weedman

I thought that, went for the ball as well but was tackled and it fell to their man. Has to be offside surely

What makes me laugh about this is a player can throw their toys out of the pram, cry to the media demanding a move, refuse to play, but still get their loyalty bonus because they didn't officially hand in a transfer request, it's ridiculous

Not sure how I feel about #StevoITK being actually ITK

The only problem with the subs on Saturday was they were made too late, taking Hogan off clearly isn't a popular decision, after all he's scored 1 goal for us so was all but guaranteed to score another, but those subs did change the game, we retook control of the game again and went back to creating good chances. In the 90th minute chasing a goal you don't need to be a tactical genius, throwing a big man on to hit and get the ball forward quickly is a tactic employed by just about every manager (excluding Pep) at some point, it's just about the only reason Fellani has played so many games for Man Utd, it's not the sackable offence some seem to think it is. And will everyone please stop claiming Bruce took Hogan off for Samba when chasing the game?! There's enough to criticise him for without just making stuff up. His first subs worked as they changed the game, relieved all the pressure on us and we retook control, had Green put his very straightforward chance away Samba would not have been brought on at all Like everyone I was disappointed with a draw yesterday, we should have won, apart from 2 mins before half time, and 20 mins of the 2nd half we were in control, I still have faith Bruce can get us promoted this season (although I agree if we don't improve soon Xia will have a decision to make)

Watching Bacuna for their goal literally made me scream at the TV, he got back well, helped defend a decent attack, then literally just stops as soon as the ball was half cleared and hey presto Hull end up with a free man in the box. It's typical Bacuna, he does half a job then gives up and loses all interest. He can drive the ball forward like Delph used to, run through players, then misplace a 5 yard pass, he'll work himself back into a good position then just stop assuming his job is done, he'll ping a great pass to someone then let the return ball run under his foot. Half a job, every time, get rid

Anyone got a link for the wolves Boro game? Watching Fulham as it's the only one I could find, they're looking good again

Again, the pre season game is of absolutely no consequence. Being worried about how we played last season and hoping it will change this season is fine

Yes. If it goes tits up next season it won't be because we didn't play well in our 2nd pre season game

I will say this with confidence. The way a team or players play during pre season matches - especially the first ones - is in no way indicative of the way they will play in competitive matches. If our 2nd pre season match has caused people to change their opinions on Bruce then they don't understand pre season matches. Lack of passing and moving? It's pre season, their getting their fitness up. No cohesion in the team? It's pre season, their getting their fitness up. Bruce defying everyone and playing Hutton and Richards at centre back? It's pre season etc etc. Whether we win every game 5-0 or lose every game 5-0 will not dictate how our season goes, the only game you can take anything from is the final one, and even that's a stretch. It's about getting the players some match fitness and getting them used to playing with each other. Tactical work etc will be being done on the training ground, and the matches are only there so the players are ready for a competitive 90 minute match in a few weeks time, some of the over analysis and jumping to conclusions after the last game is ridiculous

The players all looked miles off the pace...in their 2nd pre season match. Shocker

Tbf he has the potential to become a bit of a cult hero, just because he will dominate in the air still and everyone kind of expects him to be rubbish, so anything half decent he does will be praised as if he's Maldini, but even against Telford there was one moment when one of their quicker players had a run at him and he barely managed to get a block in, against any half decent attacker that would probably have led to a goal. I wouldn't trust him in our team as things stand

Just did a great little run and through ball...rolling back the years!

Is that true though? I can't remember too many thinking that Gueye was bang average, he just couldn't hold us together completely on his own. Given that we were comparing him with Sanchez I think most rated him fairly highly. I've said before on Clark he was never a bad player, he was just capable of some almighty cock ups (pretty common with young defenders) and those mistakes did blinker a lot of our perceptions of him, now he's maturing its not that surprising he's ironing some of those errors out (being a division lower certainly helped him as well). Westwood is doing now what he did for us, not a great deal, playing tidy non risk football and not setting the world alight, and Albrighton was similar to the situation with Cahill, not quite good enough for our starting 11 yet, but good enough to not want to be a bench warmer. He wouldn't be the player he is today if we hadn't sold him, that move suited everyone. Bacuna is totally different, he doesn't just "make a few errors", his overall play simply doesn't have enough quality, he doesn't even have a proper position. He's not been hampered by injuries or not given enough chances, he simply isn't good enough to maintain high level performances for a season, a 12 game spell where everything clicked and he looked good that he has never managed to replicate doesn't change that

