No style, no new ideas, found out again... Bruce will be gone by Christmas
COLLY
NEWCASTLE’S players looked as if they weren’t trying against Norwich last Saturday.
And if players aren’t trying on matchday two of a season, then that is a massive problem.
I usually like to give teams six to eight games to get into their stride before making too big a judgement on what they have or haven’t got.
But sometimes you can call these things a long way out and I’ll do that now.
Steve Bruce is a busted flush and he will be gone by Christmas.
I don’t like to see anyone lose their job.
Old-fashioned
But the worry for Toon fans is the fact he has been playing three centrehalves with two wing-backs.
That’s the Bruce way, but it isn’t a particularly pro-active system.
Despite a bright-ish start against Arsenal, things didn’t look right.
And when a manager comes in with a relatively negative and old-fashioned perception, it only takes three or four players in the dressing room to say, ‘I’m not having that. Five at the back? That’s exciting to be involved in every week, isn’t it?’
I know t hey haven’t got rabble-rousers like Joey Barton or Kevin Nolan in the dressing-room these days.
But they will have players who say, ‘This is rubbish, five at the back?’
Paul Dummett said he knew, in the warm-up, that things weren’t going to go well against Norwich.
And to hear someone involved in the camp with intimate knowledge of what’s going on saying that is desperately worrying.
It only takes one player, who the others like, to say something and it goes through the squad l i ke wildfire.
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the world. and quality, and the fact that they have some new players who haven’t played in the league before, then add the elephant in the room – that the Geordies will turn on Bruce because of his Sunderland ties – and it’s just not going to end well.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone can lose against Arsenal.
But 3-1 against a newly-promoted team in Norwich – particularly the manner of that defeat – spells worrying times ahead.
In Rafa Benitez, Newcastle had a manager that the players knew had pedigree at the highest echelons in European football.
He has won the Champions League, the Europa League in its
current and previous guise, he had a great side at Valencia, he’d been at Napoli and is still revered on one half of Merseyside for what he achieved at Liverpool.
Players listen to that kind of voice, particularly if you’re a group of Newcastle’s calibre.
Yet Bruce has come in at St James’ Park and it’s a case of, “Everybody has a clean slate, we’re going to play five at the back” – and you switch off because he is yesterday’s man.
Turgid
At Aston Villa, he was found out for what he is: the football was turgid and flat, and he wanted to spend his way out of a hole.
If he’s given money at Newcastle, he’ll spend it as well, but there will be no discernible change in style. Newcastle fans are realistic, they do not expect a title challenge, but they want to be entertained. I can go to Bournemouth and be entertained, so why can’t that be in a great stadium in a great football city like Newcastle?
That’s t he base expectation now, surely.
And, unless Bruce goes on a run and wins and draws a few games – and fast – then it’s not one he will meet.
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