Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[Bad English]

What? Nearly winning the league and ending up second and we struggled? Am I missing something about 89-90?

[sickbeggar]

What? Nearly winning the league and ending up second and we struggled? Am I missing something about 89-90?
[/quote/]

We finished 17th when we came up

[olaftab]

What? Nearly winning the league and ending up second and we struggled? Am I missing something about 89-90?

Yes you are missing 88/89.

[Bad English]

Oh fuck yes. Sorry. I was doing my finals that year and did nothing but study, get pissed, and play pinball. Completely ignored any sport.

[sickbeggar]

Oh fuck yes. Sorry. I was doing my finals that year and did nothing but study, get pissed, and play pinball. Completely ignored any sport.

heh, I actually had to check when you came out with that. thought i'd dreamt it

[Bad English]

That's nothing. I once said (on the old Manila site) we won the league in 1982.

[Drummond]

That's nothing. I once said (on the old Manila site) we won the league in 1982.

No being pissed and pinball as an excuse that time!

[Clark W Griswold]

I think we'd need to get Johnstone and Snodgrass permanently. I think Chester, a recovered Kodjia and a focused Grealish would definitely be good enough. Hogan, Elmohammody, Taylor, Davies, Green, Thor (based on recent form), Jedi, Adomah, Hutton (although theyve already said he's off) to slightly varied degrees could do a job or be useful in the squad. Terry will be off, I doubt Onomah and Axel from Man Utd will sign permanently, and Grabban, Bree, Hepburn Murphy and a few of the other youngsters I've no idea. I can't see Samba, Whelan and Lansbury being any use even in the squad if we go up and I've got serious doubts about Hourahane playing top flight. I think we'd need 3 new centre backs, 2 of which would have to be quality, a centre mid of real quality, a centre forward of real quality and 2-3 others of recent premier league experience in other random positions.

[LeeB]

I think we'd need to get Johnstone and Snodgrass permanently. I think Chester, a recovered Kodjia and a focused Grealish would definitely be good enough. Hogan, Elmohammody, Taylor, Davies, Green, Thor (based on recent form), Jedi, Adomah, Hutton (although theyve already said he's off) to slightly varied degrees could do a job or be useful in the squad. Terry will be off, I doubt Onomah and Axel from Man Utd will sign permanently, and Grabban, Bree, Hepburn Murphy and a few of the other youngsters I've no idea. I can't see Samba, Whelan and Lansbury being any use even in the squad if we go up and I've got serious doubts about Hourahane playing top flight. I think we'd need 3 new centre backs, 2 of which would have to be quality, a centre mid of real quality, a centre forward of real quality and 2-3 others of recent premier league experience in other random positions.

If Axel is good, we'd stand a chance of getting him for all of next season I'd wager.

[ASHTONVILLA]

Voted keep until the end of the season.

If we don't go up he needs to go as he will have failed.

If we do go up he still needs to go as he not the man to manage us in the Prem.

That said I am very happy with the job he is currently doing, not so much with his overall tenure though.

[LeeB]

I'm not comfortable at all with the view of sacking him if we went up. It basically means binning him on the basis of the work he did elsewhere, which given the resources and history of the clubs it's hugely debatable if he can be considered to have failed.

Yes it worked for Southampton, but they were chucking someone who had only previously managed Scunthorpe and was a physio before that. It's not the same here.

[cdbearsfan]

I'm far from a Bruce disciple, but there's no way we will get rid of him if we get promoted, and nor should we.

It seems a bit of a myth that he's certain to get relegated if he manages in the Premier League in any case. He's had a couple of relegations with shit clubs who were playing above their station anyway. The number of seasons in which he has led a team to survival outweigh the relegations.

Blose Premier positions under Bruce:
13th
10th
12th
Relegated

He then got them promoted again before jumping to join a bigger club.

At Wigan:
11th

At Sunderland:
13th
10th
Sacked with the team 16th

At Hull:
16th (and FA Cup Finalists)
Relegated

So two relegations in ten years, both with far smaller clubs than us. At least five genuinely impressive finishes.

In other words, if we go up, he at least deserves a chance.

[chrisw1]

If we go up we will have a pretty good budget to supplement the squad.  Most promoted teams find it tough their first year or so back up and we won't be any different.  But hopefully with Tone's ambition and less issues re FFP, we will be ok.

In terms of the squad, if we can sign Sam Johnstone, Snodgrass and persuade Terry to give us another season, then we have a reasonable foundation.  Players I think would do a good job are:

Johnston, Chester, Terry, Hutton, Grealish, Snodgrass, Kodjia.  Maybe Green, Davis & Hogan will be useful too.

Players who I'm less convinced about but may be ok are Elmo, Albert & Barny if he keeps up his new found form.  Jedi could be useful if we can keep him fit.

Chuck in the developing youngsters and I think that's ok as a starting point.

[LeeB]

Correct.

Who knows how it will pan out, but just maybe he has learned from his vast experience and will do a good job for us.

You know, the fact he's turned a freewheeling omnishambles into a calm, professional outfit capable of promotion in 12 months shows he can do what he says he can.

[paul_e]

The problem is that in those examples the years where he's got relegated (2 and he was taking Sunderland down just as much as Lambert was taking us down) they tend to be the ones where he's spent big money.

My biggest issue was always that if he got us promoted he'd probably not last out the first season and we'd be left finding someone to sort things out with a squad full of Bruce signings that would be tough to replace.  It's the same reason why we were fucked after MON because we had very few players who could play anything other than the style he'd gone with and far too many players towards the end of their career on big money.  We've fucked up 1 chance at establishing ourselves near the top by giving the wrong man too much rope and I don't want us to make the same mistake again.