poitier

He needs dropping for a game. Zero penetration, just going sideways. He needs reminding that when it comes to underperforming players we have plenty to choose from.

If he wants to get more out of him he could possibly try playing him in his proper position on the right.

No denying that he hasn't been too good lately, but he was never going to carry on the form where he scored all those goals. 

14 minutes ago, av1 said:

I've read a lot of well argued posts from posters that have concerns about bringing Terry back, and i understand them i really do, but given that the window is closed i really don't see how those negatives (which are well reasoned), outweigh the positives.

Yes we have FFP issues, but the bids we made on deadline day give me hope that the owners have a plan for that. 

Yes it would take him weeks to get fit, but we currently can't resolve the CB issue for months (jan transfer window)

Yes he's slow (Jedinak isn't Usain Bolt)

 

He is much better than what have, he's available, he's also a well respected in what appears to be a fragmented dressing room. 

Is it ideal? No. The issue should have been resolved in the summer, but it's the best of a bad situation.

 

Certainly a valid point, but speaking as someone who never bought into the Terry myth in the first place, I don't think he would actually make enough of a difference to matter in the overall scheme of things. 

On 02/09/2018 at 17:52, Dr_Pangloss said:

I think he could do with watching James Maddison play. For me he's holding onto the ball too long and playing the wrong passes to often.

I know when it looked like Grealish was going to be sold people were saying if Maddison went for £25m then Grealish was worth at least £30m. Having seen Maddison a few times this season, he looks a snip at that price. They are different types of player, but Maddison has been having a real influence on games in the PL. For all of Jack's obvious talent, I still think there is a question mark about his effectiveness.

The best thing about Elmo was his partnership with Snodgrass. Unfortunately he is Ernie Wise without Eric, I would hope that we have better options at both RW and RB.

I'm very disappointed he is staying. More rubbish football and underachievement to come, 'we are only a couple of wins from the play off places' being touted as success, and a lack of progression that means not only is this season a write off but also we won't have anything to build on for the next season.

I'm not sure it was money wisely spent. We paid through the nose for him to help inspire us to 4th.

I think he has been very good for us since we dropped down, but it is time for us to start getting some younger blood in.

Hoping for a moment of individual brilliance again cos the team play is awful.

Feeling confident.

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

I think so too. First target should have been automatics, second target a play-off final victory, and the third best he could possibly achieve is to get us to the play-off final and lose. Any board looking for promotion and with their heads screwed on will look at what bruce has achieved and renew him, absolute no brainer if you are in charge of the club. Fans obviously will have their opinions. 

I'm pretty sure that losing in the play off final didn't appear anywhere on Tony's targets for the season. Failure to achieve the target of promotion does not result in it being a 'no brainer' that you renew his contract.

20 minutes ago, briny_ear said:

Lambert was a rubbish manager at a rubbish club and he produced rubbish football. His record since he left Villa seems to validate the first bit of that statement.

Rubbish.

I know there isn't a great deal of love for Paul Lambert on here, but I'm not so sure that getting this squad promoted is a greater achievement than Lambert keeping us up for two seasons. That isn't a knock at Bruce, but he is managing the team in a generally supportive atmosphere from the owner, Lambert was having to firefight when everything was going down the pan. 

I'm not a Bruce fan, but I appreciate that he has done what needed to be done in terms of dressing room morale etc. 

I'm confident that we will get the job done, but it's frightening to think our season could be over tonight.

Tragic. I will never forget his brilliant performance for us in the league cup semi final second leg against Bolton.

RIP.

I would rather beat Fulham than Derby.

7 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

We did a good tactical job on them but the absolute lack of football that we played in the second half was extremely concerning and we were lucky not to concede based on the amount of possession we allowed them to have in a dangerous areas.

The concern is that with a one goal lead we have a similar approach in the return leg and that a Boro with an 'all or nothing' attitude might just find the quality to turn us over. We have to be more aggressive and do far more with the ball rather than simply boot it back to them, which is what we almost exclusively did in that second half.

That is spot on for me. We stopped playing football far too early, we weren't even trying to play on the break, just clearing it up the field. 

I was surprised at Boro's lack of quality in that game, I fear they may be better next time.

1 minute ago, TRO said:

Well steve Bruce gets ripped to pieces on here and we have one limb in the premier league and your point is what exactly ?

 

My point is only exactly what I stated.

2 hours ago, TRO said:

Hats off to him today.....tactically superior.

When Derby played us a few weeks back, Rowett got ripped to pieces on here for doing pretty much the same as Bruce did today. 

I have thought for a long time that he will be gone whether we go up or not, and I think in either situation that will be the right decision.

I thought the biggest problem was we didn't get enough players into the box, certainly for the first 60-70 minutes, too often it was just Grabban with 4 or 5 defenders, but other than that it was pretty good.