Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[rob_bridge]

Bruce has said after the game "I ain't ever going to walk away from a challenge".

Except he did just that at Sheffield United, Wigan, Palace, Small Heath, Wigan a second time and Hull.

Yeah has the same ring as when I read Tony Benn's diaires a while back. He was scathing of the crooked Mandelson and his 'I am not a quitter', except quitting as minister twice (albeit forcibly), quitting as an MP, quitting as an EU Commissioner

[Little Class]

The man has such an array of attacking talent at his disposal - McGinn, Hourihane, Lansbury, Jack, Bolasie, Abraham, Hogan, Kodjia, Adomah - no other club in this league has such talent.

Exactly - you could make a argument he is brilliant at recruitment.  Apart from the CB debacle this summer, and even then he nearly got McKenna and that French Algerian.  And last year he got Snodgrass, Terry, Johnstone and Grabban.  And if he had got another French Algerian in goal then at least we'd know deal with our existential crisis - although he's a bit past it now.

[ozzjim]

Thing is, you can solidify the back so easily, stick Tuanzebe at centre half and Jedinak holding mid. Don't play 4-4-2, you will get completely over run through midfield.

Put Bolasie and Kodjia either side of Abraham up top and McGinn and Grealish in front of Jedinak. Rotate Hourihane and McGinn, there are enough games to do so, and rotate Jedinak and Bjarnarson in front of the back 4. Have Collins as first reserve for centre half if hes fit, not Jedinak, who just is not positionally up to it.

He has no vision for what the team should look like though. Adomah is the obvious example. Tuanzebe another. Hutton switches side every week. Zero consistency, apart from trying to prove a stupid point over Jedinak at centre half, which is such a petty thing to do when it clear detracts from the team.

[Richard]

My thoughts pretty much Ozzjim

I liked the 4 1 4 1 last season

There are just 5 points separating the Top 14 we can go up this season with a better manager

[cheltenhamlion]

Bruce is shit. He should have gone at the end of his first season. He should have gone five minutes after we lost to Fulham in the play offs. How much more time to "Bring stability" does he get?

We are not really any better off now than when he started. There is little goodwill if you win but play crap football. But as long as you win it gets overlooked.

Too often now though we don't get the wins. And there are the never ending bad runs around every decent spell of victories.

He is a busted flush. The job is too big for him. It really is that simple.

I have now gone long past the point of thinking he isn't right for the job. The longer he stays, and the more bullshit he spouts, I actively dislike the man.

It is always someone else's fault. It's the players. The finances. The waifs and strays. An individual error. But just yesterday you can see the problems lie at his door.

Jedinak has been out of position and caught all day. Leave him on the pitch though. We keep being done for pace past Jedinak. Leave him on when Tuanzebe is getting splinters in his arse. Bannan starts running the game because he has all the time in the world every time he gets it in midfield? Surrender that possession, leave him to it, drag every bugger back behind the ball.

We score a wonder goal to equalise (against the run of play) and the crowd are bang up for it. Do we change the formation or maybe use the quality of our bench? Do we fuck. Not until we are behind again.

I have also had a bellyful of his lack of preparation. He didn't know Forestieri was suspended for example. Every week someone throws him a favourable stat in the pre match presser and you can set your watch by it appearing post match as a justification for the crap we served up. Yesterday it was that it was only his fifth home defeat. It isn't but don't bother checking the facts.

I have had enough of "off wi me head" and "the intelligent fans know" and "couple of bad results means mass hysteria". I have had enough of the fat bastard gloating because we beat shite like Rotherham after not winning for a month.

Not only is he crap but he is also an odious, self absorbed, shitbag. And I am not going again until the lazy chancer has fucked off.   

[cheltenhamlion]

The man has such an array of attacking talent at his disposal - McGinn, Hourihane, Lansbury, Jack, Bolasie, Abraham, Hogan, Kodjia, Adomah - no other club in this league has such talent.

