flashingqwerty

think kodjia was great but there is something that tells me he wont be the same player after 2 broken legs...

i had the opportunity to attend a dinner with mon shortly after he became ireland manager. being a villa fan naturally i bombarded him with question about the club and players. eventually gabby came up as he was my favorite player under mon. he told me that the club had accepted bids on more than one occassion for gabby though he would give any details of who and how much but gabby had flat out refused to even consider leaving. he also talked about how he felt his successors had utilised him poorly and failed to understand his personality as gabby needed a certain degree of personal management to motivate him. hard work but worth it is what he said. maybe he was just blowing smoke but thought id share

i really hope they havent brought him back too soon again...

i havent lived in birmingham for nearly 18 years and i dont get to go more than once every few years. when i lived there i attended lots of matches and frequented the club shop often. i was there earlier this year to go to the club shop and just look around the ground and i was horrified by the state of the place. there were greasy black and grren marks all down the outside of the facade and many of the logos and signs were badly faded. the whole place looks tired and like it hasnt been painted or washed in years. a very sad sight and left me with a bad taste tbh. whilst im not sure that we need a full scales redevelopment, the north stand desperately needs word done and the stadium needs a face lift. its a shadow of what it was in the late 90s on all 4 sides.

only way he will improve is if he plays, but i am not sure we play a way that suits him with grealish in the side.

for me that's 2 games on the trot that SB has started with the wrong 11 and wrong tactics and made poor if not baffling changes throughout the games. He himself has admitted that he should have changed the starting 11 against QPR because the lads were tired in training but 'feared a fans backlash' if he changed it... With each passing moment SB gets lower and lower in my estimation. I Mean the mans balls must have vanished if 'fan backlash' is preventing from not playing tired players... Muppet

alex? is that you?

have to say bruce got it spot on today. bring on qpr!!!

Sunderland created their best chances after that change - go figure...

the Jekyll and Hyde of SB tonight thought the lineup was decent and the setup suited the opposition. However, the players didn't seem motivated and were at times sloppy. Then taking off both forwards and not bringing one on, basically inviting them onto us leaving no outlet is just mental. If Davis wasn't fit to play 20 minutes, why was he on the bench? And if he was fit then why in gods name did you leave us without a striker? For me these weird choices he makes are what prevent him from being a top manager and are the reason, promoted or not, that i don't want him here next season. Accident waiting to happen

if hes not fit enough to play 20 minutes then he shouldn't be on the bench then should he? Making stupid excuses to try and cover up a mental decision...

we're 3-0 up against a poor team that still seem to be causing us trouble in defence, and rather than bring on a striker who can help us hold onto the ball providing respite for the defence he brings on a midfielder leaving us with little attacking threat and inviting pressure on the defence? Cos that makes perfect sense...

so we have no strikers on the pitch but one on the bench... another master move from SB...

sorry Tro so many things i could pick on in that. Grealish was fit and not picked alot during SBs time as manager so i dont buy that he reintroduced him to change our style of play. he signs players that are available and not ones that fit our style of play? that alone seems like a really stupid thing to do. for the money we spent on hogan i can guarantee you a forward more suited to 'our squads strengths' was available. doesnt seem a coincidence that our attacking play improved when agnew arrived? yeah SB gets credit for bringing him in but he also needs to take the knock for not correcting the issue sooner. im sure another attacking coach could have been brought in on a short term deal until he got who he wanted. point being Hogan was never likely to succeed under SB. the manager has never employed a style that would make the most of hogan on a regular basis. you say thats because of availability - i call bs on that as hogan was banging them in for a side with far less quality than ours. you dont need grealish to play on the front foot, you need to have trust in your fringe players and courage to take risks. not convince SB has either in spades. promoted or not, id rather someone else take the reins.

Taking current league standings as the measure, both Cardiff and Fulham have easier opposition than us in the run in. The average league standing for our remaining games is 12.3, Cardiff's is 13.3 and Fulham's is 14.7 Suggests to me that we're more likely to be finishing 4th than 2nd as we stand. Looking at the individual games, i'm expecting 27/36 points leaving us on 90 pts. I'm expecting 24/36 for Cardiff, leaving them on 91 pts. And 30/33 for Fulham, leaving them on 92 pts. I'm sure this isn't how it'll all go down, but its what i think about the games right now. So i'm less than confident at the moment.

i think there is little wrong with Hogan's ability. The issue surrounding Hogan is our style of play and the way in which the manager chooses to play him. He is not the type of striker who works well on his own. He needs someone with him to play passes in behind the defense for him to run on to. We rarely play this way, and never play this way without Grealish in the team. In a team that plays more attacking/creative football Hogan would score goals. I dont blame Hogan for his performances, i do place some blame on Bruce for the way he has utilized him, but accept a potion of this has been out of necessity. What i blame bruce more for, is signing a player that doesn't suit the way he has set out teams at any point in his managerial career. Bruce has never sent teams out regularly to play in such a way as to maximize Hogans abilities. We should never have signed him, and should have brought in a more physical striker instead who might have been able to offer us more when played up top on his own.

how long since we won 6?

nearly twenty years

thats three things not two, just sayin...

So you honestly think that when we had only 3 CB's, we let one go right after signing Axel? So you think SB is crazy enough to leave us with on 2 CB's? You think less of him than i do then, and i dont think anything good about him

shocking - to play so badly and nick a goal... i feel dirty...

i'd rather we lost trying to win than draw playing like this

loads of games without a goal tonight

1st sub with only 14 mins left in a game where we have been 2nd best for the entire games Classic Bruce

3-0 in substitutions now...