to be realised. This is his team, he brought all these players in, if he's sacked now the next manager will want to bring in his own players, especially if it's someone like Martin O'Neil or Mark Hughes. Who would you want as manager anyway? There aren't that many great names about. Look at Martin Jol at fulham, they're struggling, he's a good manager and he can't his boys playing. There's a risk in causing a total meltdown in sacking bruce now, and alienating all the new players he's brought in. It's happened before. We at newcastle have always been quick to call for and sack managers. Its rarely worked out to the better. I Personally I thought Steve Bruce was a poor appointment to begin with. But squeezing the panic button without having a backup plan is risky. I think NQ realises this and that's why he's being slow in making a decision. You dont know what they promised oshea and brown and the freebies when they signed on.
If we sacked Bruce, and this one is out of left field somewhat, I think we should get Van Basten, young, free, pretty experienced, managed Holland/Ajax. just not sure if we could afford him/he would come, but he would be my choice. (over MON/Hughes anyway).
Wow. What a storyline that would make. We wouldn't have a hope in hells chance imo but I like your ambition.
Well yeah, who i would want and who we will get are 2 totally different things, but he is free, so it may be worth a punt.
Of course there are inherent dangers of just sacking Bruce with no plan in place, I'm not totally stupid but the dangers of just plodding on regardless of results, is far greater. I would expect Quinn and Short to have discussed this situation at some length now and a back up plan drawn up. As a Sunderland fan of some 36 years standing, I've seen us relegated too many times to just sit back and hope it will all be okay in the end. It won't.
It galls me to say it but, even though he uses occasionally inflammatory terms Cest seems about right on this now - as a fence sitter - I have moved across to BoBs house - can`t see much to make me change my mind. Clearly we need a plan B in place to put a replacement in asap and I would hope SNQ is well on with it. Would not be surprised that whatever the result on Saturday there is a press conference after the game to confirm he has left.
Careful now. When you start posting sense like this, you'll only upset the happy clappers. Read more: http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=631684#ixzz1Z9PmCBDp
