Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[dave.woodhall]

Correct me if I'm wrong but all of Bruce's games so far have been against teams above us in the league.

[Toronto Villa]

Fuck it I give up, yesterday's performance was perfect and hoofball is the way of the future.

Paul that isn't going to help you. Nobody has claimed it was Pep's Barcelona. Everyone can agree that it wasn't great, that it was a rugged display and often backs to the wall. But to suggest it comes close to some of the atrocities we have witnessed in the last 12-18 months is frankly a little nuts.

Bruce has his work cut out, but he's come in on the back of some pretty crap performances and somehow managed to squeeze out 8 points from 12. It's not perfect but it's a lot better than the direction we were headed.

[Percy McCarthy]

Can't believe some of the crap said on here!

We have been shit for absolutely ages, we have had 4 managers (including caretakers) since October 2015 all bloody useless, during that time we have P44 W4 D15 L25, won 4 f**king games!

Then Bruce comes in, not one of these players has he bought, yet in 4 games he is unbeaten with 2 wins and 2 draws, yet for some people that is still not good enough because we aren't playing like Barcelona yet!

Give the bloke a bit of credit for what he has achieved in the extremely short time he has been here, he is stuck with the players he has inherited for now, so he has to play players that the fans (due to past endevours) aren't happy about but that is not Bruce's fault!

Spot on. If he gets some midfielders who actually exist in January I think we'll improve no end.

[BOB MANSFIELD]

Evening.
So, after all this debate....WHO ? Exactly, are these wonderful midfielders that SB is going to be able to buy in January to change our fortunes and send us steaming through all-comers to a deserved promotion spot ?
Any suggestions yet ? ( costing less than £15million, I guess ).??

[Clampy]

Fuck it I give up, yesterday's performance was perfect and hoofball is the way of the future.

Blimey, grow up. You expressed an opinion on a football forum and people are disagreeing with you. That's how it works.

[SoccerHQ]

Those were of course the days when we were big premier league spenders and finishing in the top 6, so a much bigger gulf than there is now between the two teams.

The gulf should be bigger now if anything. The £4m or so we spent on Jedinak in the summer is about the same as they have cumulatively spend on transfers in the last six years.

It's further testament to the outstanding job Rowett has done there.

SHA know how to play at this level and get results as a unit, we simply don't no matter how much we've spent.

In any case I saw a poster earlier....it may actually have been Paul_e seeming to suggest SHA were just on a lucky run and would go better to playing shite soon enough.

They've finished I think 10th in the past two seasons and given they're 7th already this season I'd suggest whether we like it or not that they are a pretty competent top half championship team nowadays who if they steer clear of injuries, will challenge for the play offs.

If we finish above them we won't be too far away from the top 6. They won't be too far behind us I suspect.

I agree the job Rowett has done considering what he inherited from the chaotic Lee Clark era is miraculous.

[SashasGrandad]

Correct me if I'm wrong but all of Bruce's games so far have been against teams above us in the league.

And we have already overtaken one of them.

As we were so low when he took over - the odds were pretty good that most of the games we would play would be against teams higher than us!

[Risso]

There's some rather fanciful claptrap being chatted on this thread. It wasn't a great performance, but one of the worst in the last 4-5 years? Someone's been frolicking in funny land. Although we don't want to admit it, the truth is that this Small Heath side is pretty solid, well drilled and determined, which is why they are 7th in the table. This is their World Cup final. They were well up for it, and still couldn't beat us.

Bruce has been in the job a couple of weeks, and in that time we've won half as many games, with injuries and suspensions, as we did in the previous year. We haven't looked too great admittedly, but you have to stop the rot before you varnish the floorboards.

You disagree but the 'frolicking in funny land' is a pretty pathetic comment.

I think it was that bad because it's one of the few times where I honestly don't think we ever tried to the win the game.  Doing that against a champions league team that cost half a billion to assemble is frustrating but sort of understandable, doing it in a derby against a team that cost a fraction of ours and whose players would struggle to make our bench is shocking.  I understand why he took a safety first approach and in the first half it worked but doing nothing to address their dominance for most of the 2nd half was as bad as anything we did under Lambert/Sherwood/Garde/RDM.  Magomah should've scored from that Hutton mistake and Donaldson missed a sitter (that was far easier than the chance that Westwood has been given shit over).

For the bold bit can you make your mind up whether they're a good side who are just in better form than us or whether they're a shit team who were well up for it as the most important game of their season.  Personally I don't think either of those is true.  I think they're a poor team who have enough pace up front to hurt teams without being anything like good enough to get promotion and that, whilst it is for their fans, I don't think their management team will have let the players approach is as the biggest game of the season for them and we need to stop assuming that every team will be doing that.

The results in the last 2 games don't stop it being a really bad performance.

