The FA cup's been a huge distraction for us in recent weeks and our form has dropped incredibly. Ironically, a major factor in your survival has been the goals of a Steve Bruce signing. The amount of times I have read and heard stick coming from Sunderland fans about both Bruce and Wickham is remarkable. Surely you can't argue that you're a better team without Bruce as gaffer? No ones underestimating the difficulty of Europe, and Swansea are the perfect example. They've had a difficult season but being in Europe allowed them to attract a higher quality of player i.e Bony. And although they've had a pretty average season, I have no doubt that they'll be stronger for it next year. The balance is between staying in the Premier League and being competitive in Europe and it is one that Bruce will no doubt relish. Hopefully it'll help us attract better players and if we can manage to avoid relegation by the skin of our teeth, then I have no doubt that it will help us to become an established Premier League side.
Correct me if Im wrong, but he's had 1 good year. I'm sticking my neck out and saying he's the next Phil Jones, who everyone ****ed about as being England and Utd's first choice for the next 15 years....
Ridiculous. No one was raving about Phil Jones like they are about Shaw. It's not like it's not deserved is it? He's actually been brilliant this season. I'd argue he's up there with the likes of Rooney as someone who is quite clearly a top player from a very young age, not a potential star like Jones.
They really were raving about Jones like this. And I didnt say he didnt deserve the praise - I clearly said 'he's had one good year'.
Jones wasn't at the point to which all of the top 6 wanted him. Man Utd took a bit of a punt. Shaw's had a couple of good seasons in the premiership.
A well-reasoned argument, congratulations. Fair point about the FA Cup, although you have to remember we also had our League Cup run to contend with so you can't really use that as an argument why you should expect to finish above us next season. Also, our really poor run of form directly followed the LC final, and you guys won't have to worry about that "hangover" period which you could also argue has us in a falsely low position... I agree about Europe potentially enabling you to sign better players, but you will need to splash some major cash over the summer if you want to progress at all in Europe AND hope to survive. I don't think it's unfair to say your current squad almost certainly won't be able to cope, particularly if you put another domestic cup run together. Regarding Bruce, I absolutely 100% would argue that. He started off promisingly to be fair, but it all went downhill and by the end he completely lost the plot. I can't remember exactly what the statistic was but I think we won something like 3 matches in his last 9 months or something similar. He seems to be doing well for you lot thought so fair play to him. I always liked the bloke personally, and am happy to see him succeed. Did get a bit boring in the press how he consistently blamed his sacking on being a Geordie... As I've said the results were ****e at the end of his tenure and every single person connected to the club could see he was taking us down.
Le Tissier has said on talksport today that Luke Shaw wont be going anywhere until a new manager has been sorted out. Plus no fee has been agreed yet. Just speculation so far. As Shaw is a Chelsea fan and he wants to play in the CL it would be a shock to see this happen so quickly anyway.
A good bit of business that for the vermin. Especially since they only bought the drugs cheat because they thought that woodgate was about to meet big Winston
You gave the league a 7 game headstart. We were safe nice and early so nick a term from cricket we declared wit 7 games remaining as the FA Cup became the priority. When you had your League Cup run you couldn't ease off in the league games because you were still in trouble at that stage.
