steve_69

And laughs, loads of laughs

Mike Ashley has neither the brains or the foresight to turn Sports Direct into anything more than it is, the man is deluded. Trying to emulate JD Sports but on a bigger scale is laughable - the major sports brands won't work with him and no one is going to pay a premium for Donnay socks and Dunlop golf brollies. Sports Direct has a place in the market and they should just stick to what has got them this far - selling tat to chavs for low prices. I genuinely believe if he carries on with this ridiculous endeavour he could take SD under and that's our best chance of getting rid of him - the pressure of trying to rescue his sinking empire will be too much for him and the quick profit from selling us will be needed to help bolster his coffers. Thick as mince chancer who got it right once and is now convinced he's a retail genius.

Not mane

Me either. He's absolutely brilliant and one of the classiest defenders we've had for a long time. Swiss God!

To be fair to the odious little personality-void he's played this situation pretty well - Keith Bishop could learn a thing or two. He's been all over Twitter, all over this forum, in Four Four Two magazine and now he's on BBC breakfast etc. It's become a tried and tested path - piss Newcastle fans off with an inflammatory comment, watch the ensuing shitstorm erupt and generate publicity off the back of it. If we could find a way to monetise the whole thing we'd probably be able to buy our club back.

Lack of self-awareness in people is such a hard trait to understand if you have self-awareness. I find it impossible to understand how Owen feels hard done by in all of this. He clearly thinks he isn't a cunt, even though the vast majority of normal people and people plying the same trade as he did disagree with him. Like how he finds it reasonable to humiliate a 13 year old goalkeeper who is probably a big fan of his - who does that?! No shaking the kid's hand or giving him tips and advice, just running off and celebrating after he'd nutmegged him. Maybe it stems from him being worshipped from 15 years old and he never had the chance to develop any humility. Hated him as a player, laughed at him as a pundit, pity him now as he tries to keep himself relevant. File him away with Keys and Gray.

Who is actually fit for this game? Brucey's Rocky-style training regime has broken half the first team already.

Motivation as well. Don't forget that!

How very predictable!

Yeah, imagine the drop off in analysis, it must be fucking awful. To an extent there is some merit to the old school way of thinking because it tends to focus on your own game rather than the opposition's - us under Keegan was a prime example of this. We played amazing, attacking football regardless of who was put in front of us because that was our way of playing - I doubt Kev did any analysis of the opposition at all. I guess Guardiola is the modern embodiment of that, but he also proves that in order for that approach to work in the modern game you need a squad full of exceptional players. What we have now is a luddite manager and a squad of above average players. We need that Rafa-esque analysis of the opposition to enable us to compete and the players will no doubt recognise that. I imagine the standard of everything football-related has dropped significantly and it's probably taken the wind out of the sails for a lot of the players.

Shelvey nailed on imo. That's a very good shout. one of the CB's will go, Schar probably of all the players atm for no particular reason i feel like Schar is the most pissed off Schar has definitely checked out, and I think he did after the first training session with Bruce most likely Just watch him for each of Norwich's last two goals. Guy is just lightly jogging around in no man's land without a care int he world as runs and passes are made all around him. Was also way out of position for Arsenal's goal in the first game, and didn't exactly bust a gut to get back. Yeah he's gonna go from a potentially 30m rated CB that he was last season to one of those ones they highlight on match of the day going "he's just standing there". he's a prime example of what rafa was getting out of players, signed for £3.5m wasn't it and not particularly highly rated....1 season of rafa and he's among the best in the league 1 month of bruce back in the bin son He's probably been told by Bruce to keep things simple and just defend. Don't try any of the 'fancy dan' passing or getting forward, just clear the ball and let the midfield players do the creative stuff. I think that would be enough to royally piss him off. He was so important to the way we played in the second half of last season and was given freedom to get forward by Rafa and spray passes about. Bruce won't be into that at all.

Erikson, surely. Bruce wont know how to contain him. Lloris

My school gym was better than that and I left school 30 years ago. That Gym for a premier league club is fucking embarrassing and just typifies what an absolute shit show we are as an organization one that is way way out of its depth as a premier league entity in every department and aspect Mike Ashley has never set foot in a gym in his life - that'll look state of the art to him

Being totally honest I am as well. I was clinging onto the fact that he has got a number of teams promoted from the Championship and that's not easy. I thought there must be some managerial nouse in that deformed head of his but the Norwich performance killed any hope of that.

Anyone with a modicum of football knowledge will have seen how woefully out of his depth Steve Bruce is at this level from our first two performances. He clearly has no idea about tactics and game management. He is an old school manager in a new school division and he will be out-thought by every other manager in this league. You simply cannot send a group of players out onto a PL pitch with nothing more than a basic shape and motivation in 2019. 90% of teams, including those newly promoted, will chew us up and spit us out regardless of whether our players are better than theirs or not. In short, we're completely fucked!

Our owner gave Alan Pardew an 8 year contract and only sacked McLaren/Carver when we were already doomed. What makes you think he’ll act swiftly and decisively to sack Bruce?!

After a lot of thought and deliberation I think i'll give that a miss thanks.

Why do people still listen to Talksport FFS?! It is literally a wind up radio station for people with IQs under 40.

I guess it probably depends on whether they can find another patsy to take over from him. If Bruce really was that far down our list of targets they'll struggle again to find someone to replace him. I doubt even Tim Sherwood, Mark Hughes or Pardew would take us on tbh. It's an absolute dropkick of a job for anyone

He never needed to though really. We could always see there was a plan and that the players were putting in the effort, even if they were shit (Joselu)

Aye - Because if anyone knows how NUFC fans are feeling it's Tony Casca-fucking-rino. Get to fuck Tony. He's the patron saint of stealing a living. Absolute fucking thicko!

Pretty much the go to, for any losing manager, essentialy means "drop flair players" How much more basic can you get than putting 11 players on a pitch with no tactics, instructions or directions, and training sessions that involve lots of running though? That's as basic as football management can get I suppose there's always the option of stick the big lad up top and hoof it over the midfield. He's got the personnel for that kind of 'back to basic' when everyone is fit. aye I know, but I would not put it past bruce to try a little man/big man combo with Gayle/Joelinton or Gayle/Carroll Hey, it worked back in the 80s and 90s so why not now?! Tactics schmactics!

Pretty much the go to, for any losing manager, essentialy means "drop flair players" How much more basic can you get than putting 11 players on a pitch with no tactics, instructions or directions, and training sessions that involve lots of running though? That's as basic as football management can get I suppose there's always the option of stick the big lad up top and hoof it over the midfield. He's got the personnel for that kind of 'back to basic' when everyone is fit.

So who's going to be the first player to have a public spat with Brucey? It always happens in situations like this. Shit manager with shit ideas loses the dressing room and calls out a player for not putting in enough 'effort' and then it kicks off. I'd say Shelvey is the most likely - he'll kick off about being substituted or something and Doubtfire will make an example of him.

If there was any analysis done it would likely be done by one of his coaches but like you say, what is he going to be looking for? I'm sure they'll be looking at distance covered and heart rate to make sure the players are 'putting in the effort' but anything more scientific than that will be way beyond these morons.