Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

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I got it wrong and would have kept the same. In retrospect, Lansbury and BB ought to have come in with Scotty to really freshen up the midfield and let Hogan do his pressing. It would have made a big difference, but then its easy to say that now.

[paul_e]

I got it wrong and would have kept the same. In retrospect, Lansbury and BB ought to have come in with Scotty to really freshen up the midfield and let Hogan do his pressing. It would have made a big difference, but then its easy to say that now.

It is, but a few people said barney for jedi almost as soon as the team was announced.  The problem was they had a 19 year old and 2 mid 20s as their midfield and all 3 are very mobile.  Jedi being a statue and dropping deeper and deeper because he couldn't keep up with them meant Hourihane and Grealish had to go back as well and we lost all of our shape in attack.  This has always been my problem with Bruce, he doesn't do tactics and instead stumbles around changing stuff until he finds something that works then he flogs it to death until it doesn't and the cycle repeats.

[chrisw1]

I got it wrong and would have kept the same. In retrospect, Lansbury and BB ought to have come in with Scotty to really freshen up the midfield and let Hogan do his pressing. It would have made a big difference, but then its easy to say that now.

Bringing in BB for Jedi would have made a lot of sense, although I can see the temptation of keeping the winning team.  That is probably the only change I would have made before the game

I think if he had brought Hogan in for Grabban he would have been crucified by the fans and probably rightly so, although I agree in hindsight his energy would have been valuable.  It's easy to say he should have brought in Lansbury, but really he's hardly contributed anything all season and that would have been a big gamble.

[JUAN PABLO]

It was a no brainer to bring Thor in for Jedi .  Rest the bloke and have quicker play from Thor at home against QPR , having Hogan would have made no difference at all , we created hardly anything and Johnstone just kicking up the field was a complete waste of time .

Then if he was 2 -0 id get conor off for Lansbury at HT even if Jack had scored , Conor was nonexistent and then give Hogan 25 mins for Grabban If it was not working but the midfield was very poor last night ,Grabban was quiet but we creative nothing for him really. 

Taylor is not much good neither .  We miss Hutton.

[David_Nab]

Yes you can understand the reasoning.
It’s not about being deserved to be droppped (although Hourihane was the most ineffective player on Saturday)
It’s about getting the best out of the squad and I don’t think he does that.
Last nights result has cancelled out the amazing performance on Saturday.
Losing at home to QPR is unacceptable.

For me Hourihane is a handy player to have around the box coming in late to score goals but beyond that I don't think he is all that great , and certainly when paired with Jedinek/Whelan  there is a lack of mobility and drive from midfield . I can't recall too many games where I have felt the midfield have control of the game its more a case of get it to Adomah/Snoddgrass/Grealish and hope they score or assist the lone striker

[Steve67]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

[Mister E]

You can understand the reasoning behind going with the same 11 who played the league leaders off the park a few days ago. None of them really deserved to be dropped. Besides like others have said, apart from bringing Barney in, there's not a lot he could have done.

Although Hourihane has looked pretty jaded for a few games now and could have been given some time off.

[mr underhill]

not directly related but does anyone know what the procedure would be for tickets to a play-off home semi-final should e be in one?

[paul_e]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

If we're in this division next season we're going to need to replace:

Johnstone
Hutton
Snodgrass
Grabban
Onomah
Tuanzebe
and very possibly Chester and Terry

I think everyone else we want to keep would stay for another year but that's still 6 starters and 2 subs out of our 18 and we'll only get money back for 1 of them so we won't have anything to spend unless we sell off players we want to keep on top of that.

Rightly or wrongly Bruce has taken a "shit or bust" attitude this season and if it doesn't work we're in for a very painful summer, that's why he can't be kept if we fail to get promotion.

[Diablo]

not directly related but does anyone know what the procedure would be for tickets to a play-off home semi-final should e be in one?

