Mattoon

Well that was fucking insightful, the old codger is less comprehensible than Father Jack ffs

My hometown club Fleetwood sat in 4th above these

I watch the games which are on the telly because I find it fascinating discovering how shit Bruce really is. I never really knew much about him before he rocked up here, but have always had an uninformed opinion that he was absolutely clueless. Seems to have been a pretty good call so far. Up until the Chelsea game I had only watched about 30 minutes of us this season, that was enough to make an informed decision. I watched the whole Chelsea game at work, safe to say I won't put myself through that masochistic endeavour again any time soon. Ashley stopping me going to the games now this clown stopping me watching them. I watched most of our games under Pardew too, they were rough, he was horrific, but at least we won some games and occasionally played well and had some decent players to enjoy. I can't bare to watch what's on display at the moment, sickening.

Bruce will try and fiddle with the formation again, 4-4-fucking-2 and we'll lose without a shot on target

He will not be involved going forward. We can still flog him though, right?

Saturday night, 2 hours after the end of a game and this forum is dead, well done Ashley, you've destroyed everything. There was a time when you couldn't keep up with the posts on here on a match day.

To be fair we weren't terrible until Bruce started meddling and it all went to shit. Dogged display but we could have played all day and not scored, maybe Rafa was right about Joelinton, crazy right?

I see he's singling out Almiron to get the knuckle draggers onside

Nope

I said something similar in the Rafa thread... People on facebook/twitter responding to these quotes saying "mind your own business" and "wish he'd fuck off keep talking about us". These are the sort of people we're dealing with at our club ffs. Siding with Ashley man. How do you even reason with these idiots? Its utterly baffling like. They hang on every word of proven liars whilst ignoring decorated legends such as Rafa and people with a modicum of understanding and research ability.

Seen HF wrote a piece in The Mag about where the club's money is going, the responses on Twitter are so we're actually back to fans backing Ashley. Two in particular calling Chris a mackem and a wind up merchant, so I had to wade in but feel like I'm smashing my head against a brick wall. One has in his bio "Brucies Black & White army" and the other "Personally responsible for bringing down the Magpie Group" with his 64 followers. I need to disengage for my own sanity. Far too many idiots coming out the woodwork slating Rafa and defending Ashley and Brewcie, we're never going to amount to anything, everything is bad forever.

Afaik Rafa only said no due to the fee, rather than not rating his ability or potential. Correct, he said he was a good player with potential but only rated him as £20m which prompted Ashley to claim he offered the difference out of his own pocket

Apparently yesterday was a more attacking version of it Steve Bruce put an “attacking twist on it” according to our local journalists. Clearly not club PR. The PR from his cronies in the press, Caulkin included sadly, has been putrid today. Absolutely putrid. Really? What (unexpected) crap did Caulkin come out with? He was bigging up the nice guy image and saying criticism levelled at him on social media was unfair and extreme. He didn't go full Edwards (you never go full Edwards) but it was enough to raise an eyebrow, lost a little respect for Caulkin today for shame.

Got to be Robert up there with most of those in the video but you can't overlook Papiss Cisse v Chelsea just for the sheer audacity of the attempt.

Massively jealous right now, Bears has been my team for the last 34 years. I'm stuck in Middlesbrough opening another shop.

I used to rag on Pardew for the same thing. He would change his mind about "tactics" every bad result. It's basically laying bare you have no real idea what you're doing and just making it up on the fly. Bruce is talking about how he has plenty of other players champing at the bit to step in. To do what exactly? Is he going to change the players or the formation? Or both? Compare it to Rafa who knew exactly how his team was supposed to line up every week. Players either fit in or were left out. Pardew could never make his mind up, and neither can Bruce. It's because he has no idea basically. He's literally the antithesis of Rafa. Even when we got a few beatings (though few and far between) with Rafa in charge he was steadfast in his tactics, formations always remained the same, maybe the personnel would change slightly and the approach, but the base formation and personnel would remain the same. Because a good manager believes in his methods, trusts his own ability and the knowledge he's imparted on his players. Conversely a poor manager blames everything but himself, decides to switch out players who had one bad game (escape goating) and fiddle with formations in the hope that they stumble on one that works (see Pardew, 5th place finish).

Anyone with half a brain knew what Rafa was doing in the championship with us, just not pundits and a large selection of NUFC supporters. We wouldn't have done half as well that season back up without that philosophy engrained in those players.

Absolute nail on the head, what will it take for an actual national to print something as damning as this, the wider audience needs educating. This has to be the end game now, the club simply cannot go on like this and unless the pressure mounts we'll go the way of Blackpool before something changes.

Mediawatch have absolutely nailed Alardyce for his Bruce defence: https://www.football365.com/news/sam-allardyce-graeme-souness-prime-mediawatch-fodder

The last 30 minutes of the second half of the Brighton game is all I've watched this season, no match of the day, not even radio footage. I was driving back from Birmingham (3hrs drive to where I live) when this game was on and only kept up to date by checking periodically on here. The result was, as always, bitter sweet, scoffed at 3-0, 4-0, 5-0 but couldn't help for feel a tinge of hurt also. I don't think I'll ever truly "Not care", although I tell myself and others that it's more of a defence mechanism. I don't care in that it's not my team any more, it's Ashley Football Corperation now, but I care that this used to be my club and even in the dark days of Souness and Gullit, I still had some pride, now that's replaced by shame. I still get moments of anger but mostly that's turned to apathy, I just want our club back, whoever buys this club (I know, I know) will have bridges to build through no fault of their own, trust to repair for people to come back full time, I just hope this damage is not irreparable, I can't even tell you if it's repairable for me at this point. /rant

Wonder what he said to the thumb?? I'm glad Ashley doesn't want to pull the trigger yet, it's the best thing he could do to bring supporters back. The anger is still growing and more games like yesterday will only increase the anger/apathy leading to more empty seats. If he were to jettison Bruce now and get someone remotely capable in I can see a lot of fair weather customers returning.

You've just got to let go mate, it's not worth your health, mental or physical and it's not worth upsetting the people around you. I have watched 30 minutes this season and that was enough for me. Rip the plaster off, it hurts at first but it gets better NUFC is dead, what was left on life support when Rafa was here is now on the morphine drive, let it go.

Well still more points than Rafa had this time last year, give Brewcie a chance, he's a good guy you know #bantzzzz

I sort of agree tbh, I would be delighted if we got £10m for Gayle, and that's purely down to his age. The real problem is we should have spent that £16m on hiring a proper manager. Or even better spending it on keeping the great one we had. What makes you think he wanted to stay? If the club had shown some ambition, given Rafa the reigns, sorted the academy and training facilities like any normal club then he would have stayed, no doubt.