Steve Bruce

[TheStagMan]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

If he does, great

I'd take far more value in being in league with someone with 40 odd years experience in football versus a bunch of internet forum members.

I would prefer to be in league with someone who knew what he was doing and was good at it, but each to their own. 

[Dave J]

11 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

He rolled the dice in January, signed one of the top scorers and two of the most creative midfielders, it's really not rocket science to understand it.

They didn't / haven't worked out, hindsight, as ever is a great thing.

Like Bruce, I remember everyone (and I mean everyone) else being excited with those signings so seems petty to now use it as another stick with which to beat him.

I think his handling of striking options was terrible in my opinion - why persist with Gabby who quite frankly was offering nothing other than the absolute basic requirement of a professional footballer - he knew we were going to be light in this area but effectively waited until our season was done before doing anything about the striking department again imo 

[mykeyb]

23 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

In fairness mate I think he was past it by at least a day.

Gestede literally became Yesterday's man....

[TRO]

52 minutes ago, Dave J said:

I think his handling of striking options was terrible in my opinion - why persist with Gabby who quite frankly was offering nothing other than the absolute basic requirement of a professional footballer - he knew we were going to be light in this area but effectively waited until our season was done before doing anything about the striking department again imo 

Dave we have spent the best part of 45 million on :

• Hogan
• McCormack
• Kodjia

He is searching for a solution, working permutations to get an answer.

Can we not give the club a break?

[Dave J]

4 minutes ago, TRO said:

Dave we have spent the best part of 45 million on :

• Hogan
• McCormack
• Kodjia

He is searching for a solution, working permutations to get an answer.

Can we not give the club a break?

It's nothing at all to do with the club TRO - my point here is simply Bruce persisted with playing a misfiring Gabby and waited until our promotion dream had faded before deciding on purchasing a replacement - Bruce knew well before the window that we were going to be light in this area - why wait it made no sense to me TRO.

[TRO]

The interesting thing for me is, despite all the derogatory remarks made against our current manager, to my knowledge no one has come on here in a positive light and listed exactly what they would be happy with should Steve Bruce do it.

It is very easy to line yourselves up in a duck shoot, but it is only fair to say what you would like to see, so a line can be drawn.

its no good saying we want to win games.....because the is so blindly obvious.

I'm talking about trying to be fair to any guy is looking for an answer.

What is is it you want to see?what would make you happy?

lets be positive and dump negativity.

Edited September 6, 2017 by TRO

[Dave J]

4 minutes ago, TRO said:

The interesting thing for me is, despite all the derogatory remarks made against our current manager, to my knowledge no one has come on here in a positive light and listed exactly what they would be happy with should Steve Bruce do it.

It is very easy to line yourselves up in a duck shoot, but it is only fair to say what you would like to see, so a line can be drawn.

its no good saying we want to win games.....because the is so blindly obvious.

I'm talking about trying to be fair to any guy is looking for an answer.

What is is it you want to see?what would make you happy?

lets be positive and dump negativity.

TRO - I'm not being flippant or churlish but that's exactly want we want from Bruce - positivity & dump the negativity 

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, Dave J said:

It's nothing at all to do with the club TRO - my point here is simply Bruce persisted with playing a misfiring Gabby and waited until our promotion dream had faded before deciding on purchasing a replacement - Bruce knew well before the window that we were going to be light in this area - why wait it made no sense to me TRO.

Dave you make it sound like he just waited until the promotion opportunity faded, almost on purpose.....he was trying to resurect the career of a longstanding player.....I could write a derogatory manuscript on Gabby, but 10/10 for brucie for having a go.

He has bosses too and tried to demonstrate perseverance.

I do not buy in to this theory you can buy who you want, when you want, unless you are blessed with managing the very top clubs, many factors have to come in to play before players can be secured and FFP has joined the band to rear its ugly head.

I share your frustration Dave, but its not as easy as it looks on the surface.

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, Dave J said:

TRO - I'm not being flippant or churlish but that's exactly want we want from Bruce - positivity & dump the negativity 

He has won 2 games at home inc cup and drawn one......so i guess you mean away form.

explain what you would like to see him do, that he isn't.

its not a loaded question, i would not know how to advise him, even if i had the chance.

what would you advise him do?

[Dave J]

3 minutes ago, TRO said:

Dave you make it sound like he just waited until the promotion opportunity faded, almost on purpose.....he was trying to resurect the career of a longstanding player.....I could write a derogatory manuscript on Gabby, but 10/10 for brucie for having a go.

He has bosses too and tried to demonstrate perseverance.

