Nearly £40m on Nakamba, Wesley and Trezeguet. Whoever made that call needs sacking just for that. They look/looked worth about a quarter of the price.
You realize though that’s the price of one decent player at this level. We simply couldn’t spend as much as we really needed to buy the required quality given how many players we needed
How many £40m players have Burnley got. Or Southampton? Most teams outside of the top 6 don’t spend anything like that.
I get all that. But the sides you mentioned have all had the core of their squad together for a while. That includes Sheff Utd. Burnley and Southampton also have players who have played at this level for a while. Look, I’m the last person on here making an excuse for our lot and especially the manager. But clearly we had to fill a squad quickly and with a lot of players and we got a number of the them wrong. That or as we saw when we signed the likes of Ayew, Gana, Traore etc, they are much better over time as they improve and become more experienced at the top level. A number of our players like back then don’t look up to scratch today. Doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to stay that way. And that might even include the manager.
But right now all of them look a fucking million miles from being up to this standard. And as for Sheff Utd, they’ve not only got the benefit of that cohesiveness but they have a manager who is a thousand times better than Dean Smith is today. It’s not even close.
At least Steve Bruce had a Plan A.
Nothing can ever get so bad to justify a sentence that begins, "at least Steve Bruce..."
I was there mate, it was.
Unfortunately, if we entertained any serious ambition about staying up, he should've gone before Christmas. I was probably fooled by the wins over Burnley and Leicester to think that maybe he could do it, but some of the mind-boggling signings in January were just absurd
As a fan, he has been given so much leeway which we just cannot afford.
Yet our form over the last ten games, compared to the bottom eight, is better than Newcastle, West Ham, Norwich, Brighton and Bournemouth and as good as Palace.
At least Steve Bruce had a Plan A.
Nothing can ever get so bad to justify a sentence that begins, "at least Steve Bruce..."
At least Steve Bruce isn't our manager.
The recruitment strategy was clearly a bit of a risk, and currently that is looking a bit iffy, but decent players with premier league experience come at a massive premium so I think it was understandable at the time.
I just don't accept that we recruited the way we did because no other way was possible. Just as I don't accept that making good signings in January is impossible. It's not easy, sure, but neither is it impossible. We've got to get a lot lot better at this sort of stuff.
Our chance for a change was post Watford at Christmas. We missed that opportunity and went all in with Smith.
He can say what he likes after games, bang tables etc but this is his team, his formation, his line up, his organisation, his game management. It’s been poor from the off and I, like many, thought we’d improve. We’ve not despite recently having opportunities to kick on. Instead we’ve gone into a death spiral.
This is on Smith.
Bruces football was shit but i dont care what anyone says he had us better defssbovely than smith has.
Smith has to be one of the worst managers for defensive mistakes i have seen for us. We are so woeful at the back its unreal
Bruces football was shit but i dont care what anyone says he had us better defssbovely than smith has.
Smith has to be one of the worst managers for defensive mistakes i have seen for us. We are so woeful at the back its unreal
Not sure that you're in the best position to be calling out mistakes, mate.
We can take the piss all we like out of Bruce but he’s mid table and 6 points better off with an inferior squad to ours imo.
We can take the piss all we like out of Bruce but he’s mid table and 6 points better off with an inferior squad to ours imo.
He had an inferior squad a year ago and needed Dean Smith to come in and get them playing.
And next season his woeful squad will be playing PL football while we go back to square one in the Championship.
Too late for Smith to be throwing them under the bus now. I think we have the quality to stay up comfortably and a better manager would have achieved that.
Newcastle are shit, Steve Bruce is shit, that they've jammed some bizarre results doesn't alter that and on no planet would I swap Smith for him. And I say that as someone who isn't convinced Smith is good enough to be a top flight manager.
Newcastle are shit, Steve Bruce is shit, that they've jammed some bizarre results doesn't alter that and on no planet would I swap Smith for him. And I say that as someone who isn't convinced Smith is good enough to be a top flight manager.
I agree but Smith has performed worse and with a far better squad. Maybe we can all nip across and tell the Jawdees how jammy they are when they’ll be playing Chelsea next season while we’ll be going to Boro.
So you agree Steve Bruce is shit and yet seem to be saying you'd prefer him to be manager. Otherwise I don't get the Newcastle love in.