When we sold Boyd, and brought Diame in, most of us, and me included saw it as a phenomenal piece of business, basically swapping Boyd for Diame, and his early form in the Premier League certainly backed it up as a great move. With the benefit of hindsight now, I think i'd much rather have had Boyd than Diame this season, so what's other's thoughts? Can also apply this to Dave vs Rosenior and Quinn vs Clucas Personally, i'd rather have Dave and Rosenior rather than one or the other, Rosey at left back last night would've been a welcome break for Robo and I think Dave has been a good player for us this year. Quinn vs Clucas is a harder one, he's on a poor run at the moment, but I think Clucas has been an improvement on Quinn, though i'd rather have Quinn than Maloney or Powell
We're worse off with every one of these. Done. Quinn is obviously different cos we wanted him to stay but you have to ask why he wanted out to a club less likely to get promoted?
We did the Quinn debate the other day. I've said where I stand on that. Odubajo is an even better full back than Rosenior but both are excellent. Not sure why we needed to spend millions on improving that position instead of getting a decent striker but he's been brilliant. Diame is a better player than Boyd by far but he is incredibly frustrating. Even so he still produces moments of ridiculous magic now and then. Agree with bummers' last bit though. I said it at the time. It was worrying that Quinn and Ince both wanted to leave for weaker teams.
Quinn and Ince wanted to get away from Bruce. Ince said that himself in an interview for Derby. Each replacement IMO was an upgrade but it the ones that went were more typical Bruce style players. The run around, put in a shift, stay strictly in position, get stuck in, do **** all with the ball types.
There's a difference between ability and being a good player. For me, both Rosie and Boyd offered far more as a whole than their costly replacements.
You know what, its impossible to say... Diame IS a better player than Boyd, but the difference is effort.. Diame does not put 100% into every game, Boyd does. But whats more important? I guess Bruce thought quality is better than effort. I do think bringing in Odubajo was the right decision, because this summer when Elmo walks on a free, we've got Odubajo as our main right back already on the books with a full season behind him. He's a young lad and will only get better with age.
http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix Compare their statistics and then make an informed decision instead.
It's hard to argue that any of the players that are in the squad now are worse than the ones that got us promoted. Players like Diame, Hernandez, Dawson and Robertson are light years ahead of the players we had going up the first time. I honestly don't know why this team aren't performing to their expectations, I have a feeling it has something to do with the management because the likes of Rosenior, Quinn and Macca weren't world beaters but they knew this league and they knew how to dig in. But they just didn't want to stay. I was really hoping to see Dawson step out last night and get the boys fired up, but he doesn't seem to bawl and shout much for a captain. He does his job fine, but there's no getting the lads going or screaming at midfielders. It's McGregor that does all that and he's the ****ing goalkeeper. We need to get a midfield enforcer, which is why we should've gone for Sam Morsy from Chesterfield, he's doing really well at Wigan. I'd look at Michael Bostwick at Posh, he's a ****ing monster. He's also the captain there and they reckon he's off this Summer for bigger things.
But that's the point, a footballer is only as good as he actually performs. You can't keep saying 'they're better but they're not playing better' before you come to the conclusion that they aren't better. The simple facts are Diame hasn't been as good this season as Boyd was in the promotion season, Dawson's not performed as well as Davies or indeed Faye did and Abel was good for 3 max months. A good player has to do it 80-90% of the time at any level so the logical conclusion therefore is they're not as good as we think / we're told they are.
Ince went to play and for cash Quinn went as he got a longer contract offer and more security. Every player we moved on we improved on.
Getting rid of Rosie made little sense. I agree with PLT, the money should have been spent on someone familiar with sticking it in the onion bag. Bruce has made some daft signings all in all.
Every manager buys a dud. He's attracted the calibre of players to this club that virtually any other "sensible" option at the time would never have achieved. Anyway, it's easy to moan after a couple of losses. The season isn't done, yet.
Diame hasn't been used properly by Bruce, neither has Huddlestone/Hayden/Hernandez and a host of others, he's got the right players in but used them wrongly which is why he's on his way soon and we will most likely be a Championship team for the next few years. Ramirez is the perfect example of a Bruce failure as is Hayden this year. Hindsight is 20-20 but those saying we needed a new manager for the start of this season have been proven right, the team is doing just what it did at the end of last season and it can't be a coincidence
How many goals has Ince got this season and where are Derby in the league, not to mention them doing the double on us there is no way we have improved on Ince this season
You said every player we moved on we improved on which isn't the case, so what if we didn't buy a replacement. Ince and Ramirez performances this season are damning indictments on Bruces coaching and tactics
