Agreed, we have Jelavic & Hernandez and then who? One injury/illness away from one up top, which, to my mind, wont cut it
I have to agree and it's a worry as obviously Steve Bruce and Management know we have a huge problem up front but we don't appear to be able to attract anyone.
Alex Bruce has probably been our most consistent player I have no doubt we would of won at wembley if he hadn't got injured. Always puts it all on the line and plays with a passion only a few in the team have. I would pick him over Davies every time at the min.
A bit of an overexaggeration, because as long as Jelavic and Hernandez stay fit we're fine. In fact, if they stay fit for the rest of the season, (which is a possibility) then I don't think we'd need another one because those two would just see us through until the end. Of course, we can't soley rely on those two, so we will probably loan a striker in. But only as a backup I'd imagine, I was hoping for better but probably somebody like Sanogo will be coming in. There isn't a rush, we have until the end of the month and both our strikers are fit again. With a decent midfield we'd probably pick up points against lower teams playing with just one up front.
Yeah but he hasn't been consistent, only in the last 2 or 3 games, he started out pants, then he had a cracking game against Palace, then faded again, then has come good over Christmas. At times he's been a liability and at other times he's been great, which is exactly his problem. In fact he is the antithesis of consistent. If he played like he did against Everton all season, then great. But you know he won't, he just hasn't got the ability to be a consistent PL defender. That's not to say he's a bad player, not at all, but his best, his 100%, isn't at the standard where most of our team are at. We need a team with the ability levels of Diame, Dawson and Jelavic, not Bruce, Meyler and Sagbo.
Our midfield doesnt score many goals tho and other than Ramirez (injured) or possibly Brady or Quinn who plays behind the striker?
I'm quite glad aluko is injured (yet again) gives us the chance to bring in a proper striker and give ince a chance, aluko has been poor for 2 seasons, he's also very injury prone which is a different matter!
This Bruce has been our best defender thing reminds me of when Macca had a few good games in the championship and suddenly he was our best defender. I don't know why people need to exaggerate this stuff when someone plays well. Same with Maguire really too. All our CBs are pretty good but Chester, Davies and Dawson are clearly the best.
Agreed. Bruce has just been in fine form, that's all there is to it. The others are better but Bruce is currently in the team on merit and deserves his place. Maguire looks good too, though it's still too early to cast a proper judgement yet. He hasn't even played 3 hours of football for us yet.
Thirded. If Chester, Davies and Dawson are fit, they're the trio we need to be picking right now. Maguire can look to push for some starting role next season and pick up some games covering for injuries/suspensions in the meantime.
Bollocks, nobody said he's our best defender, I said he has been performing the best of our centre halves in recent weeks which is true. I'm not claiming he's better than those 3 as technically he isn't, but recently he's been the most solid and consistent.
Well that's exactly what you said, 'best' implies he's been better than Chester (no chance), Davies (questionable although easy to see why you'd think that) and Dawson (no chance). Davies has been a bit iffy but he's been reliable for the most part. Bruce was awful against Swansea, then quite good against Sunderland and then half decent against Leicester and Everton. He still makes more mistakes than anybody else, one heroic block tackle a game isn't enough to convince me he's anything other than bang average. I thought Maguire looked far more useful than Bruce when he came on, he just offers more going forward instead of just defending 101. As Hat said, you can't judge him wholly on the small amount of time he's played, but he's looked very good and I hope to see more of him in games to come.
Would some one kindly point out to any glaring obvious mistakes that Bruce Jnr has made this season please ?. I bet Davies has made far more errors
Nothing wrong with Bruce Jnr's performances of late, he's done well alongside Davies & Chezzy. Defence isn't really the issue. Hernandez & Jela's display against Everton have shown what we've been missing over Novemeber & December, and we need to stick by it. Without anyone willing to hold the ball up or shooting, we'll just reproduce the dirge we saw against Arsenal.
Centre midfield is a concern for me . think Abel & Jelly will only improve with more starts alongside each other and if they can reproduce the Everton form they will continue to be a threat to other teams. We have some great options in defence now with the emergence of young Mcguire at centre half so competition is healthy in the centre half berth at least.
