brummie

I am glad for him after what he went through with his Dad. Imagine getting made manager of the club you both support, and that your dad was a steward at, only for him not to understand it because he's got alzheimers, and then for him to die of coronavirus. Jesus, how horrible.

Evening all.

I will admit, I lost it with him last season for a spell. However, less than two years in charge - took a bottom half championship club (one which Bruce had churning out some awful, awful football) to promotion (including winning ten league games in a row), had to buy half a squad (Bruce's obsession with loan players left us with a squad of about 11 players at the end of the season), kept us up and got us to a cup final. Two Wembley trips in all that, too. Really, really early days yet and as pointed out, there are some awful managers who have had good spells, but remain awful. It's pretty hard to look at that list of achievements, though, and not be impressed.

Our problem is going to be depth of squad. The first team look impressive. The stiffs not so much. Still, fuck it, it is enjoyable thus far. Aye, fair enough. If nowt else you're a probably third of the way to safety already. That's how I am looking at it. Anything on top of that is a bonus.

Our problem is going to be depth of squad. The first team look impressive. The stiffs not so much. Still, fuck it, it is enjoyable thus far.

This will get tiresome eventually. Don't be worrying, it won't last long. It's been 10 years of unrelenting dog shit.

Evening, all.

The casual arrogance of this 'big six' nonsense. Big six including Tottenham, a club who this year mark the start of the seventh decade since they last won the league (and they've only actually won it twice), but hey, we've got a nice new ground now and a famous manager and everything. Man City, a club which now has as much reality about it as one of those islands in the shape of palm trees in Dubai, picked at random to become a rich family's play thing, and which has spent fewer seasons in the PL than both Villa and Newcastle. Liverpool, a club whose revolting fans (specially in the media) spend every waking hour telling us how irreproachable and morally 'right' they are on everything, only to pull something shitty like this. And then Man U and Liverpool not voting for their own proposals, the former having sent that hapless Ed Woodward moron because the owners didn't fancy it. Spineless hypocritical nonsense, money and power grabbing pathetically dressed up as altruism. This is entirely about removing the link between performance, competition and income.

The thirst to extract ever more money from fans is fucking revolting. They can stick this shit right up their arses.

Solskjaer shattered numerous records the season before last and then finished third last year. Bit sad he's still not getting any credit. I mean you had 3 very good strikers on the books and signed a £60m midfielder in January to play with your £80m & £40m midfielders (idk exact prices) and score loads of dodgy penalties the 3 forwards won. It's not a sustainable gameplan imo; José showed you proper management on Sunday, they'd have dicked you off the pitch without the sending off. You'll beat your fair share of tripe in the league and win the odd "big" game but stop deluding yourself Nostaljaer will get you challenging, if you indeed are. And if you're not as a manyoo fan you should be wanting him replaced surely, given the standards the club has maintained over the last 30 years or whatever. There are clear issues at the back but a better coach gets more out of them imo. Bruno - £47.5m so you're miles off with that to start. Pogba and Matic aren't his players, and both looked completely done at the club until he came in and revitalised both. Already completely debunked the dodgy penalty myth too. 14 penalties, 12 stonewall, 1 dubious but not a clear and obvious error and 1 that absolutely shouldn't have been given. You're saying winning penalties due to our forwards being brought down isn't a viable game plan, but you do realise if they weren't brought down they'd be scoring? Absolutely hilarious you're saying Jose showed us proper management, as if the last few years haven't existed. We never got beat 1-6 under Jose but we played much, much worse than we did at the weekend. We are far more competitive in the league under Solskjaer than Mourinho. The start of this season has been poor but it's going to be a funny season. We shipped 6 to Spurs and were down to 10 men for 4 of them. Liverpool shipped 7 to Villa 11 vs. 11. Klopp out? Also, I can only assume you mean Rashford, Martial and Greenwood as the 3 very good strikers on our books? Greenwood was brought through by Solskjaer for a start, and under Ole, Martial and Rashford had their best seasons in a red shirt by an absolute mile. Again, Ole gets zero credit for that. Solskjaer has done a great job so far. Until an elite level coach becomes available I'm more than happy with him. I certainly wouldn't be swapping him for Poch, who's best achievement was leading Spurs to second place. It would be a sideways move based on their achievements in the Premier League. Out of interest on the penalties, how do you classify the one where you got one for Bruno Fernandes standing on Esri Konsa? That was a laughably poor decision.

Who wants to touch me?

Evening all.

Good grief.

Genuinely just had to google him.

No, it means Hourihane has more competition for a place. Grealish signed a new contract two weeks ago. He seems to do an okay job for you but Barkley is a massive upgrade on Hourihane unless he's completely fallen off a cliff Hourihane is a weird one. Scores goals, has a brilliant free kick on him and often provides assists. But he's one of those who when he has a bad day is utterly invisible. Like Shelvey, minus the bit about freekicks, goals and assists then. To be fair, when I say what Hourihane adds, I am talking in the context of what we got from our team last season, which was massively underwhelming, so relatively speaking, he adds something.

No, it means Hourihane has more competition for a place. Grealish signed a new contract two weeks ago. He seems to do an okay job for you but Barkley is a massive upgrade on Hourihane unless he's completely fallen off a cliff Hourihane is a weird one. Scores goals, has a brilliant free kick on him and often provides assists. But he's one of those who when he has a bad day is utterly invisible.

No, it means Hourihane has more competition for a place. Grealish signed a new contract two weeks ago.

Good signing for us. However, i hope he turns out better than the last midfielder we borrowed from Chelsea - Drinkwater, who put in, genuinely, three or four of the worst performances I've seen for us since my first game 45 years ago.

Sky Sports have had that toothless fucking tramp Cotterill whatever his name is outside the Dortmund training ground for days now. I bet he puts some funky stuff on his expenses claims.

It's Bruceball. It's not like there's a plan his team fail to enact, it's that his players have no idea what they're supposed to be doing. Beyond a slap on the back and an encouraging word, Bruce just doesn't do tactics. It's the same everywhere he goes. To be fair, if you're a support of, say, Hull City, and he's getting results when you're not used to getting results, he's probably the second coming. If you're a Newcastle or Villa fan, though, where the expectations - of at least something entertaining to watch - are just that little bit higher, he's totally out of his depth. Us and you are the highlights of his managerial career, and I think one spin-off of that is that he feels extra pressure to get results, which too often translates into "do your best, try not to lose". As I said on that Bruce thread, I distinctly recall my dad, when Bruce was at Blues, going on about how the results were OK but the football was the worst he'd ever seen.

Yet somehow they seem to manage to be immune from FFP.

I know nothing about him. All i will say is there seem to be loads of Traores in football these daysl Was he not at Chelsea - then loaned out everywhere? You could probably say this about any footballer in 2030 I'm actually on loan from Chelsea myself. I signed for them in 2007.

I know nothing about him. All i will say is there seem to be loads of Traores in football these daysl

My Dad is a Blues fan How does this happen? A lad I know his father is a Spurs fan yet he's an Arsenal fan. I simply wouldnt have been allowed to support Sunderland like. I'd probably have gotten away with supporting someone else but not Sunderland. Yeah but this city has 3 clubs in it, families are split, too.

I can only ever see his name as 'Jack Wheelchair' as per USSoccerGuy on twitter.