Exactly - you could make a argument he is brilliant at recruitment.  Apart from the CB debacle this summer, and even then he nearly got McKenna and that French Algerian.  And last year he got Snodgrass, Terry, Johnstone and Grabban.  And if he had got another French Algerian in goal then at least we'd know deal with our existential crisis - although he's a bit past it now.

He didn't "nearly get" either central defender. That is bollocks. We made a last minute bid for one who didn't fancy it and Aberdeen had already told us no deal for their player given how late it was in the window. More excuses for a bloke out of his time and his lazy squad building I am afraid.

[brian green]

Stuart your sentiments are mine exactly.  You flatter him with the words "squad building".  I call it wanking away the owner's money.

[Abbeyfealeavfc]

After yesterdays result, under Bruce, I believe we have blown our chances of auto promotion. We now cannot get to 22 points after 11 games (season's quarter). Some teams slipped up yesterday, but I still believe 2 or 3 teams will make this target. In the event that some of these teams continue to have inconsistent results, the auto spots may well be settled with less than 90 points, but under Bruce we will come no-where near. After 2 seasons of poor starts, in my view he has f-cked up our auto promotions chances twice. The man needs to go or are our new owners saying, by keeping him on, that mediocrity is fine?
Bruce out now!

[john e]

ironic that on Bruce's 100 game where we were as piss poor as ever he was asking for more time

[Richard]

It's absolute nonsense to say we have blown our chances of auto promotion with 37 games to go and only 5 points off first. Get a new manager in now and I believe we can still do it.

[VinnieChase84]

ironic that on Bruce's 100 game where we were as piss poor as ever he was asking for more time

👏🏻 Thai is exactly the point. The mans has two years and we’ve basically only swapped four players  from what we had at the PO final. Bruce is absolutely begging to keep his job via spreading a narrative that echoes Donald Trump in terms of fake news

[lukey27]

The pre-season was a huge concern. Bruce spent most of it in defensive mode saying we had to accept player sales. The preparation, shape of the team and whole attitude reflected this.

We then were taken over and Bruce suddenly then had to completely change tact. We continued to play a back three with players he had no intention of starting the season with. Leading to a second season where we started with no idea of our best team or best formation. Unforgiveable.

Now we are giving 4-4-2 a go with our best central player farmed out wide. It's make it up as you go and whilst there was argument for stability in the midst of a takeover that time has passed now and the squad and club need a change.

[john e]

The pre-season was a huge concern. Bruce spent most of it in defensive mode saying we had to accept player sales. The preparation, shape of the team and whole attitude reflected this.

We then were taken over and Bruce suddenly then had to completely change tact. We continued to play a back three with players he had no intention of starting the season with. Leading to a second season where we started with no idea of our best team or best formation. Unforgiveable.

Now we are giving 4-4-2 a go with our best central player farmed out wide. It's make it up as you go and whilst there was argument for stability in the midst of a takeover that time has passed now and the squad and club need a change.

the Bruce bringing Stability argument is the single biggest delusion of all

[olaftab]

the Bruce bringing Stability argument is the single biggest delusion of all

Bojo and Gove would be proud of that.

[AV82EC]

I was fortunately not there yesterday but it sounds like Bruce’s chickens are coming home to roost. Even last season it was extremely rare for us to control a game, we got by on experience, will to win and sticking with a tried and tested formula which as it turned out was out of date and ultimately failed. All this talk of stability is just a smokescreen as he’d done that by the end of his first summer transfer window. He and his coaching team have utterly failed in implementing a style of play and personality to our team. The coaching in particular is lacking in all aspects of our game play and management and the tactical approach is out of date and lacking in any subtlety and nuance and a firm message to other teams that it’s us you need to worry about. Most problematic is the speed of our play, lacking in both quality and intensity. His approach to the squad is bordering on the criminally negligent as he has managed to somehow make it more unbalanced than when he arrived which leads to the utter insanity of Jedinak and Hutton being the left side of our defence and somehow failing to get the best from the attacking resources at his disposal.

That feels better having written it down, and I didn’t insult him once. He’s not good enough and needs to go.

The only bright spot at the moment is he’s in the death throes of his tenure, it’s a question of when not if.