Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[peter w]

It could be argued that he's a Pulis with relegations.

[Clark W Griswold]

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

[paul_e]

Are we really playing much differently to Newcastle?

Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.

Not recently.

Newcastle 2-2 Bristol City (same as us).
Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (first goal from Diame was a total and utter fluke, the sort of luck that has deserted us at times this season).
Huddersfield 1-3 Newcastle (good win tbf)
Reading 0-0 Newcastle
Newcastle 1-3 Fulham
SHA 0-0 Newcastle
Newcastle 2-1 Wigan.

They just had a good start to the season. 7 wins out of the first 9 wasn't it so miles clear of us. They really haven't impressed me that much when I've seen them on TV given what they have spent on their squad.

Now given their position in the table they're in lockdown mode.

We just need to have a good start to next season. At any level it's not a good idea to be giving rivals 10 point head starts as RDM expertly did between August-October.

They've got 27 more points than us, have scored 31 more goals and conceded 6 fewer goals. They have quite clearly been better than us in every department all season. Hopefully that will be us next year.

I meant more from the turn of the year. Obviously at the start they lost their first two league games and then won something like 16 of their next 18 games while we were struggling to even win one game.

Point I'm trying to make is for all the stick SB gets for our style of play I can't honestly say Newcastle excite me more when I watch them as a neutral on the Sky games. They are another team to me that just grinds their way to wins most of the time.

You point is strange though because you're ignoring the part of the season where they played attacking football that earned the the right to eek out results and get promoted.  The entire point of people saying Bruce needs to find other ways of playing is that getting promoted by doing what we're doing now for 46 games is really difficult, doing this for the last 15-20 games when you're 7-8 points clear of 3rd place and just need to keep the points ticking over is very different.

[Chico Hamilton III]

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

Agreed. We couldn't string one win together this time last year and now we're a tough side to crack which seems to me the right way to go about undoing years of mismanagement. I know pain has no memory but we could all do with trying to remember some of last year's humiliations before we start criticising Bruce's "agricultural" approach to ensuring that no fuckers kick sand in our face any more. I'm still haunted by the memory of those Watford fans pissing themselves laughing at us after Troy had taken the piss right in front of us.

[LeeB]

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

Agreed. We couldn't string one win together this time last year and now we're a tough side to crack which seems to me the right way to go about undoing years of mismanagement. I know pain has no memory but we could all do with trying to remember some of last year's humiliations before we start criticising Bruce's "agricultural" approach to ensuring that no fuckers kick sand in our face any more. I'm still haunted by the memory of those Watford fans pissing themselves laughing at us after Troy had taken the piss right in front of us.

Amen to both posts.

[Mellin]

Well said.

[Clampy]

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

Agreed. We couldn't string one win together this time last year and now we're a tough side to crack which seems to me the right way to go about undoing years of mismanagement. I know pain has no memory but we could all do with trying to remember some of last year's humiliations before we start criticising Bruce's "agricultural" approach to ensuring that no fuckers kick sand in our face any more. I'm still haunted by the memory of those Watford fans pissing themselves laughing at us after Troy had taken the piss right in front of us.

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

Agreed. We couldn't string one win together this time last year and now we're a tough side to crack which seems to me the right way to go about undoing years of mismanagement. I know pain has no memory but we could all do with trying to remember some of last year's humiliations before we start criticising Bruce's "agricultural" approach to ensuring that no fuckers kick sand in our face any more. I'm still haunted by the memory of those Watford fans pissing themselves laughing at us after Troy had taken the piss right in front of us.

Couldnt agree more.

[olaftab]

There's an awful lot of fucking shite being spouted on this thread.

No I don't agree. It's spouted on many threads not just this one.

