After a week that’s threatened to be overshadowed by reports of a ‘row’ with Steve Bruce, Allan Saint-Maximin has shared a picture on social media that says it all.
Earlier this week, the Mail’s Craig Hope wrote a troubling ‘exclusive’ claiming the Frenchman’s future was ‘in doubt’ after a ‘fallout’ with the NUFC boss.
The story was met with an angry response by Steve Bruce – who insisted there’d been no bust up with the 22-year-old – and the winger’s latest post on social media seems like an indirect message to Hope; suggesting there’s absolutely no issue between the pair.
Here’s the picture he posted last night, showing himself and Steve Bruce hugging after yesterday’s big win on the south coast:
Based on Bruce’s comments, Saint-Maximin’s reaction to being ‘dropped’ last weekend and the picture above, I think it’s fair to say there’s been no major fallout!
Back to footballing matters, the former Nice winger was superb at West Brom in setting up TWO of our three goals, but he went one better yesterday, scoring the all important winner at St Mary’s to not only end our 4-game goal drought but send us EIGHT clear of the drop zone!
there will always be the doom and gloom merchants.. normally on the mag blog. We are doing ok and if we get a half decent run in for the last nine games we should better last season.. it will be close but its also not out of the question.. When you compare stats from this to last season on week 29 we are better :
2018 / 2019 season.. played 29 – won 8 – drawn 7 – lost 14 with 31 points
2019 / 2020 season.. played 29 – won 9 – drawn 8 – lost 12 with 35 points
It makes me wonder why so many people are on at Bruce over Rafa when it is a statistical fact that Bruce is doing a better job, plus we are in the 1/4 finals of the FA cup. Just because RAFA has worked at some of the biggest clubs in the world and Bruce has flopped a fair bit we make a leap into oblivion and say that RAFA is the best thing to ever happen to NUFC and Bruce is ****. Looking at the stats.. if Bruce is ****.. what does that make RAFA?
Don’t get me wrong, i am not a fan of Bruce, and i am also not against him.. what i am for is honestly and not being a fair weather plastic supporter who only supports the flashy world class name… even when he is a worse option.
Craig Chisholm(Quote)
I agree, articles such as Ollys try to provoke negativity and the article states ‘Cryptic message’…..really? It wasn’t cryptic but a message so your half right.
We are doing ok and a lot better than 4 or 5 in the league so would rather promote the positivity of what Bruce has achieved Rather than poison pen over sensationalising everything after you have copied and pasted.
Coxobear(Quote)
Craig, It’s because Rafa was starved of transfer funds, Bruce has better players (or should have) I have to be honest and say that if Rafa was here with Rondon, Maximin and almiron, I think we’d be doing better than we are. Rafa wouldnt have agreed to the signing of Joelinton and if he’d been given the budget to spend on who he wanted in the team, he may have persuaded perez to stay and signed Rondon as well as a few other players he wanted. Are you honesty telling me you don’t think Rafa would be doing just as good? Bruce isn’t doing a bad job, far better than I expected and he does deserve praise for that. But to say he is better than Rafa because hes achieved an extra 4 points and got into a quarter final of a cup with a better team than his predecessor is a little silly in my opinion. Plus weve won many games this season that we really shouldn’t have were usually on the back foot every game, we averaged about 35% possession for 2 months. Without Dubravka wed be bottom of the league and adrift of everyone. It would be like praising bruce for getting to the Semi finals of the cup if in the quarters Man city have 80% possession, 28 shots on target, Dubravka pulls of 6 world class saves, they hit the post twice and the bar and miss a penalty, and then we go on a counter and have a misfired shot deflect of one of their defenders and go in and some how win 1-0 – thats not great management – ITS PURE LUCK. and thats been our season to date. Mostly LUCKY.
John(Quote)
You should try reading beyond the headline if you think this is a negative article mate.
The only negativity I see here is you moaning..
Olly Hawkins(Quote)
John,
You posting is a bit of a contradiction to be honest… you say we have a better team now but like you said, we do not have Rondon and we do not have Perez. Rondon was by far a better striker than Joelinton. Perez was also in the form of his life last season. RAFA did have the same budget as Bruce but he refused to sanction the Loelinton purchase (a wise move). He did get Almiron though who was 20 million. So when RAFA left he took Rondon with him, and we replaced him with Joelinton.. so we were weakened. Perez left and we replaced him with Maiximum who is exciting but does not score as many goals. So we have lost even more goals. So i don’t really see where we are stronger than last season tbh. One thing Bruce has been able to do is get Miggy to score a few also, something that RAFA never experienced. I am all about stats and the stats do say we are performing better this year, that can not be ignored… well maybe it can by the folks over at “the mag” blog. Luck lasts for a game, a couple at most…it does not last an entire season. Its just not possible. Eventually it levels itself out.
Craig Chisholm(Quote)
If rafa had 60m to spend on a front 2 obviously almiron was bought with rafa still in charge we would in no uncertain terms be better off but in truth the table n pts dont lie were not doing too bad n whos to say if gayle can start converting that’ll sort the goals situation out cos joelinton isn’t capable of making the same movement tbf Dwight’s been injured so maybe just needs some games to shake the rust off n almiron n ASM can chip in hopefully as well basically #backtheteamnottheregime
Matty(Quote)
to compare Bruce and Rafa isnt a sensible comparison, Bruce is the patsy yes man who had 80 mill to spend (he signed off on Linton FFS), Bruce claimed in the Jan transfer window we couldn’t find a better striker than Linton!! and has chopped and changed formation all season.
Bruce has seen us lose easily winnable matches with desperate tactics and formation, held by two 1st division teams in the cup to goalless draws, where as Rafa had formation, tactics, depth… but was at war with a owner/ CEO structure that had then and still has no ambition.
Bruce is and always will be out of his depth, add that to a run of fortuitous luck on his side and many scrambled 1-0 wins that Rafa didn’t get. so no, dont compare the two managers, cause if you do, it shows nothing more than an absolute lack of knowledge in what it takes to manage a football team
william black(Quote)
Lol @ Olly.
I’m happy with us at the moment and I try and read your article but it hurts my eyes.
Stop being a bell end with your copy and paste exercises and find something positive rather than jumping on the media bandwagon.
No originality again…..yawn yawn.
Cocobear(Quote)