Steve Bruce

[Tomaszk]

Nice to see "but he signed McGinn" has replace the references to Bristol City and Wolves wins. They were boring.

Obviously he did some good things. McGinn is an incredible signing. What's the point though if he cocked up taking us up, then was taking us down the next season? Two steps forward, five steps back, and he deserves credit?! He could have took us down to league two and the same people here would be praising majority of his actions.

Plus the main reason of us just being so crap to watch. It was horrible and deflating as anything to play that football in that division with that team. There was never any plan to change it either, never any plan to begin with.

[kurtsimonw]

9 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Why haven’t you included Kodjia, Grealish, Chester, Baker, Jedinak or Adomah in your squad summing up? They were all players that Bruce called on at various points. All good players that he had at his disposal.

You’ve otherwise summed up reasonably well, I don’t agree with it completely but it’s more or less on the money. I think Elphick proved he could step up and play for us, I think Westwood would be an ok squad player for us, Ayew too. I was always supportive of Gollini and wouldn’t have minded seeing him being given more time, but I get why he was ditched.

But it’s not an accurate summing up when you miss out half a dozen players, two of which were our top goal scorers in the first two seasons, another was our stalwart captain for most of our time here, one trusty defender, one useful defensive midfielder (and occasional defender) and the other literally our best player.

Well my response was saying his squad building was good, I couldn't really mention players that he inherited and then also kept on as it's a lot more subjective to what he did. I think Kodjia scored 1 pre-Bruce, then became one of the leagues top scorers. Moved Jack in to the middle where he's thrived. I did forget Baker (who I liked), but Tuanzebe was an improvement. Adomah scored a tonne under Bruce, but then he seemed to bin him for no reason.

So even those players Bruce improved from the RDM times, but again it's almost irrelevant comparing the same player before/after when we're talking about such a short amount of time under RDM.

When you look through the names we had and replaced them with though, it's quite staggering how poor our squad was to begin with. And I say this as someone who was always incredibly supportive of Gollini and Ayew in particular.

[kurtsimonw]

8 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Nice to see "but he signed McGinn" has replace the references to Bristol City and Wolves wins. They were boring.

Obviously he did some good things. McGinn is an incredible signing. What's the point though if he cocked up taking us up, then was taking us down the next season? Two steps forward, five steps back, and he deserves credit?! He could have took us down to league two and the same people here would be praising majority of his actions.

Plus the main reason of us just being so crap to watch. It was horrible and deflating as anything to play that football in that division with that team. There was never any plan to change it either, never any plan to begin with.

As I said, just because someone comes in and does a better job, doesn't mean he did a bad job. Do I want him here now? No. Would I have been concerned with him being our manager in the Premier League? Yes. Do I think he should've been sacked? Yes, and earlier than he was. Was his football bad? Yeah, it was really, really bad. But I'm not blinded by all of those things to realise he turned around a real squad of rubbish.

[Mark Albrighton]

2 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

Well my response was saying his squad building was good, I couldn't really mention players that he inherited and then also kept on as it's a lot more subjective to what he did. I think Kodjia scored 1 pre-Bruce, then became one of the leagues top scorers. Moved Jack in to the middle where he's thrived. I did forget Baker (who I liked), but Tuanzebe was an improvement. Adomah scored a tonne under Bruce, but then he seemed to bin him for no reason.

So even those players Bruce improved from the RDM times, but again it's almost irrelevant comparing the same player before/after when we're talking about such a short amount of time under RDM.

When you look through the names we had and replaced them with though, it's quite staggering how poor our squad was to begin with. And I say this as someone who was always incredibly supportive of Gollini and Ayew in particular.

Well Kodjia hadn’t played too many times for us before Bruce took over, but ok.

He did have an effect on Grealish’s game, but was still prone to sticking him out wide.

I don’t think anyone is debating we didn’t improve under Bruce, but I just disagree that the squad he inherited was a complete disaster. It had weaknesses, notably in midfield but Bruce himself relied heavily on a lot of those players he inherited.

[kurtsimonw]

3 minutes ago, Shropshire Lad said:

Well Kodjia hadn’t played too many times for us before Bruce took over, but ok.

He did have an effect on Grealish’s game, but was still prone to sticking him out wide.

I don’t think anyone is debating we didn’t improve under Bruce, but I just disagree that the squad he inherited was a complete disaster. It had weaknesses, notably in midfield but Bruce himself relied heavily on a lot of those players he inherited.

That's why I left most of those names out. They'd made a few dozen appearances between them, Jack aside, so it was really hard to really compare pre/during Bruce's reign with them.

I do think the squad was very poor. But judging quality of performance and ability is a very subjective thing anyway, which is why I completely respect your view to disagree with me on that./ability. I don't really disagree an awful lot with much of what you've said.

I think we can all agree that we're glad he's no longer here.

[Dave J]

2 hours ago, TRO said:

very well put.....perspective at last.

Average job - lets have it right Guys 

[Mark Albrighton]

18 minutes ago, kurtsimonw said:

That's why I left most of those names out. They'd made a few dozen appearances between them, Jack aside, so it was really hard to really compare pre/during Bruce's reign with them.

I do think the squad was very poor. But judging quality of performance and ability is a very subjective thing anyway, which is why I completely respect your view to disagree with me on that./ability. I don't really disagree an awful lot with much of what you've said.

I think we can all agree that we're glad he's no longer here.

Can’t you disagree with me more please? I quite enjoyed that 

[Zatman]

6 hours ago, kurtsimonw said:

He didn't recover for us. Sometimes a change of scenery is what a player needs. Do you genuinely think he was better for us than Johnstone, and that we should've stuck with him?