[SoccerHQ]

Bruce has a reputation for only playing 'Steve Bruce' kind of football which is what we are seeing.  This is fine if it is all about eking out results to either stay up or get promotion to the big league with a limited budget.  This is what Bruce has had to work with in his time as a manager.  He now has the biggest job he has ever had and probably will ever have and it's the platform for him to show he's not just a Steve Bruce manager and that there is more to him than the turgid stuff we are witnessing. If it's more of the same next season and we maintain the results like we are then great for getting the job done he was required to do.  If he does it in a style that shows he's building something and he can be a very good manager then even better. I'd want him to stay on that basis.   If it's the former get rid as soon as we're up.

I think once we're back in the prem Xia will be ruthless and won't want consolidation season after season especially as I'd imagine we'd spend a fair bit given what we've already splashed out the last 6 months.

I honestly don't think SB would last very long.

Edit: This game springs to my mind for his limitations as a premier league manager.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/28917064

Look at how rubbish our team is. Hull had spent a fair bit that summer on Jelavic, Ince, Dawson, Livermore etc and they went down that season.

Comments from Bruce sound familiar swell apologising to the fans on a terrible away performance.

[SoccerHQ]

Are we really playing much differently to Newcastle?

Well to be fair to them they score a hell of a lot more goals than we do.

Not recently.

Newcastle 2-2 Bristol City (same as us).
Brighton 1-2 Newcastle (first goal from Diame was a total and utter fluke, the sort of luck that has deserted us at times this season).
Huddersfield 1-3 Newcastle (good win tbf)
Reading 0-0 Newcastle
Newcastle 1-3 Fulham
SHA 0-0 Newcastle
Newcastle 2-1 Wigan.

They just had a good start to the season. 7 wins out of the first 9 wasn't it so miles clear of us. They really haven't impressed me that much when I've seen them on TV given what they have spent on their squad.

Now given their position in the table they're in lockdown mode.

We just need to have a good start to next season. At any level it's not a good idea to be giving rivals 10 point head starts as RDM expertly did between August-October.

They've got 27 more points than us, have scored 31 more goals and conceded 6 fewer goals. They have quite clearly been better than us in every department all season. Hopefully that will be us next year.

I meant more from the turn of the year. Obviously at the start they lost their first two league games and then won something like 16 of their next 18 games while we were struggling to even win one game.

Point I'm trying to make is for all the stick SB gets for our style of play I can't honestly say Newcastle excite me more when I watch them as a neutral on the Sky games. They are another team to me that just grinds their way to wins most of the time.

You point is strange though because you're ignoring the part of the season where they played attacking football that earned the the right to eek out results and get promoted.  The entire point of people saying Bruce needs to find other ways of playing is that getting promoted by doing what we're doing now for 46 games is really difficult, doing this for the last 15-20 games when you're 7-8 points clear of 3rd place and just need to keep the points ticking over is very different.

Well if I concentrate on the part when Newcastle were playing well, scoring hatfuls and getting a commanding lead....that would cover the period when Roberto Di Matteo was in charge.

One of the most bemusing things for me is how people seem to be airbrushing our one win from opening 12 games which knackered our promotion bid right there and then. Even after beating Burton on the boxing day we were still I think 6 or 7 points off the top 6 and that was after a terrific opening two months under SB. Yes January-February awful run was poor but it wasn't like we were top 6 and spectacularly crashed out, we were still comfortably adrift at that stage.

From mid August to mid October Newcastle won 9 championship games. We won once.

[KevinGage]

Not in the Bruce vanguard by any means, but it looks a bit disconcerting to have a Bruce out thread still active with 7 wins out of 8.

Can we split it (even on a temporary basis) and have a Bruce In thread, just to balance things up a bit.

[cdbearsfan]

Don't change the name of the thread when we are winning, for fuck's sake!

[Risso]

Don't change the name of the thread when we are winning, for fuck's sake!

Oops!

[four fornicholl]

nooooooooooo.

[Malandro]

Don't change the name of the thread when we are winning, for fuck's sake!

Oops!

Ha!