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We concentrated on Ashley but those in the ground continue to give him a resounding vote of confidence each and every week. It’s over, he’s won just like he has time and time again for the last ten years.

 

Sounds like the bloke next to you needs an intervention.

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whatever he achieves at newcastle, he'll owe a huge debt to rafa just for inheriting the well drilled back 5. and injuries to a centre half arent an issue as rafa left with such a great pool of interchangeable defenders that easily slip in and out of an established system.

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The party line on here is pathetic. Nobody wanted Rafa to leave or Bruce as his replacement. We have a worse set of players this season and we’ve rode our luck. It will go tits up.

 

But, we’ve got results, we’ve seen the Longstaff brothers beat Man U and Miggy score the winner today. Fuck Ashley and enjoy these memorable moments because, like it or not, they’ve been pretty good to witness.

 

Ashley has managed to completely fracture and polarise supporters. Bloke next to me had his ST for countless years, he’s been to 3 games this season, he left at HT against Soton and 3 minutes today. He’s in his 60’s and he’s clearly torn apart.

 

Bruce isn’t the problem nor are the supporters. Win lose or draw Ashley is the problem, concentrate on that. The unbridled joy of Miggy and the Longstaff’s are the real heart of what the club is.

 

 

 

Bruce is the problem.

 

a) because he's enabling Ashley's asset stripping of NUFC.

 

b) because he's shit.

 

Well that’s just bollocks. If Rafa we’re winning would he also be enabling and be part of the problem? This all begins and ends with Ashley.

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The party line on here is pathetic. Nobody wanted Rafa to leave or Bruce as his replacement. We have a worse set of players this season and we’ve rode our luck. It will go tits up.

 

But, we’ve got results, we’ve seen the Longstaff brothers beat Man U and Miggy score the winner today. Fuck Ashley and enjoy these memorable moments because, like it or not, they’ve been pretty good to witness.

 

Ashley has managed to completely fracture and polarise supporters. Bloke next to me had his ST for countless years, he’s been to 3 games this season, he left at HT against Soton and 3 minutes today. He’s in his 60’s and he’s clearly torn apart.

 

Bruce isn’t the problem nor are the supporters. Win lose or draw Ashley is the problem, concentrate on that. The unbridled joy of Miggy and the Longstaff’s are the real heart of what the club is.

 

 

 

Bruce is the problem.

 

a) because he's enabling Ashley's asset stripping of NUFC.

 

b) because he's shit.

 

Well that’s just bollocks. If Rafa we’re winning would he also be enabling and be part of the problem? This all begins and ends with Ashley.

 

The last thing you want to be doing is talking bollocks when you are calling someone else out for talking bollocks. Rafa could quite easily have been here winning and enabling Ashley, the only reason he left was because he didn't want to be party to it.

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The party line on here is pathetic. Nobody wanted Rafa to leave or Bruce as his replacement. We have a worse set of players this season and we’ve rode our luck. It will go tits up.

 

But, we’ve got results, we’ve seen the Longstaff brothers beat Man U and Miggy score the winner today. Fuck Ashley and enjoy these memorable moments because, like it or not, they’ve been pretty good to witness.

 

Ashley has managed to completely fracture and polarise supporters. Bloke next to me had his ST for countless years, he’s been to 3 games this season, he left at HT against Soton and 3 minutes today. He’s in his 60’s and he’s clearly torn apart.

 

Bruce isn’t the problem nor are the supporters. Win lose or draw Ashley is the problem, concentrate on that. The unbridled joy of Miggy and the Longstaff’s are the real heart of what the club is.

 

 

 

Bruce is the problem.

 

a) because he's enabling Ashley's asset stripping of NUFC.

 

b) because he's shit.

 

Well that’s just bollocks. If Rafa we’re winning would he also be enabling and be part of the problem? This all begins and ends with Ashley.

 

Not the point really. Rafa practically was at war with Ashley. Bruce is another in a line of patsies.

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My anti-club bias aside, how well has he actually done?

 

Notably good results: Spurs (a), ManU (h), ManC (h) West Ham (a), ManC (h), Sheffield United (a). Factoring in how appalling Spurs and particularly ManU were on the day, there's four really decent results there.

 

Notably poor results: Norwich (a), Watford (h), Leicester (a), Villa (a), Burnley (a). Absolutely stinking performances in every one, and I've generously kept out Brighton (h), there.

 

Meh/Par: Arsenal (h), Liverpool (a), Brighton (h), Chelsea (a), Bournemouth (h), Southampton (h), Palace (h).

 

We don't have a coherent attack, with our first choice attackers having three goals between them. There's no real fluidity so we rely on a solid defence and quick counter-attack. Shelvey has improved a lot, Manquillo too; Fernandez still looks a hell of a player, Carroll has done surprisingly well and Willems has been a good signing. Meanwhile, players like Hayden, Longstaff and Almiron have regressed to varying degrees of significance and talented players like Schar have at times struggled to find a role. Joelinton is abysmal and ASM's season has been severely damaged by choices made in the dugout. Then you've got the reserve players which still haven't improved or fought their way in like Muto, Atsu, Ki and Gayle.

 

We don't make more than the sum of our parts, we play bad football which is often effective. The manner in which we're collecting points doesn't seem particularly sustainable but the attitude, determination and sense of playing for one another has very much been retained. We've got good defenders, average midfielders, inconsistent attackers and very little sense of any sort of tactical flourish. That's what we're seeing in most matches, aside from when we're terrible.

 

We're an established Premier League team with a settled squad and we're mid-table: ahead of the worst but having failed to really capitalise on the varying shades of dreadful form from ManU, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton and West Ham. Smaller but significantly more ambitious clubs like Leicester, Sheffield United and Wolves have had more impressive seasons so far and play much more interesting and creative football.

 

We've got our heads well above water but we're actively passing up the opportunity to have a realistic stab at the top 6 come May. We're mid-table, and we look mid-table. Comparisons to Rafa aren't relevant, just as it wasn't when people compared Rafa to Pardew. Looking at the season in isolation, Bruce has done 'not bad', as in, we don't look like we're in relegation trouble.

 

We've looked fine, competent, unimpressive. Certainly nothing to heap praise onto the manager for, but likewise nothing to chastise him for either (patronising, disingenuous, butthurt tripe in the media aside).

 

We're not doing terribly but we're not doing really well either. Which has been the point all along; we don't want to be better than this. Ian W summed it up perfectly earlier; Bruce is just a symbol for the pointlessness of the club.

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Its not been great, but I expected him to be McClaren levels of a disaster. I thought by now he'd have lost the dressing room and we'd be giving up every week. The football's not good. But there's a determination to get results and he actually showed some semblance of thinking for himself with the switch to 532 which had the odd thing of switching to 442 at times. We weren't free flowing but I thought it got Almiron and Shelvey involved further forward. Dummett got a lot of time out wide very high, its just a shame he's not Willems or Ritchie. Its a shame he's became so defensive in the media about things. If he showed some humility and owned up to mistakes I might be able to get behind him a bit.

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