Steve Bruce's theory is looking a tall order looking at current form. Comparison for what it's worth...... Phil Brown, 2009/2010, halfway stage - P19 W4 D5 L10 = 17points Steve Bruce, 2014/2015, halfway stage - P19 W3 D7 L9 = 16 points Browny won just one more game before he was sacked 15/03/2010, City were relegated with a record of P38 W6 D12 L20 = 30 points. Brucey needs 7 wins to reach his target of 10 but will pobably have to settle for less and hope for the best. A tricky final 9 fixtures. He should finish the season stronger than Browny with the players available so stick with him, he's the man to keep us up. For old times' sake...
Well, we would have to win a third of the games left and draw 2 or 3 to give us 36/37 points which may just be enough this season. This is not impossible especially when we take into account that we had 6 of our first choice players off the pitch against Leicester - Dawson, Chester, Diame, Snodgrass, Robertson and The Hudd (it was The Hudd's birthday yesterday too - 28 I think) so if we can get most of these back on the pitch asap then we would have to be a chance. Hernandez raised his game yesterday and was terribly unlucky with the diving header but missed a sitter. He just doesn't seem to have any ball control or presence in the penalty box which you would expect from a 10 million quid player. The long balls are going nowhere and closing down our wingers negates us altogether. We need someone up front who can make his presence felt so I hope we can nail someone in January.
Well we certainly won't be getting to the ten win mark. But we do have three teams behind us,who have to pass us. We have to do as well as those three, job done.
I don't get where this idea that Huddlestone coming back is going to save us comes from? Yesterday was poor - but it was better than Burnley. Burnley where we had all these saviours like Huddlestone and Diame playing. I don't want to be down - because I do fully believe this squad has enough to stay up. I just don't think the issue is injuries/suspensions (they don't help, but we were playing awfully with everyone available).
Huddlestone really is the kingpin in our midfield. He's the one making our game flow and tick over, he's the one who takes on the risky passes and stretches out play across the pitch in an instant. As I mentioned when talking about Meyler on a thread yesterday, I was looking at the opta stats on our central midfielders on the way up to the game yesterday. If it surprised anyone that Meyler had our best ball retention statistics, it will probably surprise even more that Tom has the worst... But, Tom has by far the most (and I mean at least twice as much as the next man) touches, dribbles, passes etc per minutes played. It's a stat we already know just from watching him, he's always looking to get on the ball and spread it around, but seeing it in numbers just helps sure up my belief that he is the real kingpin of the team. I think it shows badly when he's not playing, whether he's playing badly or not.
