We needed settling down a bit after that summer. Given that, I was happy with the opening 2 matches and the 6 points out of 6; play was a mixed but so what? Interesting that for the Hull match there were no new players, with Bjarnason, Green and RHM coming off the bench, and Elphick and Steer starting. For the second match Nyland, Tuanzebe and McGinn were the only new players, but Bjarnason, and Green also started, with Taylor, Hourihane, Whelan, Elphick and Adomah benched; we were lucky to nick it and playing Jedi at CB didn't work, but no great alarm bells. A good basis for tightening up and getting our act together, I thought.
It's been almost unrelieved sh*t since. Brentford and Rotherham were "OK", and that's about it. The most important thing was getting points on board; instead we've had odd team selections and no strategy or plan, and we've been found out on the pitch. Again. There's every reason to expect we'd improve on those first two matches, but we've gone backwards. Would we have been worse off if Abraham, El Ghazi and Bolassie hadn't been signed? On current showing no. Seems we're just throwing new players onto the pitch and hoping things will click; is that Bruce's idea of team building? Bottom line; priority has to be winning every match, even if it means a more considered approach to the way new players are introduced. It's not building a new team which is the problem; it's using resources he's already got.