I do not buy in to this theory you can buy who you want, when you want, unless you are blessed with managing the very top clubs, many factors have to come in to play before players can be secured and FFP has joined the band to rear its ugly head.

I share your frustration Dave, but its not as easy as it looks on the surface.

I hear what you say TRO and your loyalty is to be applauded- I'm afraid though in my opinion his experment with Gabby was flawed - and you cannot escape that his handling of janauary was too - again in my opinion. He knew what January was going to bring and should have acted much sooner to have prevented the miserable run that ensued. Imo 

[Dave J]

2 minutes ago, TRO said:

He has won 2 games at home inc cup and drawn one......so i guess you mean away form.

explain what you would like to see him do, that he isn't.

its not a loaded question, i would not know how to advise him, even if i had the chance.

what would you advise him do?

Take off the handbrake - puff their chests out and whisper in the oppositions  ears - your playing against Aston Villa today  as our lot line up in the tunnel !!

[TRO]

1 minute ago, Dave J said:

I hear what you say TRO and your loyalty is to be applauded- I'm afraid though in my opinion his experment with Gabby was flawed - and you cannot escape that his handling of janauary was too - again in my opinion. He knew what January was going to bring and should have acted much sooner to have prevented the miserable run that ensued. Imo 

I have never felt that Steve Bruce has not been thorougly aware of our situation at any time during his stewardship.

that does not always mean he can do what he wants when he wants.

I have always felt Steve Bruce undertstands what is going on during a game....despite on occasions failing to secure a win.

I think it is an entirely different thing knowing whats wrong and doing something about it.

 

[TRO]

6 minutes ago, Dave J said:

Take off the handbrake - puff their chests out and whisper in the oppositions  ears - your playing against Aston Villa today  as our lot line up in the tunnel !!

Haha

Dave you are from my old school......look i have difficulty disagreeing with that.

The purists amongst us will say it takes a bit more technical know how than just that....just being devils advocate.

I am actually with you.....just getting them to man up and dictate.

[AJ]

13 minutes ago, Dave J said:

Take off the handbrake - puff their chests out and whisper in the oppositions  ears - your playing against Aston Villa today  as our lot line up in the tunnel !!

That would be frickin awesome. As long as we back it up.

[Villarocker]

@TRO, 

For me, one of Bruce's biggest problems is that he seems to have no idea what formation to play or who to play in it. 

I would like Bruce to find a settled formation with the same, settled eleven starting game in - game out, even if it's league games played Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday. Unless a player is injured, suspended or self-confessed suffering fatigue, just play a settled side and let's have them gel on the pitch when it really matters - match days. Show us a sign that you know what formation you want to play, pick eleven players to suit it and then stick to it. 

I would also like him to get over FFP restrictions. He brought in three players during the summer that were Premier League players last season. Loads of clubs in our league would have loved to have been lucky enough to do that so he needs to forget about it and get on with getting us out of this shitty league. 

[Keener window-cleaner]

27 minutes ago, TRO said:

The interesting thing for me is, despite all the derogatory remarks made against our current manager, to my knowledge no one has come on here in a positive light and listed exactly what they would be happy with should Steve Bruce do it.

It is very easy to line yourselves up in a duck shoot, but it is only fair to say what you would like to see, so a line can be drawn.

its no good saying we want to win games.....because the is so blindly obvious.

I'm talking about trying to be fair to any guy is looking for an answer.

What is is it you want to see?what would make you happy?

lets be positive and dump negativity.

I have swayed between wanting Bruce to be kicked out or not. After the performance against Reading (and in light of last seasons performances) it tipped towards definitely wanting him out. The performances afterwards has given him a bit of a respite in my mind.

What I want to see it quite simple, I want a more attacking style of play. The previous constant performances of just sitting back doing nothing, just protecting the goal and trying to score on one of the few chances we occationally had seemed to drain out all enthusiasm the players might have had. To that comes the continous irrational tactical decisions of playing people out of position (Hourihane as a defensive midfielder, full backs as wingers etc), not making substitutions in time and strange transfer dealings (saying we had an unbalanced team, then shipping Gestede, Ayew and McCormack only to be replaced by Hogan or buying two more right wingers who both will demand to play when we already had one of the better right wingers in the league).

The performance against Norwich was hopefully the turning point, you could see from the outset that the players had far more attacking instructions than before, and Calderwood also said in an interview that we would be looking to play more attacking football.

Or put in another way, what I would like to see and make me happy is normal football, not just this over defensive McLeish style of anti football that we have been seeing.  

 

[TRO]

1 minute ago, villarocker said:

@TRO, 

For me, one of Bruce's biggest problems is that he seems to have no idea what formation to play or who to play in it. 

