[Football] Bye bye Bruce

[Dick Swiveller]

Had a poke around the Newcastle forum earlier and came up with 2 amusing stats. Apparently, 18% of our PL goals have come against Newcastle. And depending on which stats you believe from last night, they had 0 shots on target across the 2 games. Think there was conflict amongst the statos on the deflected shot that went straight to Sanchez as to whether the original shot was on target or not.

 

[Machiavelli]

Really hard to nail the strategy, team shape and player positions with White & Veltman given license to support advanced wing play alongside Moder constantly popping up at ACM or even as a striker. Our two forwards were camped out near their corner flags resulting in a gaping hole in the middle that Moder had clearly been drilled to run into.

———————Sanchez———————-
————————Dunk————————-
—White——————————Veltman—
———Lallana————-Bissouma———
———Groß——————Moder————
————————Troß————————-
Maupay———————————Welbeck

The team shape bamboozled poor Bruce completely and I’m still really struggling to work out what he did. I think Moder and Groß were false wing backs and Troß was a false No.9 and Maupay & Welbeck were false wingers.

Reminded me of the 4-2-2-2 that did Spurs 3-0 but with 3 at the back instead of 4.

Good luck with working out that system for the Potter Picks thread.
FWIW, I think you're nearly there with this, but where I think you err is that (as most of us do) you're thinking that are line-up was symmetrical. Last night was an instance, which has been evident in some previous games, of Potter deploying an asymmetrical formation.
So, I'd go with the above, except:
-- Maupay played slightly more in-field (so below Gross in yours)
-- Gross played as wide as Welbeck but deeper than you have it, ie the same depth as you have Lallana and Biss
-- you're spot on in that Tross played centrally but in a more withdrawn role
In terms of the asymmetry point, I wonder whether [MENTION=38333]Swansman[/MENTION] has a view on this, given he's the most experienced and probably best Potterologist on here.

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

Sounds like they were incredibly complacent & like you say hadnt done their research. Give us space and time on the ball like they did & it was inevitable they'd get a footballing lesson.

I don’t think that’s true, just said on another thread, didn’t think Bruce did much different to Allardyce or Hodgson, in some respects Newcastle defended better than both Palace and West Brown given we had clearer cut chances we had in those games.

That’s football in a nutshell. Allardyce and Hodgson praised for grinding out a result, but the only difference was our finishing being on the money last night.

 

[Robdinho]

He is a decent and honest man, I have more time for him than a lot of other managers.
He has had terrible injuries like us as well.
But he got it very badly wrong tonight and his players did not play for him or their club today.

Read an interesting comment on another forum from an Aston Villa fan saying that Bruce's teams always seem to have loads of injuries wherever he goes, the suspicion being his training methods don't get the players fit enough, and injured players are rushed back too quickly (as seemed to be the case with Almiron last night)

 

[vagabond]

[tweet]1373411964853096448[/tweet]

 

[Cowfold Seagull]

Am l the only one on this thread, who actiually thinks that Steve Bruser is a pretty good manager? Hugely successful as a player of course, although his managerikal exploits have been rather more modest.

Hampered to a great degree by his chairman refusing to spend big and losing several important players to long term injuries, his top goalscorer amongst them, l think he is doing as well as any other perspective manager can.

Don't blame Bruce for the demise of Newcastle United, lay that completely at Mike Ashley's door.

 

[Weststander]

Am l the only one on this thread, who actiually thinks that Steve Bruser is a pretty good manager? Hugely successful as a player of course, although his managerikal exploits have been rather more modest.

Hampered to a great degree by his chairman refusing to spend big and losing several important players to long term injuries, his top goalscorer amongst them, l think he is doing as well as any other perspective manager can.

Don't blame Bruce for the demise of Newcastle United, lay that completely at Mike Ashley's door.

Very unlucky with injuries - without their best striker, the dangerous Saint-Maximin and their best defender in Schar.

A mid table team otherwise.

Albeit with uninspiring of football.

 

[Sheebo]

If Bruce was really surprised at our qualities he really hasn’t done much research...

[tweet]1373403052154220544[/tweet]

Which of the ‘Potter out’ toy throwers is Bruce masking as on here?

 

[dwayne]

Am l the only one on this thread, who actiually thinks that Steve Bruser is a pretty good manager? Hugely successful as a player of course, although his managerikal exploits have been rather more modest.

