The Fish

Last season we went on a run of 2 wins in 22 games. Twenty Two.

Reading their board, it sounds like he's not exactly filling them with excitement. Might be a bit of a Mike Ashley character. Apparently his old club have regressed, he's put his mates in positions of power, that kind of thing.

Don't think we can be 100% certain on our opinions of what players can and can't do until we see them with a competent manager at the helm. If Lewis gets some coaching he might be a decent Left Back. Almiron might return to the kind of performances we saw under Benitez. Saint Maximin might be utilised in such a way as to allow him freedom without asking any tracking back from him. Hell, Joelinton might be a useful player in the right system, for all we know.

And successfully too.

Proof that I can be brief. My wife can attest.

Now you're talking my language.

What, to keep my hair out of my eyes? Early onset male pattern baldness took care of that.

Seaton Sluice is near Blyth numbnuts. Rag n Boneman just filmed his new music video there. It's the Joshua Tree of Northumberlan.

My Dad's from Glasgow, I grew up near Blyth, I fucked off to Leeds Uni. I'm basically a better version of Mark Knopfler.

Realistically, we're not going to convince Declan Rice to leave West Ham and join us right now. I would be more worried about Newcastle signing the best of European up and coming talent, than I would be about us signing James Tarkowski or whomever. We're not yet at the stage where we can cherry pick the best players in the same way Liverpool, Man City or Man Utd can, so what's their worry? There's only 4-5 clubs we could nick a player from, so I cannot imagine that 19 clubs will get together to stop us signing PL talent.

This is it, his gossamer thin skin is stretched over a fragile ego. A man whose belief in himself is on the wane, but who’s ego won’t let him back down in light of justified criticism.

If he, at any point, refers to it as a "Super Computer" I am not interested.

He take credit for keeping you a chair?

There'll be the lack of Bruce's negative impact for a start. There'll be a breath of fresh around the place. There'll be no Shelvey either.

I'm not concerned, but trying to give you miseries a little hope.

One thing to mention, if we were to go down (no bed wetting here) it'll only delay the progress by a year or so.

Good post(s).

Bruce's 'tactic' was "get it to Allan". Reportedly ASM's nickname was "Plan A". No surprise to see ASM's a fan.

The idea of a person in place who comes up with, then executes long term plans is sound. You can get the wrong person in place, of course, but if you get it right it can reduce the missteps below them. For example, if your DoF thinks that, for the next 5 years you need to be playing pragmatic football he'll guide the scouts to find organised, defensive players and efficient attackers, he'll guide recruitment of managers who play that style and coaches who understand that system. He won't flit from a cavalier attacking manager like Keegan, to a patient possession based manager like Dalglish, back to Sexy football Gullit. He won't sign Joelinton with no idea who the manager will be, let lone how that player would fit into the system. He won't sell Cabaye without a suitable replacement in mind. Look at Lange at Villa. They knew they were selling Grealish, so they replaced him in the aggregate with Bailey, Buendia and Danny Ings.

Long post, quite ranty, ignore if you like. The job of the manager is to organise the players, keep them as fit as possible, manage their personalities, manage up, manage the press, manage the fans. Bruce did little of any of that and whatever he did do, he didn’t do well. There’s been 2 years of pundits pointing out the huge gaps between defence and midfield, midfield and attack. Two years of criticism of the players, the on field organisation, the system. Yet hardly any of Bruce. He’s done a good job, we’ve been told. That performance against Spurs could have been dumped in the first season under Bruce and you’d not tell the difference, so little has changed. Not one of the players has improved under Bruce and the attacking, midfield and defensive units have regressed dramatically. We went from having a top-half defensive record, to bottom in almost every metric. We went from organised if a little too pragmatic, to clueless and so easy to play against. The players look knackered every game, with loads of days off surely not helping. He's brought players back too soon after injury. He's had a bust up with Ritchie, blamed him for not passing messages, he's let Darlow find out he's not playing through the press, there've been more reports of training ground bust-ups and confrontation than under any other manager I can think of. The only part of his job he’s done fairly well is managing up. He convinced Ashley to alter the approach and spend money on proven Premier League players like Wilson, Fraser, Hendricks and also on Lewis. But of those, only Wilson has been a real success, the others might be good, but haven't featured regularly. And Ashley sharp went back to parsimony. Bruce says we had no money despite over £90m net transfer spend in 5 windows. Benitez had about £-5m net spend over 6. Bruce said in Edwards' piece that there wasn't the money for an overhaul. That squad didn't need an overhaul, it was a midtable squad that needed refining. He’d insist he could take the criticism, but would react angrily to journalists asking about yet another holiday in the Algarve. He said he’d maintain his dignity, then have pops at Howe, or Benitez. He’d talk about fans expectations, and trot out talksport cliches like signing Alan Shearer level players. He blamed the press for fan negativity. Dismissed criticism as keyboard warriors and histrionics, but then said those fans he spoke to were supportive. All the while his chums in the media were defending Steve Bruce the man, while damning the team he's responsible for managing. Now, apparently, our defenders are Championship standard, despite spending more time in the Premier League than they did in the 2nd tier. Apparently our midfielders aren't up to it, despite being linked with Man Utd, or England previously. Some of them will point to the league positions or points tally and demand to know what the issue was. But long stretches of terrible form (2 wins in 22?), patently obvious problems in the team selection, shape, system. Terrible performances were pretty commonplace like Norwich (3-1) two games after his first full preseason in 2019, or Leicester 5 games later, twice against Brighton (20/21 3-0), the 1-0 loss to a Sheffield side that hadn’t won a game or kept a clean sheet all season, all the way through to the last 8 games. Football fans aren’t blind to these things. The bloke was outdated a decade ago, the criticisms levelled at him by Sunderland, Villa, Hull fans still ring true to this day. Bright start to the games, gradually retreat, disorganised system, no leadership on or off the pitch. That’s why they were supportive of Hughton, of Benitez. You might not get as excited by their system, but at least there fucking is one. Through it all he was saying things like 'dust wuhselves down', 'roll up wuh sleeves', because that's all he knows to do, or that he’s going to do it 'his way' despite having been in the job for 18 months. Even now, after 97 games, I couldn't begin to tell you what 'way' he's trying to have them play. Newcastle paid £4m to Shef Wed so they could appoint Steve Bruce, and paid Steve Bruce £8m to get shot of him. There’ve been bigger wastes of money by Newcastle United, but not many.

Well, thinks for thanking of me.

I will fight you.