Gibbo: Time for Bruce to be bold
CAUTIOUS APPROACH IS ALIENATING UNITED FANS
CAN Newcastle – will Newcastle – add a little fizz to their flat beer when they venture into Crystal Palace’s lair on Friday night?
Will Steve Bruce fling off the shackles and recall Callum Wilson, Miggy Almiron and Ryan Fraser alongside Allan Saint-Maximin, all in their best attacking positions, if they are available?
It can be done – Saint-Maximin and Fraser out wide either side, Almiron at No 10 and Wilson up top.
Just as importantly, will the dogs be let loose? Picking the right people is one thing. Playing them in the right way very much another. United’s team sheet will not reveal all. The way the team plays will.
Remember Wolves. Bruce shook all of a black-and-white persuasion when his starting XI was revealed an hour before kick off, with Wilson, Saint-Maximin, Fraser, Almiron and Jacob Murphy all in the same side. Was this a rush of blood? Had Bruce become a kamikaze pilot? Was he aping Kevin Keegan?
Alas not. He actually played Almiron and Fraser narrow either side of Jeff Hendrick in centre midfield and Murphy effectively at right-back.
The outcome despite personnel was 37% possession and a point rescued only by a direct free-kick in the 89th minute.
Such selection again with a more positive approach this time wouldn’t mean going gung-ho but it would give his team a chance offensively. Enough defenders and sitting midfielders can still look after the back door.
However, whether Bruce will give in to public opinion, allowing United an attacking dimension, or consider it suicidal and stick with a policy of ‘defend for your life and counter-attack occasionally’ is quite another matter.
I know what I believe.
Yet unless United become more adventurous against the likes of Palace they will remain timid surrenderers scraping round for points and viewed by neutrals as the most boring team in the Premier League where once the country wallowed in watching the Entertainers. More importantly, this side will alienate some of the most loyal supporters in football. It’s critical that an unrelenting tide is turned one way or another.
Bruce has, since the day he walked into SJP, never been likely to win a popularity contest, but his standing is being reduced by the match and he desperately needs a change of fortune. That can only come about through calculated boldness not caution.
Mike Ashley doesn’t care if you bore the fans to death. He only cares about staying up, and if that entails nothing more than manning the barricades and embarrassing the traditions of Kevin Keegan, Sir Bobby Robson, Joe Harvey and Stan Seymour then so what.
Except fans feel humiliated by it. They are realists, they know United cannot compete with the elite. But they can compete.
KK, Sir Bobby and Joe did it from a beginning of equal poverty – worse actually in terms of league position – and did it relatively quickly because they were front-foot not back-foot.
Maybe Ashley could help more than he does but then Bruce must help himself right now.
A public vote of confidence may not be readily available, but give loyalists a sustained sign of commitment to a reputable cause and they will allow you a chance.
Chris Hughton first walked among the caring without any personal reputation yet was quickly accepted because of his attitude and determination despite the trials and tribulations he faced.
This Newcastle side needs a boost from somewhere. Despite 16 months of rule by Bruce and a series of signings it is still cut adrift of public support mainly because of its approach to games.
They possess the most overworked goalkeeper in top-flight football, a back five that still cannot keep a clean sheet despite numbers, a midfield without a playmaker and a popgun attack.
If injury should deprive United of Fraser yet again on Friday night then Sean Longstaff could be pushed further upfield into a No 10 role because of his liking to get forward and shoot from anywhere round the penalty area.
He has the potential to take on that job with Almiron switching wide to allow him the opportunity.
Fraser remains a doubt. His only PL start this season was in that match at Wolves, which is very dispiriting for a new signing.
He has suffered from a lack of match sharpness and injury which have combined to wreck his SJP career so far despite not arriving with any physical problems.
Do I think Bruce will start all his big guns and give them freedom at Palace? No. Should it happen? Yes.
I cannot see Stevie B discarding the habits of a lifetime. It’s like expecting Keegan to park the bus, Saint-Maximin to stop dribbling, or Karl Darlow not to have a shot to save. It’s not going to happen.
In the end it was Bruce’s preferred style of play that alienated a lot of Aston Villa supporters in the same way as it has turned the faithful on Tyneside.
Yet while he adopts a defensive stance believing it gives him the best chance of getting a good result it may be that he could do himself the biggest of favours by releasing the handbrake a significant bit.