Should Bruce stay or should he go?

REASONS TO KEEP BRUCE

Avoid unhelpful upheaval

There is a lot to be said for stability, and with Sunderland struggling just two points above the relegation zone, it could be argued that the last thing required is a disruptive change of manager and backroom staff.

Bruce turned the squad upside down in the summer when he signed ten players – what would happen if a new manager arrived and decided he wanted to be similarly busy in the January transfer window?

Sunderland seem to have spent most of their stay in the Premier League rebuilding from scratch, and while Ellis Short has promised investment when the transfer window reopens, he will surely be reluctant to go back to the drawing board with a new boss. The current squad is far from ideal, but isn't Bruce the best placed person to work with it?

He still retains the support of the dressing room

It is often said of a struggling manager that when he loses the dressing room, the game is well and truly up. Whatever else he might be doing wrong, Bruce does not have that problem.

Both on and off the record, the vast majority of the Sunderland squad are nothing other than supportive of their boss.

Plenty of this season's performances have been below par, but it is impossible to accuse Bruce's players of a lack of application or effort. They remain determined to turn things around for their manager, and given that most were signed by Bruce in the first place, it is not a given that a new boss would command similar respect.

His January planning is already well underway

With Asamoah Gyan's £6m loan fee to add to the remainder of the unspent Darren Bent money, there is money in the Stadium of Light coffers to be spent in January.

Bruce has spent the first half of the season planning what to do with that money, and his scouts have been adhering to a strict set of instructions. Is it really sensible to effectively make of all that work redundant?

The club have been strongly linked with Papiss Cisse, Erin Derdiyok and Patrick Helmes, both of whom are long-standing Bruce favourites, and having pursued them this far, is it worth going back to square one now?

A lack of outstanding alternatives

Whenever a potential vacancy at Sunderland is mentioned, Martin O'Neill's name is never far from the conversation. But the former Celtic and Aston Villa boss could have pursued a move to Wearside before and didn't, so why should things be any different now?

Take O'Neill out of the equation and what have you got? Mark Hughes? Hasn't exactly set the world alight at other Premier League clubs. Paul Lambert? Costly to prise away from Norwich City. Sven? It would hardly smack of long-term planning.

There is hardly a plethora of outstanding candidates out there, so with that in mind, might it be a case of better the devil you know?

REASONS TO SACK BRUCE

He's lost the support of the fans

Regardless of whatever else you have or haven't got at a football club, things are an awful lot easier if you have the fans on your side.

Bruce has always had a difficult relationship with the Sunderland fanbase, perhaps in part because of his upbringing, but Saturday marked a nadir from which it is difficult to see him recovering.

Listening to thousands of supporters abusing him in the wake of Franco Di Santo's stoppage-time winner, it felt as though a a fragile bond had snapped. How long can Short retain such a patently unpopular boss?

His record shows no sign of improving

Sunderland's form dipped alarmingly in the second half of last season, particularly at the Stadium of Light, but it was hoped that the summer's surgery would lead to an improvement in fortunes.

Instead, things have stayed the same. Sunderland's home form remains wretched – one win in seven matches this season – and a chronic lack of creativity remains a major issue despite the £10m that was spent to recruit Connor Wickham, who was struggling to win a place even before he was injured, and Ji Dong-won.

The next two matches against Wolves and Blackburn offer an opportunity to start turning things around, but even though both opponents are below Sunderland in the table, two wins can hardly be taken for granted.

His tactics are open to criticism

The supporters appear to have two main gripes with Bruce's tactics – one is that he is overly negative, the second is that he still doesn't know what his best team is. Both failings were in evidence at the weekend.

Even without the injured Wickham, the decision to start with just one striker against both Fulham and Wigan hardly smacked of confidence. Why sign Ji if you're not prepared to play him, and why the reluctance to trust Ryan Noble, who has been banging in goals for the reserves?

And what does it say when Kieran Richardson suddenly appears as an auxiliary forward despite spending most of the season at full-back? In terms of selection, there are still more questions than answers.

His spending record is suspect

Given that there is likely to be money to spend in the January window, is Bruce really the right man to be spending it?

Of the ten players he recruited in the summer, it is hard to claim that any have been an unqualified success. The likes of Craig Gardner and David Vaughan (pictured) can't even make the starting line-up, while both John O'Shea and Wes Brown have been guilty of high-profile errors already this term.

If January is going to be a critical month in terms of restructuring the squad, might it not be a good idea to make a change as early as possible?