Hampered to a great degree by his chairman refusing to spend big and losing several important players to long term injuries, his top goalscorer amongst them, l think he is doing as well as any other perspective manager can.

Don't blame Bruce for the demise of Newcastle United, lay that completely at Mike Ashley's door.

Nahhh

He's spent about 90 million over the last 2 seasons. He's a dinosaur, hopeless.

Sent from my SM-G977N using Tapatalk

 

[Driver8]

Very unlucky with injuries - without their best striker, the dangerous Saint-Maximin and their best defender in Schar.

A mid table team otherwise.

Albeit with uninspiring of football.

Wasn’t Saint-Maximim subbed off at HT in our first game after Lamptey had run him ragged?

 

[lawros left foot]

Wasn’t Saint-Maximim subbed off at HT in our first game after Solly March had run him ragged?

Tarim Lamptey destroyed him . He feigned injury and was subbed off after 33 minutes.

 

[lawros left foot]

There is a Geordie conspiracy theory that Ashley wants them relegated this season in the believe that the EFL will be less stringent tha the PL and allow the Saudis to buy him out.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

Wasn’t Saint-Maximim subbed off at HT in our first game after Lamptey had run him ragged?

Saint-Maximin went off injured mid way through the first half. I think it may have come in a 50/50 challenge where Lamptey absolutely did Saint-Maximin for strength and pace, he simply couldn't cope with Lamptey and was having a mare of a game, he'd already given away the penalty early in the half. Andy Carroll went off at half time for Almiron.

 

[dazzer6666]

 

[PTC Gull]

I had a chance to watch the post match analysis on NBCSN here in the Colonies and it was interesting to hear Tim Howards thoughts. He thinks that Bruce will stay until the end of the season but the new AM Graham Jones is actually dictating/suggesting the system and he thinks he will replace Bruce in the summer. They showed some footage of Bruce talking to players in the GK injury break but he also pointed out that Jones was doing most of the talking to the midfield players and showing them what they should be doing. Howard pointed out that when they were both at Everton, Jones used the diamond formation and that's what he saw last night. However it has issues (according to Howard) in as much that they have the system but not the plan. Toon players staying in the formation but too narrow and not reacting quick enough to our fluid formation. He id Shelvey playing at the bottom of the diamond but way too deep and Almiron again playing way too deep as the front point. So they had no penetration and apart from the first 10 mins in the 2nd half posed no threat to us. Howard was very complementary of us and he finished with Albion had a system and a plan and they executed that perfectly, Toon had a system and nothing else. He thinks they down. Does not see them getting more than 5 points from their run in.

 

[Taybha]

 

[Worried Man Blues]

There's only so many managers of any quality that will put up with Ashley. Ashley doesn't care what supporters think or say as long as he survives in the Prem. nothing will change, even if they go down.

 

[Badger Boy]

They were very, very bad. But for all our smug gloating, we lost to West Brom recently. Their team totally lacks any clarity of vision at all, the squad is really poor and his tools are blunt. For me, last night really highlighted the difference in infrastructure of the clubs as much as the disparity between the teams. Of course Newcastle were absolutely pathetic and bottom line there's no real excuse for that. The individuals have cost plenty to acquire and should be capable of producing far better than have done for the majority of the season. We were only 1 point ahead of them before last night.

Off the pitch, they have a haphazard and inefficient recruitment policy which leads them to spending big sums on questionable players. Bruce addressed that in the summer and in his defence, his signings have largely done pretty well. His biggest problem is overhauling a squad takes time which Newcastle managers don't generally get. I think he's pretty safe because Ashley's not all that fussed in general, but it once again makes me realise how fortunate how lucky we are to have Tony Bloom. And Paul Barber. And their commitment to the footballing operations and foresight to hire Dan Ashworth and without really knowing what he does day to day, looking at the quality of our squad despite key players being unavailable is incredibly impressive. Our club is backing our manager in a way their club simply isn't set up to do and it's a very tough job for any manager there, which is how they ended up with Bruce in the first place.

I like Steve Bruce and have said so on here. I think we'd have more points on the board if he were our manager with this squad, but there's no way we'd be putting in the performance we did last night. The difference between the teams was incredible. We shouldn't be anywhere near them in the table.

 

[maffew]

He surely won’t survive this.
Steven Gerrard, anyone?

Language barrier could be an issue there

 

[maffew]

What Newcastle need and deserve more than a new manager is a new owner. Even if it means a few seasons in the championship or league 1. Feel for their fans