David Kelly

I doubt the real fee was £40m but at half of that he's still probably our worst buy ever. I do agree with Fish that Bruce can make any of our players worse but I still can't see anything like a decent Premier League player in him. As has been mentioned before, we've managed to spend tens of millions to downgrade from Joselu. Mind I can only imagine how much worse Joselu would have been with Bruce coaching him.

Are either of these going to replace any of the donkeys we have in midfield?

If we lose to Sheffield we won't be that safe in the league though and we'll be on a hell of a downward trajectory.

I'm probably hating Bruce now more than Fat Sham. I don't know if that partially because I can't get to the games now (or even the pub to get pissed watching them) but we are a totally joyless experience now. Admittedly we were then too but at that point you could still see the possibility of a way forward.

It'll be interesting to see if there is actually any pressure on him after the Sheffield game. We look likely to crash out of the cup at the first hurdle and then give the Blades their first win of the season by next Tuesday night. Should that happen, for any sane person his position would have to finally become untenable. But Mike Ashley is the man who appointed Bruce despite everyone involved with the club knowing it made no sense at all so it's certainly not a foregone conclusion that he'd be under any pressure let alone get the boot.

That's not how you spell Bisto.

TBF Bruce's tactical changes only won us the game because his tactics from the second minute of the game were so shit he had to make the change. Unfortunately for them, West Brom are a relegation waiting to happen and yet we still allowed them to have the upper hand for large parts of the game. With their fragile confidence we should have been all over them like a rash after going one up so quickly but as per we just continued to pass backwards and failed to take countless opportunites to put the ball into the box until the point where we had two wingers playing fullback. On West Brom's side of things, I did wonder why Bilic took that Gallagher kid off who was pretty much running the game and looked a dead cert for a goal. But if you want to replace Bilic with Bruce you'd be more than welcome to him.

Aye for £1.5m he did a great job for us and ended up at a much higher standard than what I would have thought he'd reach. But if we'd signed him for £30m I don't think anyone would say he was value for money unless as a direct comparisson with Joelinton.

Was never a fan. He definitely has ability but more often than not he just gave away possession because he's a right fanny. Unlike Gloomy I always thought he was better off playing wider as if afforded him more space and less time playing with his back to goal. The spell he had after Christmas in his last season with us always seemed like a purple patch rather than any indication that he was ready to step up to a higher level, which sadly Leicester clearly are to us these days. It seems like his performances at Leicester have backed that up. Although I can't say I've seen much of them. I'd happily have him back instead of Joelinton, Gayle or Carroll though. Edit: The pressing that he did do ususally was a result of him losing the ball in the first place.

Did all of the locals not stare at you the whole time? The last time I was forced to go there that was how I found it. All of the semi intelligent mackems go out in Newcastle so it really is the dregs of the gene pool that go out there. It's like a night out in Royston Vasey if you're not local!

Well he took Southend down to league 2 last season and previously got Macclesfield two places above the relegation zone and tried to have them wound up for wages they owed him. So he sounds perfect for them.

It was inevitable that it would happen at some club sooner or later and I have no doubt Ashley is skimping on the messures put in place to prevent it, so it was inevitable we would be the club it happened at. I had no faith in us getting a win at Villa so this doesn't really effect that.

I'm not sure there's many managers still going that I'd want here less than him now. I mean I know it's certainly not impossible that he would bring some clown back from years out of the game given he did that with Kinnear but I can't actually see him doing it again. So the only person I can think of that would annoy me close to the level of Bruce would probably be Tim Sherwood. The problem is all he actually wants is to get shot of us now and as long as we're in the premier league Bruce will suit his purposes. Especially as it's very unlikely we're going to get any meaningful crowds in this season so he's at no risk of losing ticket sales.

I've known the man was a cunt since we beat Man Utd 5-0 and he claimed Peacock's goal shouldn't have been allowed despite the camera angle clearly showing it go over the line. I've known he's a shite manager ever since he started managing. Why the fuck would I give him a chance? His constant bleating on about work in progress and keyboard warriors as well as what the stats tell me and my eyes can see make me feel very comfortable that I never gave him a chance in the first place. I'm just annoyed that there were suckers out there who did, particularly Ashley.

