Justin Whittle couldn't pass to save his life but it didn't hinder his HC career albeit at a lower level of football and he is still highly regarded by supporters at the club and rightly so.
Exactly it seems some on here are so desperate to be right they'd like us to lose, just so they could say i told you Bruce/Meyler/Macca etc etc are ****.
Sums it up, sooner have so called ' Championship players' playing for us with full heart and committment than others who should be up to the task but aren't this season (Hudds/Davies etc.)
I don't understand all the negativity towards Alex Bruce. He's performed quite well in the Premier League. And I'll say this: if Bruce hadn't had to be taken out of the FA Cup final for a knock, City would have won that match and would have fresh silverware in the trophy case.
You can't compare Justin Whittle's situation to our situation with Bruce. Football has changed hugely since Whittle left us, the way the game is played is completely different. Whittle was also playing with us in the bottom division we are now in the Premier League paying ridiculous amounts for players.
I agree with him though, you don't have to have technically gifted players in every position, just ones that do the job
Here we go again, same as the N'Doye thread, a couple of good games & new contract, brilliant player etc. Don't get me wrong I believe that Bruce, Macca, Quinny, Meyler are all good & can play in the PL & perform to a certain level. However, to progress how we want to & become an integral part of the PL, we need to look beyond them. Right now they're doing theyre job which is keeping our heads above water, but to actually start swimming in mid table then we need better players, that'll only happen if we bring them in or some kids come through the youth ranks. We got very lucky with Chester, but to find any player of his quality is going to be hard, perhaps McGuire is the next in line but we can't just throw him in. These players have their place & may be worth another season as back ups but to move forward we need better, but we need to do it gradually not all in one go. We also need players to be able to challenge the first team players so they don't get complacent. Perhaps Davies has become complacent & this drop might do him the world of good, hopefully. But for Swanny to say he should be tied to a long term contract is ridiculous, like I say, a year at a time & see what we can get in in the mean time.
He even agreed to go down to a lower level so we might have got Rhodes from Blackburn. Incidentally Blackburn aren't even in the playoff hunt at present, so keeping Rhodes wasn't necessarily a good gamble.
Bollocks, there's zero evidence to support that claim and yet people keep stating it like it's a fact. He hit the bar with a decent effort, but he wasn't a massive influence on the game, it was Davies and Chester that looked the part on the day. Incidentally, is Alex Bruce the only member of our outfield first team squad yet to score a goal for us?
Totally irrelevant to his ability as a centre-half but no he isn't. Snodgrass, Maguire, Figueroa, Dawson, Robertson, Lenihan and Townsend all haven't scored for us in a competitive game. So far from it.
Well I don't consider Townsend, Lenihan, Maguire, Figueroa or Snodgrass to be in our first team at present, obviously not going to count them as they've barely made any appearances between them. I'd somehow forgotten about Dawson, although he has been here two years less than Bruce has, I'll let him off. It is irrelevant to his ability as a centre half, but most centre halves do chip in with goals from set pieces; aside from cracking the bar against Arsenal, he never seems to even come close to scoring for us, I wonder if he's been told not to bother?
Don't mean to be pedantic but it was Kieran Gibbs who cleared it off the line, anyway, as a defender is normally knocking in at least 1 goal, to be fair to him, he's only played 65 games for us according to his wiki, & out of that I have no idea how many have been as a sub, he's only ever scored 3 goals in his entire career, 2 for Ipswich & 1 for Leeds. Surprisingly he's not played that many games for many clubs. Only at Ipswich has he made more appearances than for us. On a separate note, his wiki says he's played 2 full internationals for ROI & then was allowed to play full internationals for NI, anyone know how this is possible? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Bruce_(footballer,_born_1984)