I can accept that I may be slightly over selling how poor we were but in 2 recent local matches we've not descended to their level (as often happens and is acceptable) but rather we've failed to step up to it and that worries the hell out of me.  In both games we've looked like the plucky underdog who is happy to be there and get away with a point.  I haven't seen enough of the reading or fulham games to know if this is a change because it was derbies or if this is just how he's got us playing.  If it's the latter I hope it's down to being pragmatic and getting points however is possible and if so then whilst I don't enjoy it I can accept it, which i've already said.

To clarify though because some people seem determined to misunderstand, results wise Bruce is doing well (as I expected him to) and I'm more than happy for him to have time to fix things.  However I think the quality of our attacking play is dreadful and needs to be worked on, defensive solidity is good and is an improvement on what we've seen but we need to offer something going forward or, like the wolves and blues games, teams will just lay siege to us and I don't think we're anything like mentally strong enough to withstand that.

I'm not sure why this post has attracted such opprobrium to be honest. I thought it was a really, really poor performance yesterday, especially in midfield, where Jedinak putting himself about apart, we were predictably dismal with Westwood and Gardner.  Even allowing for the circumstances of a local derby, I thought we were shite.  I'm more than happy with the job Bruce has done so far though.

[PaulWinch again]

Yep I'd agree Risso. Yesterday was a poor display, but not a bad result, and overall I think Bruce is doing a very good job turning round a club that has been a basket case for 5/6 years.

[kippaxvilla2]

I don't want to worry everyone but I've seen a direct quote from Bruce referring to Ashley Westwood as 'terrific'.

[BOB MANSFIELD]

So.........who are we going to buy- that's better - to replace him ? who ?

[cdbearsfan]

Bearing in mind I've never heard of most of the players in the Premier League, let alone in the lower leagues or abroad, I'm not going to get too hung up over which players we sign.

I'm sure we will invest if Bruce wants us to.

[kippaxvilla2]

So.........who are we going to buy- that's better - to replace him ? who ?

Who Bruce or Westwood?  If it's the latter a damp squid might be a start.

[ciggiesnbeer]

I don't want to worry everyone but I've seen a direct quote from Bruce referring to Ashley Westwood as 'terrific'.

He said that about Gardner, a week later he scored. Hopefully it works the same magic with Westwood

[paul_e]

There's some rather fanciful claptrap being chatted on this thread. It wasn't a great performance, but one of the worst in the last 4-5 years? Someone's been frolicking in funny land. Although we don't want to admit it, the truth is that this Small Heath side is pretty solid, well drilled and determined, which is why they are 7th in the table. This is their World Cup final. They were well up for it, and still couldn't beat us.

Bruce has been in the job a couple of weeks, and in that time we've won half as many games, with injuries and suspensions, as we did in the previous year. We haven't looked too great admittedly, but you have to stop the rot before you varnish the floorboards.

You disagree but the 'frolicking in funny land' is a pretty pathetic comment.

I think it was that bad because it's one of the few times where I honestly don't think we ever tried to the win the game.  Doing that against a champions league team that cost half a billion to assemble is frustrating but sort of understandable, doing it in a derby against a team that cost a fraction of ours and whose players would struggle to make our bench is shocking.  I understand why he took a safety first approach and in the first half it worked but doing nothing to address their dominance for most of the 2nd half was as bad as anything we did under Lambert/Sherwood/Garde/RDM.  Magomah should've scored from that Hutton mistake and Donaldson missed a sitter (that was far easier than the chance that Westwood has been given shit over).

For the bold bit can you make your mind up whether they're a good side who are just in better form than us or whether they're a shit team who were well up for it as the most important game of their season.  Personally I don't think either of those is true.  I think they're a poor team who have enough pace up front to hurt teams without being anything like good enough to get promotion and that, whilst it is for their fans, I don't think their management team will have let the players approach is as the biggest game of the season for them and we need to stop assuming that every team will be doing that.

The results in the last 2 games don't stop it being a really bad performance.

I can accept that I may be slightly over selling how poor we were but in 2 recent local matches we've not descended to their level (as often happens and is acceptable) but rather we've failed to step up to it and that worries the hell out of me.  In both games we've looked like the plucky underdog who is happy to be there and get away with a point.  I haven't seen enough of the reading or fulham games to know if this is a change because it was derbies or if this is just how he's got us playing.  If it's the latter I hope it's down to being pragmatic and getting points however is possible and if so then whilst I don't enjoy it I can accept it, which i've already said.

To clarify though because some people seem determined to misunderstand, results wise Bruce is doing well (as I expected him to) and I'm more than happy for him to have time to fix things.  However I think the quality of our attacking play is dreadful and needs to be worked on, defensive solidity is good and is an improvement on what we've seen but we need to offer something going forward or, like the wolves and blues games, teams will just lay siege to us and I don't think we're anything like mentally strong enough to withstand that.

I'm not sure why this post has attracted such opprobrium to be honest. I thought it was a really, really poor performance yesterday, especially in midfield, where Jedinak putting himself about apart, we were predictably dismal with Westwood and Gardner.  Even allowing for the circumstances of a local derby, I thought we were shite.  I'm more than happy with the job Bruce has done so far though.

Thank you.