Steve Bruce

[Keyblade]

24 minutes ago, holteend1982 said:

Finishing outside top two you could possibly consider a failure but if we get promoted its irrelevant. 

I do fancy our chances In the play offs but I was thinking last time Bruce took Hull up they played Wednesday in the final and their performance was similar to our recent ones, dead flat, boring, unmotivated.  if it wasn't for diames wonder goal and the fact Wednesday we're awful they would have got hammered! 

Is it just me or has Diame made a career of joining a relegated club/a club about to get relegated, and then coming straight back up? He's done it 3 times now if I'm not mistaken. Maybe he's the missing piece we need to get promoted 

 

[Demitri_C]

34 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Because our record isnt great vs teams around us. That Wolves game was a fluke

It was not a fluke. You don't beat the best team 4-1 and it was a fluke.

We have just been shit since that win.

[Vive_La_Villa]

 

41 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Because our record isnt great vs teams around us. That Wolves game was a fluke

That is because we are not as good as some of the teams around us.  So based on that promotion via the playoffs should be deemed a success not a failure. 

We are not good enough to make top 2.  The table doesn't lie. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

8 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

It was not a fluke. You don't beat the best team 4-1 and it was a fluke.

We have just been shit since that win.

It wasn't a fluke but 4-1 wasn't a reflection of the game either. We had 4 shots on goal with 2 from set pieces.

Edited April 1, 2018 by Vive_La_Villa

[holteend1982]

1 minute ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It wasn't a fluke but 4-1 wasn't a reflection of the game either. We had 4 shots on goal with 2 from set pieces.

They also should of had a penalty at 3  1, still a great result but not as convincing as it actually sounds! 

[TRO]

17 minutes ago, Eastie said:

He bought whelan , hourihane, lansbury so if you think the midfield is shit surely in 3 transfer windows he should have sorted it ? 

Of course all the blame is not at Bruce’s feet but a larger proportion of it is for me down to him than you are prepared to admit . 

I am quite happy to slag him off to the hilt if that suffices, but then i have flashbacks to the players themselves and what they actually do during the course of a game in these dark moments.....I see stuff that is hard to blame the manager or the coaches, they are pro footballers playing at a high level of football, they too have a responsibility to compete.

I then have flashbacks to some of our players of the past, who showed fire in their bellies....The Shaun Teales and the like, the Andy Grays etc.

I can tell you for a fact, no manager had an effect on Andy's will to win, it was intrinsic, I would suspect Shaun was the same.

The manager always gets the blame, but he has to take the responsibility, but they nearly all get other jobs.

look at Pulis, couldn't buy a win at Albion, but improves 'borough and gets a tune out of Traore and the same failure there Monk gets a response from the Blues.....but its harder to sack the players and there is more of them to complicate things.

its not easy to find real answers, just easy to blame managers, but i guess thats the nature of the beast.....I just don't want to be one of those clubs that just take the easy route and become a managerial carousel.

[Vive_La_Villa]

1 minute ago, holteend1982 said:

They also should of had a penalty at 3  1, still a great result but not as convincing as it actually sounds! 

Plus we cleared one of the line at 1-1.  

Great night but easy to get carried away after it.  The way Wolves responded to the defeat shows the gulf in class (and even fight) between the two teams.  

There is no way we would have ever held out for 20 minutes against Boro with 9 men. 

It really is just hope for the best now.

[terrytini]

17 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

It was not a fluke. You don't beat the best team 4-1 and it was a fluke.

We have just been shit since that win.

We have but we weren’t great before it either, we Won 2 of 4....so other than Wolves we’ve only Won 2 of 7....both at teams in the bottom 8....and whilst Sunderland was easy we weren’t great, and we struggled against Wednesday.

The truth is since Jack got injured against Blues we’ve played well once, against Wolves. Dare one say it, we looked the same without him, and with ‘post-injury’ him, as we did for the first few months of the season when we were without him.

[terrytini]

7 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Plus we cleared one of the line at 1-1.  

Great night but easy to get carried away after it.  The way Wolves responded to the defeat shows the gulf in class (and even fight) between the two teams.  

There is no way we would have ever held out for 20 minutes against Boro with 9 men. 

It really is just hope for the best now.

In fact didn’t Boro play much of the home game against us with 10 men and made us look very average.

[TRO]

42 minutes ago, Eastie said:

 Many of these players are playing for a deal here -Hutton,  terry, snoddy, Johnstone will all probably get deals should we get promotion , possible grabban too.

Pehaps they don't like their wives.

[TRO]

8 minutes ago, terrytini said:

We have but we weren’t great before it either, we Won 2 of 4....so other than Wolves we’ve only Won 2 of 7....both at teams in the bottom 8....and whilst Sunderland was easy we weren’t great, and we struggled against Wednesday.

The truth is since Jack got injured against Blues we’ve played well once, against Wolves. Dare one say it, we looked the same without him, and with ‘post-injury’ him, as we did for the first few months of the season when we were without him.

I think we are a bit of a paradox.....we have some very good players and some others who lose form very easily too

we have too many players during a game who don't ask enough questions of the opposition, they just make up the numbers.....This is much more prevalent when teams come at us or want a scrap.

Edited April 1, 2018 by TRO

[markavfc40]

We are 39 games in and he has managed us to be the 4th best side in the division and I'd say that is what we are and that position doesn"t flatter us.

There is no denying though that we are under achieving and should be competing for automatic promotion.

