He's got a good name too - a proper lower league footballer name, like Dave Brammer or Dean Keates. I wouldve also included Gary Fletcher until he got all henpecked and poncey double barrelled. ****er.
Ive been impressed with him when ive seen him. Reading back match reports from last season he has done well and the PNE fans do indeed rate him. £400,000k is about right and will be the improved version of Ian Ashbee(ability wise that is). An Ashbee-esque physical type is what we lack in the middle. Coutts is a great age and surely will improve with us. Looks like Westley is not that popular @ PNE. Massive turn-a-round of players in the summer already @ PNE. Looks like he is binning most of PB squad. SAF is taking most of his kids on the Man Utd summer tour not only because many seniors are missing after the euros and olympics but also he wants to assess which ones he will keep and which ones will go out on loan. I would be surprised if Tunnicliffe gets a look in especially if SAF gets his big money players signed up. TWT as always. As for Olifinjana, IF Dave Jones at the Wendies comes calling for him then yes i do expect Oli to go. Great goal. Good ball control and strike. You get more time and room in the championship than in league one. Great improvement on James Harper which is a Brucie bonus.
Judging by the way he walked through the Colchester team to score that goal I think his real identity must be Johnny X the invisible striker from 'Billy The Fish' (Viz magazine)
That was my old Twitter account name too. I think you may be schizophrenic, and your other personality is my stalker
If we are after a guy in that kind of role i would go with someone like Michael Bostwick, talented, still young at 23 and has got a few goals in him and can play at centre half to.
What, Steve Bruce that has a track record of signing players that most haven't heard of? Looking at his Wigan record in isolation: Valencia Palacios Zaki (one season at least) I would say Bruce is less likely to sign old has Beens (unless in the case of Heskey they have worked together previously)
I wasnt criticising him or questionning his signings, I just felt that as a Premier League manager for 80% of the last 10 years he'd be out of touch with lower league football, as many top flight managers are. I would be delighted if we found out he wasnt.
I thought managers in the PL would have a good knowledge of lower league football. Obviously not the playing style and the level of physical competitiveness, but they have higher quality scouts out there watching the young prospects that start in the lower leagues. Should he have reliable scouts within England I think he probably has a suffice knowledge.
Bruce has signed some outstanding unheard of before players - that is where he operates best. It went wrong at Sunderland when they threw a load of money his way
That's just simply not true, it went wrong when Sunderland sold there best players to balance the books, e.g. Bent to Villa and Henderson to Liverpool. As soon as Bent went the goals dried up, that's why it actually went wrong. He is very good with money, take Asamoah Gyan for instance; he could be deemed a relative failure and Bruce signed him for £14m. Now Al Ain are signing him for £10m but the paid £6m to get him on loan for the season, so it's a nice tidy profit made and that was one of his worst deals!
It was not the selling of Bent and Henderson that was SB problem but the injuries that followed and proper replacements not being brought in. Especially when Gyan jumped ship. Bruce will learn from that basic error.
Bent wasn't the only striker that was lost, Campbell was injured and Welbeck returned to Man Utd. Replacements aren't easy to bring in when the money was used to help balance the books. Selling major players was the biggest problem but injuries didn't help but the replacements he brought in weren't bad in theory. Bendtner scored 8 in 28, Campbell got injured and Wickham was more for the future.
Indeed. But SB never replaced what he lost. But getting £20m for Henderson was an act of genius. imo
Indeed. But SB big mistake was that he should have loaned Wickham back to Ipswich. The kid was no way ready for the PL last summer. As has been proved.