Gollini had issues but he was replaced by Bunn at the end which is poor management and good manager woukd have worked with him at least. 

Johnstone is an average keeper would be fighting Nyland for 3rd choice in our squad. Steer another Bruce cock up 

[El Zen]

Just now, Zatman said:

Steer another Bruce cock up 

Sending Steer and Elphick on loan remains a mystery to me. 

[Mark Albrighton]

54 minutes ago, Michelsen said:

Sending Steer and Elphick on loan remains a mystery to me. 

I kinda get it to an extent with Steer, he’d been sent out on loan regularly before. Bringing in two keepers though, clearly he didn’t think Jed was up to much, even as a sub, despite weirdly starting him in the first game of the season over Bunn (whom found himself regularly on the bench). It was Bunn in goal for Bruce’s final game, Nyland on the bench. I can’t remember if that was partly down to injury or just Bruce having lost faith in Nyland. Moreira nowhere to be seen anyway.

Elphick going out on loan, the reason Alex Bruce gave was FFP, to save on Tommy’s wages. To my mind that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny for a few reasons. My guess (and it is a guess) is it was down to a personality clash. 

[Stevo985]

Jed Steer who has been here for 8 seasons, not deemed good enough by any manager and consistently sent out on loan by all of them. 

Even Smith spent £7m on a number 1 ahead of Steer. 

But it only seems to be Bruce’s cock up

[El Zen]

1 minute ago, Stevo985 said:

Jed Steer who has been here for 8 seasons, not deemed good enough by any manager and consistently sent out on loan by all of them. 

Even Smith spent £7m on a number 1 ahead of Steer. 

But it only seems to be Bruce’s cock up

It’s more sending him out on loan, leaving us with Nyland, Bunn and the vague memory that is Moreira. 

[TRO]

8 hours ago, Dave J said:

TRO - as always you make some very measured and reasonable points - although in reading your post the word average jumps out at me - which is what I have said I believe him to be all along.

Yes he did some good things and YES he did some bad  things = average to me.

I will never accept having a pop at your own fans through the media TRO - this crosses a line for me.

You simply don't bite the hand that feeds. Imo

some of them Dave, some of them......don't bundle in those that appreciated some of his work and didn't have a pop at him and he knew that.

Those that did have a pop at him, find it very convenient to lump in the rest of us that didn't, to support their stance.

lets be clear here, I was ready for him to go when he did....but i don't look back in anger, pardon the pun.

Edited June 15, 2019 by TRO

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

Gollini had issues but he was replaced by Bunn at the end which is poor management and good manager woukd have worked with him at least. 

Johnstone is an average keeper would be fighting Nyland for 3rd choice in our squad. Steer another Bruce cock up 

Sorry Zat, this is total nonsense imo.

Firstly it’s well documented that Gollini’s issue was not having an Italian goalkeeping coach. Now Bruce COULD have hired one. But I don’t think it’s strange for a manager to bring his own coaching staff and expect the players to work with them rather than handpick coaches to please individual players. 

Secondly, I’m not Johnstone’s biggest fan, but he’s easily the best keeper we’ve had in the championship. He’d have been number 1 all season if he was here last season. To suggest he’s on a par with Nyland is laughable. 

 

Like I said earlier. History is being seriously rewritten in this thread. 

[Stevo985]

1 minute ago, Michelsen said:

It’s more sending him out on loan, leaving us with Nyland, Bunn and the vague memory that is Moreira. 

Retrospect is great though. He’d signed Nyland as a number 1 and assume Moreira as a number 2. 

Crap signings in the end of course. 

But without knowing that at the time, sending Steer on loan makes sense. Why would we want four senior goalkeepers?

[TRO]

1 hour ago, Michelsen said:

Sending Steer and Elphick on loan remains a mystery to me. 

hindsight is an exact science.

[El Zen]

7 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Retrospect is great though. He’d signed Nyland as a number 1 and assume Moreira as a number 2. 

Crap signings in the end of course. 

But without knowing that at the time, sending Steer on loan makes sense. Why would we want four senior goalkeepers?

But when the outcome was an absolute mess of a gk (not to mention cb) situation at the club, it’s hardly unfair to criticise the man in charge of the situation? 

[El Zen]

7 hours ago, TRO said:

hindsight is an exact science.

Countless historians would strongly disagree with that statement  

[Dr_Pangloss]

8 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Jed Steer who has been here for 8 seasons, not deemed good enough by any manager and consistently sent out on loan by all of them. 

Even Smith spent £7m on a number 1 ahead of Steer. 

But it only seems to be Bruce’s cock up

This doesn't accurately represent how we sign players these days. Smith is just one part of that process. I really don't think Kalanic is a 'Smith signing', he may have OK'd it but I seriously doubt Kalanic was a player he knew a lot about and pushed for us to sign.

[Mark Albrighton]

55 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

This doesn't accurately represent how we sign players these days. Smith is just one part of that process. I really don't think Kalanic is a 'Smith signing', he may have OK'd it but I seriously doubt Kalanic was a player he knew a lot about and pushed for us to sign.

It’s a problem these days, how much involvement to assign to managers for certain signings.

For what it’s worth, from my understanding you can probably say McGinn, Tammy, JT....most likely Bruce was heavily involved with those. A few good ones there, some more I haven’t listed. We all know the bad ones.

Based on that previous link that @useless posted and from what @TrentVilla has said, he probably didn’t have much to do with El Ghazi. On the flip side, the same can be said with Moreira I’d suspect.

Because of our 3 year old link to Kalinic, I can imagine that Smith was as “involved” with that one as Bruce was with El Ghazi/Moreira, for instance.

All broadly speaking (and guessing) of course.