Just flicking through the channels and, during the build up to tonight's Baggies game, they were discussing Bruce. Liam Rosenior seems to talk a lot of sense. Very different to the usual clichéd diatribes offered by pundits. Bright man.
Agreed, Rosenior has previous with Bruce mind...from their time at Hull.
Bruce's mates in the media were never going to call him out, MON, Allardyce, Pardew all benefit from the same soft ride.
Balanced against that is the outright hysteria/schadenfreude last night, here and at Villa Park.
I dont buy into the narrative that we should have walked promotion last season, nor are we entitled to walk it this term when the core of last season's team (all leaders) departed before the season started. Its horribly shit that we are into our third season in this awful division but over 20 years of mismanagement at the club are the cause of that, not Steve Bruce. The worrying thing is that the new regime have had a very bad start in tolerating the late summer transfer business, Guardian suggesting Moreira and El Ghazi were Mendez/Board signings is very worrying, we need neither.
I felt sorry for Bruce last night, it was the ultimate horror show to be honest but a positive result would only have delayed the inevitable.
Unfortunately, the limitations he displayed at the end of his time at Sunderland were exposed all season this term.
Decisions have consequences and the poor planning in terms of recruitment particularly spectacularly exploded last night.
Bruce is solely accountable for:
- panic recruitment back in Jan 2016 - Hogan, Lansbury, Taylor and even Bree have all been expensive flops
- replacing Steer with Nyland (a player he claimed he had scouted for years like Hogan)
- starting the season with Jedinak as a first choice centre back was never going to end well
- having no back up at centre half bar the inexperienced Tuanzebe and letting Elphick go
- the right back addiction, ending up with a back four of right backs last night was particularly apt as Preston bullied them at will
- focusing on getting in Bolasie and Abraham considering the glaring deficiencies elsewhere in the squad
There were good times, dealing with Big Mac for one, thought we played some very decent football last season too.
But Bruce, like MON, Allardyce, even Mourinho and the rest of yesterdays men, eventually cant buy their way out of trouble forever.