If you watched the Liverpool match yesterday you will have seen just how important a good (exceptional in their case) manager is. They were without Van Dyke, Alexander Arnold, Gomez, Thiago, Henderson and Salah all of whom would probably be first choice for them as well as Oxlade Chamberlin who's there or there abouts and they absolutely wiped the floor with Leicester. That's Leicester who are in the top four, had won their last 6 in all competitions and have been talked about as champions league place contenders. Klopp has Liverpool drilled perfectly. Of course Bruce doesn't have anything like the quality of player at his disposal as Klopp but when they had so many top class players unavailable it barely made a difference to them at all despite starting with two midfielders in defence and a 19 year old in midfield who's only had a handful of cup games previously for experience. Anyone who thinks getting rid of Bruce would make no difference needs to have a word with themselves. The man is fucking useless as we all knew from the start. Admittedly we can't rely on Ashley to replace him with anyone of quality but it's becoming more and more difficult to see where he could find anyone worse than Bruce.

I would love to know what we do practice in training as it's blatantly obvious it's not anything to do with attacking or pressing. I can only assume it's on how to camp out in front of/just inside our 18 yard box and allow shots at the keeper.

I think it's fucking terrible when you're at the match. You don't know whether to celebrate or not and that takes the spontaneous joy of a goal away. And half the time you've no idea of what's going on. It's particularly bad at home games as there's so much of the ground that can't see the 'big' screen. With only games to watch on telly at the moment I think people are forgetting how bad it is for fans in the ground. The other side of it is still the amount of stupid decisions that are being made on the back of it like our pen against Spurs or Bamford's disallowed goal at the weekend. Admittedly a bit of sense from the rule makers could get around that farce. The final thing that I'm not at all convinced about is how long they allow play to go on when there is a blatant offside. I understand the reason for them doing this but apart from it being ridiculous when you it looks like someone is clean through only for them to be flagged offside ages after, I worry about the potential for injuries when someone is making a challenge that there is no need for or pulling a muscle when a making a desperate chase after a forward. We nearly lost Darlow when this happened in the Manchester game. Fortunately the injury wasn't bad but I'm just waiting for a leg break happening when there was no need for the challenge to be made if the linesman had just flagged offside.

Nice to see Longstaff back in putting something of a performance in. It's probably as well as he's played in the premier league since Rafa left. If he can get back to the performances of his first season then it could make a massive difference to our otherwise pedestrian midfield. Hendrick has been pretty much as completely average as I expected (and my Burnley supporting brother in law told me he would be). Longstaff on his game and Hayden would probably be the best pairing we could put out. I did think we looked like we had some idea of what we were trying to do with our attacks on Sunday which made it much better to watch than the dross of the last couple of games. It wasn't a brilliant match by ay stretch but it didn't make me want to poke my eyes out so I'll take that for now.

I don't think intelligence had any part in this at all 🤣

Totally agree with all of this. It's one thing to play so deep that the opposition can't get past you and are limited to shots from outside the box, but if you can't retain or do anything progressive with the ball when you do get it, you are eventually going to get caught out like we were yesterday and last week. Then you are just hoping for fluky goals. That isn't a way to set your team out, it isn't sustainable and it's awful to watch. Comparing it to the worst of it under Rafa doesn't wash either. When Rafa was finally allowed to sign the attacking players he wanted, he had us attacking with a plan and the players looked like they all knew what they were supposed to be doing. Yes we've lost Rondon and Perez but we've now replaced them with Wilson, ASM, Frazer, Joelinton and Carroll. We're actually better off and have the same players available to play behind them yet we have no idea whatsoever how to move the ball forward with any conviction. You have to look at the manager and he can't keep saying it's a work in progress.

The Sean Longstaff who played under Rafa offered a lot more creativity than Shelvey does actually. Rather than just looking for hollywood passes, Longstaff moved the ball forward with both feet playing it in for attacking players (Rondon, Miggy and Perez at the time) in some space in positions where they can cause the opposition problems. Unfortunately since Bruce came in Longstaff has looked slow and very low in confidence and hasn't managed to play in anything like the way he did that first season. He was either just having a purple patch when he came into the team, the injury has ruined him or Bruce has. I have my own suspicions which one of the three is the reason.

Went and seen Tenent again (I had a free Imax ticket and there was fuck all else on) and it made no more sense than the first time. Still enjoyed it enough but it's not one of Nolan's best. Seen Akria on Imax last week and that was quality. Only thing is, I don't get why all foreign language animations aren't just dubbed into English. I mean it's just a dubbing into their native language anyway. Surely it's better to be able to watch the full screen all the time and take in all of the animation than having to focus on the subtitles? And I went to see Saint Maude last night. I can't really say I enjoyed it, and I was glad it was only short but as a story of a woman's decent in to madness rather than a horror film, it did have its merit. The two main actresses in it were both very good.

West Brom v Burnley on Monday. They really should be paying people to watch that.

As If we have any style at all. Craig Hope’s nailed it perfectly. We have no clear identity or pattern to our play and haven’t since cabbage head arrived. The continued lack of quality in midfield doesn’t help either.

Any spinner would be very happy with that ball.