In Marlon Harewood's first ever season in the PL, in a struggling side, he scored 16 goals and was one of their best players. 1 decent run does not make a good player. Playing well in 10% of games, and awful in 90% doesn't make you a good player that's playing badly, it makes you a bad player that had a good spell once. If he did it consistently then I'm sure many more would agree with you, but he hasn't, he's been bang average (at best) over his time here. Believing he has potential to be better is fine (personally I do not, but each to their own), believing he already is better because of a good 12 game spell 3 years ago is crazy

There's a clear difference between Clark and Bacuna though, Clark generally played well and was a good defender with a few big mistakes which skewed our perception of him as we saw him all the time. Those mistakes are pretty common for defenders and will generally get ironed out as they get older, which will see him being more consistent and probably good enough for a lower mid table Prem team. Bacuna on the other hand excels at nothing, he's the clearest example of bang average that I've seen for a long time, he's not terrible, he's not great, he's just meh, and seems to have the Billy big boy attitude and thinks he's a superstar. Bacuna will never be more than a Championship player, if he can get himself some consistency as he matures he may end up as a poor man's Milner, and make a name for himself at a semi decent Championship team

Of course we can all see the same problem, it's not hiding, the real difference between people who think Bruce should be given more time and those that don't isn't being blind to what we've seen, it's having faith that it will change. I should have added "so far" to what I said, Bruce is not stupid, he's not lucked into his previous promotions, I didn't see much of his other teams, but Hull didn't play drab defensive football, they generally had the upper hand on possession and scored plenty of goals. So far we've seen a style similar to that of McLeish, that is, no real style, but overall Bruce's teams set up more like a Mourinho (note : I'm not saying he is anywhere near Mourinho's level, simply a comparable style), solid defensively with some excellent attacking players allowed to express themselves. Until those attacking players are brought in and gel the attacking will always seem lacking, but once they get going it's hard to stop. The resilience is now there, getting the attacking players to begin linking up and gelling together is the final step, it may need a new signing, it may just need a bit of time, but I firmly believe it will happen eventually. I understand you don't believe that, but given Bruce will undoubtedly be starting the season as our manager, I'm sure we're both hoping that I'm right and you're not!

The better analogy would be hiring a builder who has a track record of building the exact style of house that you want, but when he arrives to start the work the guy you hired before him because of a great advert you'd seen messed everything up, hadn't even got the foundations dug, had all the wrong tools, and your guy has to start from scratch, undoing all the crap that he inherited. You show up to check on it a few months later and it looks like a building site still. This doesn't mean he isn't capable of doing the thing he's been successfully doing for decades, it just means it's a work in progress. Our foundations are there, it's the finishing touches that we need now, final pieces that turn a building site into a house

People seem to forget that players are people, new managers mean new coaching, different schedules, different tactics etc etc, meaning the current players here and new ones coming have ALL got to adapt and change their entire routines around it. Its not an easy thing to do seamlessly, especially when, at the start of the season our long standing pro to help the newbies adapt and settle in was Gabby. Things are changing now, the players signed in summer are settled for the most part, the Jan signings are mostly there too, they like the manager and like his methods (and are used to them) Where Southampton have been effective is they sign players used to playing and training a certain way, and only employ managers that also train and set up their team the same way. And they have done this for years and years before even making it to the PL. We went from MON (defensive with rapid counter attacking play) to GH (dominating possession slow build up) to AMcL (defend at all costs) to PL (bit of a mixture of everything, would have been far more successful with some more backing IMO) to TS (overly attacking all guns blazing) to RG (not really sure, a bit like Houllier maybe?) to RDM (slow build up, lack of organisation - may have had more success with more time, we'll never know) to SB (defensive, organised, lack of clear attacking plan). On top of that we have signed virtually an entire new team in each of the last 2 seasons, all new players coming into the disorganised shitshow that we have been making it harder than ever to "hit the ground running" This is why some of us want some stability, the fact that SB has 4 promotions is important, because we need to put some faith in a manager to actually improve us in the medium term, and we didn't really have faith that RDM was that man, his single promotion was a long time ago, and being an isolated even could easily have been simply a one off season (see : Leicester winning the league) or the league could have changed and improved dramatically since that time. With Bruce we don't have that problem. It's easy to put a bit of faith in him because he has earned it. We are still transitioning into a semi cohesive unit, and there will definitely be low points still to come, having a manager that you know can achieve what we want is a massive plus, and not worth upsetting everything again to change it and hope for the best, especially as from what I've seen those wanting him sacked now don't want a similar manager, they want the polar opposite (again) and instant results (promotion this season), 2 things that don't usually go well together especially with a fragile team that is only just starting to settle from all the recent changes

You need a balance though, young prospects and experienced heads together. It should never be one or the other

