While in the gym, I was thinking what was Bruce's worst decision, and I came up with the conclusion that selling Kenwyne Jones was the worst decision ever. My reasons are because him and Bent seemed to play well together, and Bent scored 24 goals with him playing. If we formed the team around those two instead of breaking it up, we would easily be in the top 10. Remember the Wolves match at 5-2, when Bent gave the penalty to Jones. thats team work and a good bond. Funny how we sell Jones and Bent wants out.... Thats my opinion, you all may think otherwise though.
when i went to the gym i was looking for the buffet lol but maybe you have a point we did score goals when those 2 played together
100% the sale of Jones for me. If we sold him to a top 6 side for 15m+ okay but we basically sold him for what we paid despite him having 3 good years of prem football with us. It looked like he was sold to finance the Gyan deal, I didn't ike it at the time and with hindsight it looks even worse. We paid double what Gyan was worth on the back of his world cup performance (diouf to Liverpool mark 2) On a dafter note, maybe inviting his daughter to the safc xmas do was a bigger mistake?
Na, by far the worst think Bruce, Steve to me, has done is sign on to not606 with the user name Cestriamackem. He phones me most days to explain how he is trying to get off and even did it once only to be asked to come back. Cest,(aka Steve), joined because he knew what a fair minded lot we were and with Short on his back most days wanted mates. In early days it was fine but then people turned against him, said he was fat and that hurt, well made was what his mum called him, never fat. Most nights he can be found in Chester having the odd tipple, a short walk from his appartment in the Hermatige. Steve, sorry, Cest, writes Bruce out threads to try and cover his true identity but gets annoyed with that Cyprusmackem bloke and MrRAW who will insist on giving support. He askes me to ban him most days but how could I because at heart, despite his Newcastle roots, he is one of us, apart from derby days.
I don't think Jones was up to the job when he left - Bent's head was turned in his second season so the sale of Jones did not affect his goalscoring - ponly his own ego affected that. Jones had 1 excellent season - then picked up a nasty injury and never looked like the same player - after his first season he looked lethargic when playing so getting rid surely wasn;'t his worst decision. How about playing 0 forwards in a game you'd publicly stated you want to win the competition in?? Also playing Richardson at Left back has been poor decision Selling Danny Collins was also a bad decision - we needed him a lot more than Jones recently!!
Its easy to criticise with hindsight lads but I remember when he did go the majority were in favour of the decision as we replaced him with Gyan so its a bit harsh to criticise Brucey on this front, after all he didnt anticipate the Bent/Gyan fiasco's. For me it would be the shear ignorance of ignoring the left flank as it was plain to see last season and before it was useless. I will stick up for Brucey though and say he has made some good decisions in the transfer market but it seems these days only the bad decisions are being highlighted. Personally I think the club is better of without Jones and I bet if he came back and was his lazy self then I would like to see his admirers stick up for him on here.
Kenwynes league goals return read, 7,10,9. He was a one man band in that first year, then struck up a good partnership with Cisse in his second season then again with Bent in his third. He was absolutely key for me and we sorely miss him.
I disagree that we sorely miss him, Can you remember the 80% of games in which he did absolutely nothing in? He was so frustrating to watch. Its easy to say we miss him now but to be fair I dont think he would make a blind bit of difference to our current predicament. Good lad and servant to the club and everything but we moved him on and got a better player in Gyan, not Bruce's fault the bastard left us in the lurch. Bruce has been top draw in the striker searches, Bent/gyan/Campbell/Welbeck so i have faith in him doing the business come January providing he doesnt **** up between now and then. Another bad decision could have been to let Zenden go.
Would be nice to know wouldn't it, still any good manager has a number of targets and I've seen plenty people move who are better than what we've got.
Syd????......What happened to wanting a nice peaceful week???.... First off, regarding Jones, I was a massive Jones supporter and felt that his layed back persona gave many the wrong impression that he didn't care and was lazy..In reality, stats showed that he covered more ground than almost everyone else on the pitch in most games, and won top of that was probably our best defender at set pieces: so yes I do think that it was a mistake in letting him go. Secondly, regarding Syd's comments...Personally, I don't mind Cestria's constant barrage of rants against Bruce; I've actually got a very good friend who is just the same. However, I had a good chuckle when he accused me of repeating myself the other day, after about my third comment regarding negativity from supporters having a detrimental affect on the team... However, although I have said this on a number of occasions as well, if we all agreed all of the time it would be a pretty dull board...
His worst decision was not to sign messi come on mr bruce get him signed. im 100% on every other decision he has made
I agree with the OP we should never have sold KJ, especially not for the money Stoke paid for him. In Bendtner I see a similar player, good in the air and good at holding the ball up, will not score loads but will create a lot, what we need now is a Bent, Cisse, Gyan etc... to partner him