It is gut wrenching at the moment as it feels like we have missed a massive opportunity post Wolves game where we had gotten ourselves into a great position to kick on. I can't understand why after busting our balls from the end of last year and putting a great run together we have in three games threw away a great chance of automatic and I am sure the manager is scratching his head. You can bet he has prepared them in the same way and sent them out with similar instructions.

Whilst he ultimately takes the blame for the recent poor run I am not forgetting the great run that we put together which put us in a great position a couple of weeks ago.

The last three games have shown how quickly things can turn around. Ultimately the bottom line is that this season was all about gaining promotion and he will be judged on that. As things stand that is still a very real possibility but no ifs or buts Bruce  has to deliver it.

Edited April 1, 2018 by markavfc40

[Keyblade]

26 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

 

That is because we are not as good as some of the teams around us.  So based on that promotion via the playoffs should be deemed a success not a failure. 

We are not good enough to make top 2.  The table doesn't lie. 

We have the best squad in the league bar none. Wolves might have a better first XI but their squad is not as deep as ours. We cherry picked the championships best talent and supplemented that with very good PL loan signings/free transfers. 

At the end of the day, we should not be as far behind Cardiff as we are. Our squad probably costs multiple times more than theirs. We are not good enough for top 2 because we aren't managed well enough for top 2, not because our players aren't good enough.

[Eastie]

27 minutes ago, TRO said:

Pehaps they don't like their wives.

I’m sure not true in JT s case

Edited April 1, 2018 by Eastie

[Demitri_C]

16 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

We are 39 games in and he has managed us to be the 4th best side in the division and I'd say that is what we are and that position doesn"t flatter us.

There is no denying though that we are under achieving and should be competing for automatic promotion.

It is gut wrenching at the moment as it feels like we have missed a massive opportunity post Wolves game where we had gotten ourselves into a great position to kick on. I can't understand why aftet busting our balls from the end of last year and putting a great run together we have in three games threw away a great chance of automatic and I am sure the manager is scratching his head. You can bet he has prepared them in the same way and sent them out with similar instructions.

Whilst he ultimately takes the blame for the recent poor run I am not forgetting the great run that we put together which put us in a great position a couple of weeks ago.

The last three games have shown how quickly things can turn around. Ultimately the bottom line is that this season was all about gaining promotion and he will be judged on that. As things stand that is still a very real possibility but no ifs or buts Bruce  has to deliver it.

Bruce has never delivered a run like Fulham’s since he has been here, he should have. Under achieving for me. 

Bruce also has shown his limitations even with all the players at his disposal he never rarely gets it right where a change has improved us and gone in to win a game espically at a losing position.

he won me back over but yet again he is losing me with this consistent crappy performances 

[KSV]

51 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

It wasn't a fluke but 4-1 wasn't a reflection of the game either. We had 4 shots on goal with 2 from set pieces.

yeah starting to think they were just really poor rather than us being very good. At HT it was 0-0 and very even. Things just went well for us for 15 minutes in the second half. 

[Eastie]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Bruce has never delivered a run like Fulham’s since he has been here, he should have. Under achieving for me. 

Bruce also has shown his limitations even with all the players at his disposal he never rarely gets it right where a change has improved us and gone in to win a game espically at a losing position.

he won me back over but yet again he is losing me with this consistent crappy performances 

To be fair he did deliver our best run of wins in 27 years whilst Fulham are on the best run in their clubs entire history .

cardiff are also on their best run of wins in 72 years - Sod’s law both are doing it at the worst possible time for us:(

[Eastie]

4 minutes ago, KSV said:

yeah starting to think they were just really poor rather than us being very good. At HT it was 0-0 and very even. Things just went well for us for 15 minutes in the second half. 

Was 1-1 at half time . 

[KSV]

1 minute ago, Eastie said:

To be fair he did deliver our best run of wins in 27 years whilst Fulham are on the best run in their clubs entire history .

cardiff are also on their best run of wins in 72 years - Sod’s law both are doing it at the worst possible time for us:(

amazing isnt it. Just our luck. 

[TRO]

14 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

We are 39 games in and he has managed us to be the 4th best side in the division and I'd say that is what we are and that position doesn"t flatter us.

There is no denying though that we are under achieving and should be competing for automatic promotion.

It is gut wrenching at the moment as it feels like we have missed a massive opportunity post Wolves game where we had gotten ourselves into a great position to kick on. I can't understand why aftet busting our balls from the end of last year and putting a great run together we have in three games threw away a great chance of automatic and I am sure the manager is scratching his head. You can bet he has prepared them in the same way and sent them out with similar instructions.

Whilst he ultimately takes the blame for the recent poor run I am not forgetting the great run that we put together which put us in a great position a couple of weeks ago.

The last three games have shown how quickly things can turn around. Ultimately the bottom line is that this season was all about gaining promotion and he will be judged on that. As things stand that is still a very real possibility but no ifs or buts Bruce  has to deliver it.

I agree with all of that.....I would just like to add my general concern.

all teams have off days, but when we have one ,our performances seem to go down to a level our competitors don't drop to.

Derby have managed to emulate us, even aftering beating us 2-0 they have managed to hit the depths of 1-4 against sunderland.

Bristol and Sheff Utd have proved they can't last the course and have dropped away

conversely Fulham had an off day against QPR but still managed a semblence of respectability in their play.

I don't know the source of the problem, i can only speculate like everyone, FWIW.

it just seems to me that the teams that are currently winning games, Fulham, Wolves, Cardiff and Millwall show one common denominator......Durability.They show an appetite for a fight and throw their bodies on the line.....They dig out results and if you beat them, you have to out fight them too.

I am not sure I can level that at our team, particulary on the off days....too many go missing.