Steve Bruce

[PieFacE]

Just now, LondonLax said:

It finished 1-0 with Newcastle having 2 shots on target and 31% possession 

hahaha...was so predictable. 

[Keyblade]

I guess this buys him more time which can only be a good thing. The longer Newcastle are relegation certs the better for us. A couple of flukey wins against big sides (United look like relegation fodder to be fair) just paper over giant chasms.

[Zatman]

52 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

I guess this buys him more time which can only be a good thing. The longer Newcastle are relegation certs the better for us. A couple of flukey wins against big sides (United look like relegation fodder to be fair) just paper over giant chasms.

They need beat teams around them which seems to struggle with

[Keyblade]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

They need beat teams around them which seems to struggle with

Exactly. You might nick a goal against wounded giants and defend for your lives for half a game. But when it comes to playing teams on your own level, their lack of ideas will always be their undoing. Just think back to when we faced top 6 teams in the Championship. We hadn't a clue. We were just flat track bullies. There are no Barnsleys and Rotherhams in this league for Newcastle. 

[LakotaDakota]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

I guess this buys him more time which can only be a good thing. The longer Newcastle are relegation certs the better for us. A couple of flukey wins against big sides (United look like relegation fodder to be fair) just paper over giant chasms.

The slight concern i guess is that they have the same amount of points as us from what looks like a more difficult set of games. Sure they have played a few of the teams around them but they have 8 points from:

Arsenal, Norwich, Spurs, Watford, Liverpool, Brighton, Leicester & Man Utd.

They picked up a point at both Watford & Brighton, The only game they have lost that you would have perhaps expected them to get something out of is the defeat away at Norwich. Looking at that run of games i'm not convinced that 8 points is a bad total and they have not lost out to two of the three teams likely to be somewhere around them

If that was our first 8 fixtures i would be pretty happy with 8 points. On paper at least ours look a bit easier with a bunch of teams likely to finish 8th-16th

Spurs, Bournemouth, Everton, Palace, West Ham, Arsenal, Burnley, Norwich

Edited October 6, 2019 by LakotaDakota

[bobzy]

He’s done pretty well with Newcastle so far to be fair. 

Edited October 6, 2019 by bobzy

[VillaChris]

In the long run not beating Watford or Brighton at home will hurt them a fair bit I think. They were also turned over very comfortably at Norwich. Still got a tough period of games after the break, Chelsea and West Ham away and Wolves at home who are improving significantly so can see a draw and two losses from that.

[bobzy]

5 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

In the long run not beating Watford or Brighton at home will hurt them a fair bit I think. They were also turned over very comfortably at Norwich. Still got a tough period of games after the break, Chelsea and West Ham away and Wolves at home who are improving significantly so can see a draw and two losses from that.

Maybe. I’d have expected them to lose to all of Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester and Man Utd though. 

[Keyblade]

1 hour ago, LakotaDakota said:

The slight concern i guess is that they have the same amount of points as us from what looks like a more difficult set of games. Sure they have played a few of the teams around them but they have 8 points from:

Arsenal, Norwich, Spurs, Watford, Liverpool, Brighton, Leicester & Man Utd.

They picked up a point at both Watford & Brighton, The only game they have lost that you would have perhaps expected them to get something out of is the defeat away at Norwich. Looking at that run of games i'm not convinced that 8 points is a bad total and they have not lost out to two of the three teams likely to be somewhere around them

If that was our first 8 fixtures i would be pretty happy with 8 points. On paper at least ours look a bit easier with a bunch of teams likely to finish 8th-16th

Spurs, Bournemouth, Everton, Palace, West Ham, Arsenal, Burnley, Norwich

That's an extremely charitable interpretation that even Newcastle fans would struggle to give their team.

The teams they played had an average finish of 9th last season as opposed to 10.75 for us (assuming Norwich finished 18th). Hardly a significantly harder start. We played Arsenal away too as opposed to at home on opening weekend.

They picked up 2 points from Norwich, Watford, Brighton and Leicester, scoring 3 and conceding 10. It's good to pick up wins against the big teams but even if they win every single one of those matches, there are only 6 of those teams. Meanwhile there are 13 other clubs who they will struggle for points against. I'd say this is way more worrying than 1-0 wins against top 6 sides are encouraging.

Put it this way, I'd much rather be in our position than theirs. If we were playing like them I'd genuinely be worried about relegation. As it stands I'm quite relaxed about it.

