Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[john e]

While I am not optimistic about our chances of promotion, I am less pessimistic about another season in the Championship provided Bruce has gone and been replaced by a manager with genuine talent.  I think the inability to waste prodigious sums of money on players like McCormack, Hogan, Lansbury and Hourihane plus the withering on the vine of blood suckers like Gabby and Richards will make us a leaner, keener squad.  The luxury of leaving young players out in the cold will have to end as we cut our clothes to suit our cloth.

All that of course depends on bringing in a manager with imagination and vision.  Bring in another old sweat from the managerial merry go round and the future will be as frustratingly painful as the recent past.

A bit unfair to throw Hourihane into that bunch of names. It's not as if he cost us a fortune and he's made a contribution.

it doesn’t matter what he cost he’s not good enough like the rest of the midfielders he’s signed

He does tend to go missing in games but he's weighed in with goals. I wouldn't call him a waste of money personally.

He’s no better than Westwood though, just gets away with it a bit more in the championship

Westwood plodded away against the prems finest and wasn’t good enough he would be doing the same as CH in this league
Hourihane has been outpassed and overrun by the likes of Barnsley and QPR so in the prem he will be found wanting big time as will Lansbury, Thor, Taylor, Hogan, Elmo, and any number of other bang average championship types he’s bought in

spending 10/12m  on Hogan he might as well have kept Ayew as he’s a lot better player would have scored a few more goals than Hogan has and we wouldn’t be saddled with Taylor

his record of buying players is very very poor

[SoccerHQ]

It's going to be tough next season.

Doubt our squad will be as strong as this season (we will lose a bit of experience in key areas and will have to replace them with younger ones which is always a gamble) and have to look at who's coming down.

I thought from the start Sunderland and Hull would struggle due to their ownership issues so that was two relegated teams not to worry about and so it has proved.

It's going to be West Brom, Stoke and one of West Ham/Southampton by the looks of it.

West Brom have issues but usually bounce back quickly when they go down, West Ham in the championship would be hilarious but got to think they'll be near the top.

Stoke would be more difficult to judge as they'll lose a lot of players.

We've got more chance of going up this year than next imo for many reasons so just need to knock some heads together, hope we snap out of this poor run and just go for it in the play offs as we might not even get that chance next season.

[john e]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

[dave.woodhall]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

 And you're playing by your own rules to suit your argument.

[Clampy]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

You said like the rest of his signings. He signed them on loan. They are one's he's brought in so they count.

Shall we leave it there?

[Clark W Griswold]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

Excellent - Terry, Snodgrass, Johnstone
Good - Elhammody, Grabban.
OK - Hourahane, Thor, Hogan (You can see what he was trying to do there, but perhaps didn't think about how he would fit into the system)
Jury's out - Tuanzebe, Bree, the young lad from Bury.
Not great - Taylor
Crap - Angela, Samba
How many cost big money - Hogan
Players that are playing better than before he arrived and i would hold it against him that he didn't sign them...
Hutton, Adomah, Jedinak, Grealish (eventually)

Players that were wank that he got rid of and have done nothing since, don't get me started.

[brian green]

The rumours to which I referred of course hinted that Keith Wyness is a bigger fan of Steve Bruce than Tony Xia is.  If that rumour is to be believed how certain is the future of Bruce, Wyness or even Tony Xia if we fall short of promotion?  A summer with another season in the Championship staring us in the face could be a very turbulent one indeed.

[john e]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

 And you're playing by your own rules to suit your argument.

not really
On loan signings are just that loans who eventually go back to the clubs who bought them

anyone can see that surely

[john e]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

You said like the rest of his signings. He signed them on loan. They are one's he's brought in so they count.

Shall we leave it there?

you don’t see any difference between a loan deal and a player thats ours then

[Clampy]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

You said like the rest of his signings. He signed them on loan. They are one's he's brought in so they count.

Shall we leave it there?

you don’t see any difference between a loan deal and a player thats ours then

I said, i'll leave it there. Like Dave said, you're making it up to suit your own argument so there's no point. Nice try though.

[Clark W Griswold]

No, not while were in the championship trying to do a job of getting promoted. The money will be there to buy new players once we're up again so it's irrelevant. You can judge him if he gets us up, buy's 6 new players and they're all shite and we go down again.
Hourahane is no improvement on Westwood 80% of the time and 20% of the time he's much better. We got more for Westwood than we payed for Hourahane. He's playing a league below anyway, i agree Hourahane shouldn't be in the team if we go up, as Westwood shouldn't have been. Ayew is a better player than Hogan, but he wanted to go, we got decent money. We were all pretty happy with the signing of Hogan when it happened, and he's hardly been a disaster. Not great value though i'll admit.

I think we got about £7m or so for Ayew and paid about £11m for Hogan which was a fair reflection of what they'd done in the division in the previous 5 months.

[Risso]

Hogan has been a dreadful signing. A huge amount wasted on a supremely untalented player.

[dave.woodhall]

I think Snoddgrass, Johnestone, Elmo, Hourihane, Grabban and Bjarnasson have done ok for us. Each to their own if others think they're crap I suppose.

3 of the 6 are loan deals they are not our players I was talking about actual signings that we would be going forward building a team for the top league with

and there isn’t any

 And you're playing by your own rules to suit your argument.

not really
On loan signings are just that loans who eventually go back to the clubs who bought them

anyone can see that surely

Anyone can see that your dislike of Steve Bruce makes it difficult for you to talk about him rationally. We've made five loan signings this season, of which I can see us buying three permanently if we go up. Then there are players who have been signed to egt us up, and would be moved on if we did. It's like saying Graham Taylor was a bad manager because David Hunt wouldn't have been good enough for division one.   

[Holte L2]

I could see Terry becoming our next manager if and when Bruce departs.

[Clark W Griswold]

Hogan has been a dreadful signing. A huge amount wasted on a supremely untalented player.

Disagree Risso, he's a very good centre forward for this level. He needs to be played in a certain way though, not our way, and you could argue that Bruce should have done his homework more. It was probably the one proven CF that was available at the time so he panicked and took the gamble.