I think if you watched them all closely you'd be surprised to find that most full backs do this, it's a challenging position with constantly going up and down the length of the pitch so when a full back bombs forward it usually sees a little reshuffle at the back (DM drops in and CB moves out, winger drops back etc). It's incredibly difficult to sprint the full length of the pitch one way then sprint the full length back and still be going for a full 90 mins every match. There are always exceptions of course, but it's fairly standard. The problem is really that Hutton is terrible when he gets forward, not that he doesn't get back at the same speed, so it's still the "works hard, but hasn't got the quality" for me. In my opinion he's a good option for the squad, not the best but not horrendous and will always give 100%, shouldn't be first choice, but useful to have for squad rotation - I'd say there won't be too many 2nd choice right backs better than Hutton in the Championship

We tempted him with his impressive CV for good reason, he's never had any sustained success and no Prem teams wanted to gamble on him. His promotion was some time ago and his Champions League was after being in charge for 5 minutes. Sherwood had an impressive win ratio but based solely on 6 months with a strong team it meant precisely nothing when it came to the job here. The sort of "impressive CV's" that we could attract would be currently out of work, recently sacked or with their stock low and stuck managing nothing sides. David Moyes at the time he moved to Man Utd was a sought after manager, MON was an absolute coup for us at the time. Those are the sort of managers with good CV's we're currently in a position to attract, the ones that had a bit of success which all came unraveled for 1 reason or another, would that really be better? And I repeat, I am not talking about keeping Bruce here forever, I am talking about getting out of this division, then moving onto a different man to push us on. Just because I believe that he will get us promoted absolutely does not mean I think he can push us on in the PL. I am talking about taking one step at a time, walking before we run, being prepared for the future but focusing on the here and now, and the here and now is the Championship, we need promotion or all the other worries about how we'll be in the PL are meaningless

To be fair, almost every player improves a little, unless they have truly horrendous attitudes, even Marlon Harewood was a better all round player at 28 than he was at 18

Well we tried Di Matteo and it hardly proved that he could get us to mid table in the Championship, let alone to the top of the Premier League, the likes of Howe, Dyche or Southgate - firstly are they even attainable in our position? Most likely not, and secondly are they even capable of being up there and challenging with the likes of Mourinho or Guardiola etc? There's nothing to show that at the moment, meaning if we could hire them, while they may or may not be an improvement on SB, would they still not still have their own flaws, would they not still need replacing as we move on? Rather than looking for this mystical manager who not only happily join a team that just finished bottom half of the 2ne tier, but who is also capable of taking us right to the top, I ask again, would it not be more sensible to focus on achieving our first goal before moving on to the next stage? The way teams like Southampton did, before selling their best players every year caused them to stall, the way we shouldn't if the Doc is true to his word?

Is it not somewhat pie in the sky to expect a manager to come to a mid table Championship club, with no margin for error, and not only get them promoted, but follow up by establishing them in the Prem and pushing them to the upper echelons of the league and Europe? I mean, that's a 1 in a million manager that literally every club dreams of finding (and none have), and there is literally no margin for error as every year we spend in the Championship it becomes harder to get out, is it not a far more sensible approach to appoint managers to achieve the immediate goal, before replacing them with more competent managers to achieve the next step as our league position, and therefore pulling power, improves? As long as people in charge of recruiting ensure some degree of continuity (whether that be playing staff or coaches etc) and don't hop wildly from extreme to extreme with regards to managerial choices, surely that is the most effective way to build the club?

1. Man Utd are the richest club in the world with arguably the best keeper in the world already, them not wanting him absolutely does not mean he's not good enough for us, or that he won't improve in the future, this is the same Man Utd that didn't bat an eyelid at Pogba leaving for peanuts then signing him back for a world record amount 2 & 3 (as they're basically the same). This is subjective, I think he's made a few decent saves, and there's certainly an argument to be made that a good keeper shouldn't need to be making world class saves a lot as they're in the right position to make that save routine - similar to the "good defenders don't make many last ditch game saving tackles as they don't need to" debate. Also, still beating this old drum, he's young, he will only improve. 4 & 5. Again, this is a young keeper who's game will only improve as he gets older, these 2 points are 2 of the major things that goalkeepers work on in training. I also think our keepers have had a fair bit of unfair stick over their kicking in recent years on here, when in their defence, it's generally been fine with the main problem being the only player capable of winning a header has been bloody Alan Hutton out hugging the right touchline. From your post I assume you're expecting a goalkeeper that Man Utd wouldn't sell, who makes strings of saves game after game never conceding, while claiming every cross or ball that comes into the penalty area and kicks so accurately that we win nearly every header. I believe your looking for us to sign De Gea for less than £5m