I would like Bruce to find a settled formation with the same, settled eleven starting game in - game out, even if it's league games played Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday. Unless a player is injured, suspended or self-confessed suffering fatigue, just play a settled side and let's have them gel on the pitch when it really matters - match days. Show us a sign that you know what formation you want to play, pick eleven players to suit it and then stick to it. 

I would also like him to get over FFP restrictions. He brought in three players during the summer that were Premier League players last season. Loads of clubs in our league would have loved to have been lucky enough to do that so he needs to forget about it and get on with getting us out of this shitty league. 

VR that is fine.....hard to disagree with your point.

just to remind you we had a manager who stuck religiously to his original line up, to the detriment of the fans.....its hard to win.

usually managers stick with a team that wins ......our irregularity of that may contribute to his tendency to change things.....its catch 22

we have played 5 games.....your last paragraph sounds like we have played 15.

that is not a put down.....just pleading for a bit of patience.

[TRO]

3 minutes ago, Keener window-cleaner said:

I have swayed between wanting Bruce to be kicked out or not. After the performance against Reading (and in light of last seasons performances) it tipped towards definitely wanting him out. The performances afterwards has given him a bit of a respite in my mind.

What I want to see it quite simple, I want a more attacking style of play. The previous constant performances of just sitting back doing nothing, just protecting the goal and trying to score on one of the few chances we occationally had seemed to drain out all enthusiasm the players might have had. To that comes the continous irrational tactical decisions of playing people out of position (Hourihane as a defensive midfielder, full backs as wingers etc), not making substitutions in time and strange transfer dealings (saying we had an unbalanced team, then shipping Gestede, Ayew and McCormack only to be replaced by Hogan or buying two more right wingers who both will demand to play when we already had one of the better right wingers in the league).

The performance against Norwich was hopefully the turning point, you could see from the outset that the players had far more attacking instructions than before, and Calderwood also said in an interview that we would be looking to play more attacking football.

Or put in another way, what I would like to see and make me happy is normal football, not just this over defensive McLeish style of anti football that we have been seeing.  

 

Yeah i understand all of that....but you make many observations of fault over a roughly 9 month period....that have developed over a period.

The team is bound to get better as we go so things will naturaly change.....i am not sure that the players were playing to instructions or salvaged more confidence to beat Norwich.

its anyones call

i think we all want normal football to resume......but maybe months of work at BMH and new faces may fix that.

[Villarocker]

15 minutes ago, TRO said:

VR that is fine.....hard to disagree with your point.

just to remind you we had a manager who stuck religiously to his original line up, to the detriment of the fans.....its hard to win.

usually managers stick with a team that wins ......our irregularity of that may contribute to his tendency to change things.....its catch 22

we have played 5 games.....your last paragraph sounds like we have played 15.

that is not a put down.....just pleading for a bit of patience.

I know it's only 5 games mate and that's what worries me about him going on about FFP. It is like he's getting his excuses in early. We know about our financial restrictions but, despite them, he has arguably the strongest squad of players in this league to work with so there's really no need to mention the FFP restrictions, unless of course he felt that he needed to buy even more players. 

[Keener window-cleaner]

The problem is that prior to Norwich I saw no development at all compared to the first game in charge. At that time I was positive because I thought we looked more solid and diciplined comapred to under RDM and had excpected us to kick on. But the I didn't see any signs of improvement. Regardless of formation or players, it was the same. Then I hoped that a pre season with his own players would show some improvement, but was met by the Cardiff and Reading performances.

I think the Norwich example shows quite clearly that the players react to the instructions given to them and made me even more convinced that the fault lays with the management team and not the players. To draw a parallell with the first part of Paul Lambert's last season in charge; a lot of us criticised Lambert for not playing any possession football, then suddenly he made his visit to the Bayern München training ground and came back with a radical change of style of play where we suddenly didn't do anything els than pass the ball around in our own half (he even got Guzan to try to pass the ball all the time instead of kicking it away) winning possession in every game, although not winning any games. That showed how even average players very quickly can adapt to new styles of play and the instructions the manager gives them. Bruce at some point criticised our play and (exactly like McLeish) said he didn't tell the players to pass it sideways etc. Well the question is rather: what does he tell the players to do? Good managers makes the players understand the style of play they want the team to play and implements it. For the most part of last season it looked like the players didn't have a clue what to do when they got the ball. Defensively they knew what to do, they were quite well drilled and sat back defending. But when we got the ball they just looked lost.

I'm still hoping that he will get it right, but I have almost lost my hope and I'm not sure he is the answer in the long run. For now though I am pleased with the way he has at least slightly released the shackles and let the players attack more.