Steve Bruce‘s day got off to a bad start with the announcement that he had lost a third top striker, this time Asamoah Gyan, off on loan to the Al-Ain, second city in the Abu Dhabi emirate of the UAE. Then we faced Chelsea. And, to no great surprise, lost, much more soundly beaten than the 2-1 scoreline suggests. This was his post-match e-mail …
Dear Colin,
Chelsea were excellent today and they played the ball fantastically well – that’s why they play at the level they do.
They frustrated us with the possession they had, however, we did have some good chances, but on the day we have to admit that Chelsea were that bit better than us.
In the first half there was that wonderful delivery from [Sebastian] Larsson and Nicklas [Bendtner] got a free header, that would have been a fantastic start for us but it wasn’t to be.
From there we had a couple of good chances to get back in the game – even with all of the possession that they had – but at times some of their football was breathtaking.
We found it very difficult to be chasing the ball all afternoon, which you have to do with Chelsea.
Overall we stuck at it, we did have a late flurry and on another day we might have nicked something, but we do have to hold our hands up and say we were beaten by the better team.
It was nice for Ji Dong-won to get his first goal for the club, although it’s a shame it didn’t come 10 or 15 minutes earlier.
We’ve got another home game next week and that’s vitally important to us.
We’ve had a bad start in terms of who we’ve had to play, we’ve picked up a couple of points and now we need to get our first win on the board. We’ll stick together and see it through.
All the best,
Steve Bruce
Last year a bought and paid good currency for a top of the range Audi for work. Rated one of the top machines on most continents and one of the top 3 in the UK. This sleek, black all singing all dancing monster was a dream. 0-60 in 2 shakes of a midgies gonad.
I noticed after a year that the Cigarette Lighter didn’t seem to work as well as the previously.
I did the only logical thing. I loaned the all singing all dancing racing machine to a neighbour. I know I shall get it back next year bigger and better than when I handed it over. So am content with peddling my bike through the wind, rain and snow fighting all adversities as I struggle along content in the knowledge my Big Black Sporty Monster shall return in great condition.
Oh yes! Does SB stand for Stupid Bugger,
Do you really get an e-mail from Steve Bruce? Is he a follower of Salut, or is it a generic thing they send out to all punters?
… We should have won by about four – nil. At times it looked as if we were playing Wes Brown alone.
Ji Dong-won’s goal might have come 10 to 15 minutes earlier if SB had put him on sooner and changed from a defensive to an offensive strategy. Let Chelsea chase the ball a bit. Bruce is losing his memory, too – he forgot to say he was disappointed.