Tickets will be individually delivered by our number 11,17 and 44. Gabby Agbonlahor, Micah Richards and Ross McCormack

[Clark W Griswold]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

If we're in this division next season we're going to need to replace:

Johnstone
Hutton
Snodgrass
Grabban
Onomah
Tuanzebe
and very possibly Chester and Terry

I think everyone else we want to keep would stay for another year but that's still 6 starters and 2 subs out of our 18 and we'll only get money back for 1 of them so we won't have anything to spend unless we sell off players we want to keep on top of that.

Rightly or wrongly Bruce has taken a "shit or bust" attitude this season and if it doesn't work we're in for a very painful summer, that's why he can't be kept if we fail to get promotion.

I would have thought Snodgrass, Chester and Grabban would be here, Onomah who gives a shit and Tuanzebe who knows. I'll give you that Terry and Johnstone will need replacing which will be a tall order in itself.

[paul_e]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

If we're in this division next season we're going to need to replace:

Johnstone
Hutton
Snodgrass
Grabban
Onomah
Tuanzebe
and very possibly Chester and Terry

I think everyone else we want to keep would stay for another year but that's still 6 starters and 2 subs out of our 18 and we'll only get money back for 1 of them so we won't have anything to spend unless we sell off players we want to keep on top of that.

Rightly or wrongly Bruce has taken a "shit or bust" attitude this season and if it doesn't work we're in for a very painful summer, that's why he can't be kept if we fail to get promotion.

I would have thought Snodgrass, Chester and Grabban would be here, Onomah who gives a shit and Tuanzebe who knows. I'll give you that Terry and Johnstone will need replacing which will be a tall order in itself.

Grabban is the only one I think might come back but even then, with Hogan and Kodjia, as well as Davis and RHM, we might not be able to fit him unless we sell one of the senior players, the days of 2-3 first teamers and a couple of kids for 1 position will definitely be over.  Snodgrass will get premier league offers if Moyes decides he doesn't want to keep him.  Chester, as I said on his own thread, I think he's going to have to be sold.  We'll lose another £18m in parachute payments next year so even with that lot leaving we'll still be short.  We're clearly going to need to buy some players so I suspect 1-2 'big' players will go along with 2-3 squad players where we can get a couple of million each for them.  We will have money for Amavi but there's still going to be a fair bit to make up.  I think we'll be looking to bring in something like £30m on top of that in sales and then we'll spend £10-12m of it.

[PeterWithesShin]

Snodgrass is supposedly on 60K a week, I just cannot see us paying that plus a transfer fee if we're still in this division. If we don't go up I'd imagine we'll have a very different looking squad next season as it will be another year of FFP.

[SoccerHQ]

If we are in this division next season we will need an upgrade on Hourihane. Decent but not great, other than his goals.

If we're in this division next season we're going to need to replace:

Johnstone
Hutton
Snodgrass
Grabban
Onomah
Tuanzebe
and very possibly Chester and Terry

I think everyone else we want to keep would stay for another year but that's still 6 starters and 2 subs out of our 18 and we'll only get money back for 1 of them so we won't have anything to spend unless we sell off players we want to keep on top of that.

Rightly or wrongly Bruce has taken a "shit or bust" attitude this season and if it doesn't work we're in for a very painful summer, that's why he can't be kept if we fail to get promotion.

Elmohamady is on a 3 year deal so he'd be right back next season and hopefully Bree can push more for a regular place. Infairness AEM has been a much better player than I thought he'd be.

If we sell a big player we could afford Snodgrass I reckon. West Ham would just want to get him off the wagebill particularly if they go down. He just looks the sort to me who wants to go somewhere where he'd enjoy his football and he certainly is here (might change if Bruce gets sacked though!)

Grabban needs to come in on a permanent.

Tuanzabe and Onomah have hardly played recently.

Terry and Chester. Yeah that would be an issue.

[Clark W Griswold]

I would agree that on the face of it, it may well be tougher to do it next season than this. We would have to hope that we could get a couple in on loan that make a similar impact that Johnstone and Snodgrass have made this season and that we can pick up a couple of other good players for peanuts like with Terry. We also have to hope that Kodjia comes back as good as he was last season, Davis has more impact through the season and that Grealish keeps it up.