[LakotaDakota]

42 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

The teams they played had an average finish of 9th last season as opposed to 10.75 for us (assuming Norwich finished 18th). Hardly a significantly harder start. We played Arsenal away too as opposed to at home on opening weekend.

Average of 9th? 4 of their 8 games have been against teams that finished top 6

[villa4europe]

Winning 1/4 games at home with 30% possession and a couple of shots

We could get relegated and I'd rather be in our position 

[Keyblade]

1 minute ago, LakotaDakota said:

Average of 9th? 4 of their 8 games have been against teams that finished top 6

(5 + 18 + 4 + 11 + 2 + 17 + 9 + 6) / 8 = 9

[LakotaDakota]

1 hour ago, Keyblade said:

(5 + 18 + 4 + 11 + 2 + 17 + 9 + 6) / 8 = 9

doesn't mean anything though does it.

If a teams first 3 games were against man city, liverpool & brighton they should do ok then because the teams they played only had an average of 7th...?

They have played 4 of last years top 6 and beaten 2 of them. We have played 2 of last years top 6 and lost to both conceding 6 goals in those 2 matches, Newcastle conceded 1 goal in the 2 matches against spurs & arsenal

Last season under Rafa "tactical genius, i won the champions league don't you know" Benitez their record after 8 games was:

P8 W0 D2 L6 F6 A13 GD-7 : PTS 2

This year under Steve "clueless football dinosaur" Bruce they are :

P8 W2 D2 L4 F5 A13 GD-8 : PTS 8

I know which one i would prefer...

On a side note this thread is just about to break 2 million views

Edited October 6, 2019 by LakotaDakota

[Keyblade]

8 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

doesn't mean anything though does it.

If a teams first 3 games were against man city, liverpool & brighton they should do ok then because the teams they played only had an average of 7th...?

They have played 4 of last years top 6 and beaten 2 of them. We have played 2 of last years top 6 and lost to both conceding 6 goals in those 2 matches, Newcastle conceded 1 goal in the 2 matches against spurs & arsenal

Well it does, as 8 is a much bigger sample size than 3. You said they had the harder start. It's only marginally harder. 

You can isolate 1 or 2 games and manipulate stats to make any point. You could also say for example that they lost away to newly promoted Norwich, scoring 1 conceding 3 goals. We beat them, scoring 5 conceding 1. It doesn't mean anything.

The fact is that they're getting dominated in every game they play. 2 backs to the wall 1-0 wins (their only 2 wins this season) doesn't make their start any less concerning. Like I said, if we started like them I'd be quite worried and I doubt you'd be this charitable in the Dean Smith thread.

[Hornso]

Couldn't be bothered retyping this sorry:

Edited October 7, 2019 by Hornso
Added threaded tweet

[bannedfromHandV]

That goal difference stat can’t be right, -121 but 239th, no way jose.

[Hornso]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

That goal difference stat can’t be right, -121 but 239th, no way jose.

How dare you question my calculations! 

Going by my "dodgy spreadsheet", he's one of three managers to have a goal difference of minus 100 or worse. The other two being Mick McCarthy & Paul Jewell who are -114 & -100 respectively. The difference being they've both managed only 138 games. The worse managers don't tend to manage enough games to get a worse goal difference.

A better comparison might have been Goals For PG and Goals Against PG. For instance here's how he compares against just those other two:

Bruce - 1.018 GFPG & 1.320 GAPG
McCarthy - 0.920 GFPG & 1.746 GAPG
Jewell - 0.978 GFPG & 1.703 GAPG

 

[bobzy]

10 hours ago, Keyblade said:

The teams they played had an average finish of 9th last season as opposed to 10.75 for us (assuming Norwich finished 18th). Hardly a significantly harder start. We played Arsenal away too as opposed to at home on opening weekend.

Utterly bizarre to suggest they haven’t had a significantly harder start than us. 

[villa4europe]

i think its bizarre to try and compare...

just using spurs as an example, they finished 3rd last season, they're currently shit

its a guide but its not scientific fact

what I would argue is based on what we know of our time with him at the helm is that we should find our feet, gain confidence and grow in to the season hopefully getting better and stringing some results together, Newcastle's "form" will be pretty much what they've already done through 8 games, sporadic point snatching

[bobzy]

5 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

i think its bizarre to try and compare...

just using spurs as an example, they finished 3rd last season, they're currently shit

I mean, it’s not at all. Comparing starts happens all the time.

They’re hardly shit either - just had some bad results. It’s form. It happens. They beat us and drew away at Man City before Newcastle beat them. Were they “shit” then?