Bruce Sacked at last (now official)

[stuart445]

So when we played well it was because the players flouted the game plan but when we were poor it was because Bruce set the team up wrong?

That's one of the guidelines on here, the other is we win = Agnew. We lose = Bruce

[Lastfootstamper]

Bruce is basically a cut-price MON. The arguments for and against on here are pretty similar to the ones we had when the hasn't-even-got-a-law-degree one was in charge.

Plus ca change and all that.

I think this is a good analogy (though unfair on both in many ways - Bruce is actually better tactically, MON motivationally). Just because MON was the guy to get us to 6th it didn't make him the guy to go beyond that, but we were so worn out from being rubbish that it took a while to get over the grateful-for-just-not-being-shit feeling.

Admittedly we were shit right before he turned up, but in the ten seasons prior to dolly's last, we'd finished lower than eighth just the twice. Yeah, coming off the back of the majority of the BFR and HWWOW years, it wasn't so good, but as we can see from where we now find ourselves, it was quite some way away from proper shit.

DOL. I'm blaming him for everything.

[Monty]

Christ, I meant that season and I'd forgotten it was only one season. Horrific.

[avfcpg]

If he'd given the impression that it was going to take three years to reach the Premier League, and instigated a plan along those lines that centred on developing the youngsters, and he had built a squad accordingly, then we would be mad to get rid of him.  But that's the total opposite of what happened.  He clearly put together a one season, short term, shit-or-bust plan based on lots of very expensive experienced loan players, who if is his plan failed, we wouldn't have a chance of keeping.  Now he has failed, we're in a right state, and we're going to trust somebody who a) caused the situation we're in, and b) has never been a manager known for bringing youth through?

Utterly stupid in my opinion, he'll just make a bad situation a lot worse.

I agree and if there was any indication he was moving forward then it may be worth a punt for another year. But he's not...and he won't move us forward and he won't play the kids. His remit was to get us promoted was it not? I hear an awful lot of "well, he's stabilized us" and "we made the play offs which was better than last year" (for which he was responsible for anyway IMO). That's not what he was bought in to do...if we keep aiming low (stabilizing), that's exactly where we will end up...

[Ads]

In hindsight it would have benefited us more to give O'Hare and RHM, maybe even a few others more squad time and minutes like Davis had and as I'm sure Green would have enjoyed.

[avfcpg]

In hindsight it would have benefited us more to give O'Hare and RHM, maybe even a few others more squad time and minutes like Davis had and as I'm sure Green would have enjoyed.

Yep and this is totally what the new manager, or Bruce should be doing from the off. Even with the loan players leaving, I still think there is more than enough there if we can keep Chester, Jack and Kodj..
If he stays, the pressure on Bruce for the first 10 games is going to be huge..and he won't gamble on the kids under that pressure, as we have seen. It will be more "no lose" football.

[Ads]

I think a 7 game start like we had last season would be difficult to ride out.

A good and fast start would gain momentum and as we've seen in this league, getting ahead is hugely advantageous.

[sirlordbaltimore]

In hindsight it would have benefited us more to give O'Hare and RHM, maybe even a few others more squad time and minutes like Davis had and as I'm sure Green would have enjoyed.

Lets imagine we did that whilst hunting that top two spot and we fucked it up badly.

It's all very well saying it now but O'Hare would be in Jack's position and RHM would've been in Grabban's.

Two players who had a huge part in us making the play off final.

If we'd been floating around in mid table with nothing to play for i could see the logic of course. But we weren't obviously

[Ads]

Jack didn't play for the first half of the year, same as Grabban.

My point is that this is with the benefit of hindsight. We aimed to be promoted and failed in any event. A bit more experience for a few of these lads who will feature more this season would have been useful.

[Fred Crump]

I agree with you Ads, but I think to say ‘with hindsight’ is being generous. There were several times last year where we had loads of defensive midfielders on the bench and O’Hare was nowhere to be seen despite playing brilliantly in the U23s. Then we had no creative options when we needed them. For all the good points about SB , that’s my major gripe with him - he just didn’t seem prepared given any sort of choice at all, to play our youngsters but was prepared to play youngsters from Spuds and the Home Counties Reds.

[sirlordbaltimore]

Jack didn't play for the first half of the year, same as Grabban.

My point is that this is with the benefit of hindsight. We aimed to be promoted and failed in any event. A bit more experience for a few of these lads who will feature more this season would have been useful.

The key word there being hindsight surely?

I saw nothing of either O'Hare or RHM for the reserves last year that made me think they should be getting many first team call ups unless absolutely necessary. Plus i'm pretty sure RHM was out injured a lot anyway

You've got to be careful using them too early IMHO. Davis came in and took us all be surprise initially but that weight of expectation soon took it's toll on his performances and he got some abuse from the usual morons for not being the finished product. That can set kids back years

Next season who knows, with another year of experience/maturing under their belts they could be ready.

[Ads]

Davis will have benefited hugely from the experience and will be a better player for it.

I think game time for the others in the first half of the season would have helped for this. In the end we failed anyway, so it would have been of no detriment.

I have stated that is with hindsight. I'm not criticising Bruce for executing his plan, but I think it puts them at a disadvantage.

[Fred Crump]

The point I was making is that I don’t think it did require hindsight, it was blindingly obvious at the time. I’m not saying that they should have started and played 90 mins of every game ( we did that to Steven Davis years ago and burnt him out, then promptly sold him to go and be good somewhere else) . But really good coaches/ managers know when to blood young players and how to motivate them by rewarding good U23 performances with 15 mins here or there. I accept they need careful handling but the old adage of if you’re good enough you’re old enough still holds. Personally I think O’Hare could have been brilliant as he’s really technically gifted, but we won’t know because barring one good half against Peterborough we never saw him in the first team.

[Ads]

He played a few minutes against Cardiff and Wolves away when we were losing. I think he's a real player myself and I don't think you need to run him down to defend Bruce.

[Fred Crump]

I’m setting myself up for a fall here , but I really think O’Hare has the potential to be as good as or even better than Jack because of his speed of thought and reading of the game - he releases the ball so quickly and then runs into space looking for the return which is what all top attacking midfielders do. And before anyone asks, no , I’m not his Mum.