They say yes Steve Bruce football is terrible but look at results – Have you seen the table?
Newcastle fans have been pointing out how terrible watching Steve Bruce football has been from pretty much day one.
The NUFC Head Coach’s pundit, football and media mates have all rallied around and given their best defence of their friend.
However, even they are now having no alternative but to agree that the ultra boring and all out defence Steve Bruce football is shocking to watch.
However, a fair few of them are still insisting that yes the football under Bruce is unwatchable, BUT the results justify it.
The thing is though, is that really true?
I know it is unthinkable for pundits and commentators covering English football to actually do any research for their job, to look at the facts, so looks like I will have to do it for them.
For starters, this is how the Premier League table currently looks on Wednesday 28 October 2020:
As you can see, Newcastle United currently in 14th place, if Man Utd win their game in hand against Burnley it would put them 15th.
Is that really the results justifying the shocking football we are watching???
At the minute, Steve Bruce is only above a couple of promoted teams that look ill equipped to deal with the Premier League, as well as a few longer-term PL clubs who are currently overperforming.
In contrast, we are told by the Steve Bruce followers that actually Newcastle United are doing really well with the results.
Hmmm, when you look at who Newcastle have actually played, despite Bruce talking them all up, they aren’t even the form clubs NUFC have played. Only one club (Spurs) in the top eight, whilst three of the six are below Newcastle and indeed two of those (Brighton and Man Utd) thrashed the Magpies.
Eight points from this pretty easy opening to the season, in the same six fixtures last season, Newcastle picked up 12 points. So there is actually an argument to say that NUFC are doing anything but getting good results, down four points on the same fixtures last season, not having played the only two real quality teams (Liverpool and Man City) in the league, nor played those clubs in the best form (Villa, Everton and Leicester).
When you look at the wider / bigger picture it gets even more concerning.
In over 10 months, Newcastle have only won three Premier League matches.
In fact since Christmas 2019, Steve Bruce has only won six Premier League games in total.
Of the 17 clubs to play in the Premier League last season and this one, only Brighton have picked up less points than Newcastle.
In 26 Premier League matches since 21 December 2019, Steve Bruce and his team have a record of Played 26 Won 6 Drawn 9 Lost 11.
What is in any way good about that?
In 20 of these most recent 26 Premier League games, Newcastle have either failed to score or got only one goal. Only in six of these PL matches in over 10 months, have Steve Bruce’s team scored more than one goal. In eight of those 26 PL matches, Newcastle have conceded three or more goals.
It isn’t working at either end of the pitch under Steve Bruce and the only positive anybody can claim, is that at the moment there looks to be at least three teams worse than Newcastle United.
To be delivering this appalling football AND such terrible results, Steve Bruce is failing badly.
It is shocking, especially when Mike Ashley has allowed Bruce a net spend of over £100m already and with the players now at Newcastle United, surely the team should be playing better football AND getting better results.
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