Steve Bruce has blasted the ‘inconsistency’ of his Newcastle side following our dreadful display in a 1-1 draw with Fulham last night.
It’s not the first time Bruce has put an awful performance down to nothing other than ‘inconsistency’, often opting to criticise his players, act baffled as to why we were so bad and take no responsibility for us looking so inept all over the pitch.
The Toon were excruciating to watch and looked like passengers for 95% of last night’s draw, a game in which they spent almost a third of playing against 10 men.
This time last week things were starting to look a little better from a black-and-white perspective, but two shocking performances in the space of three days have left fans asking serious questions of Steve Bruce once again – and his post match comments remain typically frustrating.
Here is what he said post-match, with him also commenting on the penalty and red card incident that changes the game:
“I just think we can perform better than what we did tonight.
“I can’t fault their effort or their endeavour and their honesty but we can still improve on what we are doing.
“I haven’t seen enough tonight and we didn’t see enough the other night too.
“That is the disappointment after a really good week the week before, and it’s that inconsistency which, obviously, is a concern.
The big ‘concern’ is his inability to get a capable group of players looking like a cohesive team able to trouble a newly promoted side with 10-men, yet it seems he’ll never take responsibility for any of our turgid displays.
Bruce then commented on the penalty incident that not only got us back into the game but saw Fulham’s Andersen sent off:
“We’ve got the penalty and when you look at it, and analyse it, I think the referee has made the right call in my opinion.
“He has denied a goalscoring opportunity as he’s went for the ball and had a pull of his shirt to start with.
“When I’ve seen the video back it looks as though he’s clipped his heel, so in that respect I think the decision was right.
“However, we have to look at our performance and say that we haven’t done enough. We’ve had a difficult week and know the problems that we’ve had but we know we still have to be better than what we were in the first half in particular”
Never before have I saw a Newcastle side look so scared to get forward against a newly promoted who arrived at St James’ Park eight points below us.
A 10-man Fulham were playing us off the park and it was clear as day that this was down to more than just the players.
Formations may sometimes change, but it feels like Bruce tells his players to play exactly the same way whether we are playing Liverpool, Leeds or Livingstone, and that is the sign of a tactically inept manager.
We travel to Brentford on Tuesday hoping to make a rare cup semi-final. The Bees may be in brilliant form, but if we sit on the edge of our box and hope for the best against a Championship side then there has to be some serious questions asked about whether he is the man to take us forward as a club.
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We need breath test’s before Bruce faces the Press
Guy’s been bleating on about ‘work in progress’
We ALL see what he brings to the table = NOWT
KK(Quote)
The trouble with Newcastle United is STEVE BRUCE ,
Zen dog(Quote)