Chris_R

I agree strongly with the above two. It's also about perceptions; it'll be used as a stick to beat us with by so many others fans and media outlets so maybe just don't give them any ammo? I mean yes this is true, absolutely. But no matter how much you may think "I'm not celebrating the regime, I'm celebrating Saudi culture" literally nobody will have a chance to air that view coherently. You'll just be videoed with a towel on your head and everyone will call you a dickhead and say our fans are supporting murderers. There'll be no 30-minute nuanced, balanced interview to accompany your costume. Maybe just don't give them the chance to show you like that? And because it's so clear this is what the media will say when they see you, this is why other fans get angry and call you a cunt because you're not just painting yourself as a dickhead, it's the image that will be used to be representative of us all as a group. Most of us are really tired of the stereotypes us fans get tarred with so it's especially annoying when you see someone helping make it worse.

Well i mean if he's playing every week, it kinda is. At least partly.

I dunno, we might get away with dropping "Your excellency" but I think he might be offended if we call him "Yosser FFS"

Wonder if they can get rid of the 17st of shit from the dugout?

69,420 is more.

Yeah it's pointless asking his best mate if he should be sacked or not. No matter how shit my best mate was at his job*, I'm unlikely to ever recommend his employer fire him. (*Unless he was something like a pilot or a neurosurgeon!)

I dunno, maybe he'd really like to hear from the alias of Pon?

Maybe Wor Flags can do a Steve Bruce banner. Not criticising per se, just listing his 1000 game statistics - win rate, PL win rate, trophies won etc.

At all absolute minimum we were playing it in the 1992 promotion season, and constantly after that for at least a decade.

Rumour is that he does have clauses in that allow him to be sacked for less or even maybe for nothing, but only after certain amount of the season has passed and if the team is below a certain league position. If we sack him before then, we have to pay the full 3 years of his contract up at £2.7m per year. This is because of his rolling contract, where every morning when he wakes up he still has 3 years left, it keeps resetting. It all makes perfect sense when you factor in Ashley's utter lack of ambition whereby anything from 17th or up is deemed to be fine. Why would Ashley ever contemplate sacking him if he's not in the relegation positions?

I mean I specifically said "if they ask for a round of applause for his 1000 games over the tannoy", I'm not suggesting we all sit on our hands for 90 minutes. But Bruce should be an irrelevance, he should be ignored and not part of anything we do - if he's there still.

I'd not boo Bruce, but nor would I venerate or celebrate his milestone or anything about him. He should be ignored. If they ask for a round of applause for his 1000 games over the tannoy, it should not be greeted with applause or with booing, but with deafening silence.

I'm not interested in his conduct, or wealth of experience. The issue, and only issue here, is he's shit at being a football manager, and his "wealth of experience" is of being shit, tactically inept and losing games.

It doesn't matter whether you like what I say or not, but you cannot arbitrarily redefine a word just because it doesn't fit how you want to use it. Sunderland are not rivals, by the definition of the word "rival". That's not an attempt to denigrate their importance to us, they're the club I most look out for and always will be, they're our local derby. I'm making a literary point - A rival, by definition, is someone in competition with you.

I'm just attempting to differentiate (light heartedly, I admit) between a local derby and a rivalry. But there is a semantic difference. A rival is someone you're concerned about beating you or are concerned about overtaking you. We never play them. By the definition of the word, they're not our rivals. You can attempt to redefine that all you want but it's just not what the word means. They're our local derby, I'll always want to beat them, I'll always look out for their results, hell I'd actually like us to be in the same league as them as I miss the derbies, but there's no "rivalry" there right now because of their absence. I'll never think them "irrelevant" or stop caring about them, or as Dokko says forget our roots. All of that is important. Just by the definition of "rival", they're not one. Neither are Man U by the way. Our rivals right now are Norwich and people like that, this isn't even a comment about the takeover, I'd have said the same 2 weeks ago. The definition of "rival" precludes Sunderland.

Right now, people around the bottom 6 of the PL.

"On good terms" - Means he's getting an absolute fuckton of money to sod off. That's the only way Bruce would define "Good terms".

They're our local derby, they're not our rivals.

What are the rules in January transfer windows? Aren't there limits on how many players you can register? I'll have to check Football Manager(!) but I have an inkling it's 3 additions plus 3 replacements...

Depends when the break clause is. If it's next Monday, they might hang on. You're almost certainly right though and a few million won't matter, but I'm just trying to explain why he's still employed.

I'm sure I read that although he's got this alleged 3-year rolling contract, there's break clauses based on league position at certain points in the season. Maybe the new owners are hoping they can sack him for 0 if they just make him wait a while. Or that if they just threaten to make him wait until then, he'll acquiesce to a lower payout.

I mean I agree, but they might be looking over his contract in fine detail to see if there's any way to avoid giving him the alleged EIGHT MILLION POUNDS to fuck off into the sunset. I get that we're filthy rich now, but that's still probably worthy of consideration.

Mag.

Worst PL manager to manage over 300 games, from what I remember?