Steve Bruce has had to deal with more than his fair share of criticism during his time in charge of Newcastle United.
The Magpies boss has come under intense scrutiny just this week in the aftermath of last Tuesday's damaging defeat to rock-bottom Sheffield United, leaving United without a win in their last eight matches.
But one of the most striking criticisms of Bruce's tenure has been his apparent inability to identify his strongest, settled, starting XI.
Bruce insisted in a fiery press conference on Friday that he will be doing things 'my way' now but the problem is that it is unclear to Newcastle fans what 'Bruce's way' actually is.
Indeed, there have been been eight switches in formation this season alone, with 4-4-2, 5-4-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-4-1, 3-5-2 and 5-2-2-1 all being deployed at various points of the campaign.
In the gaffer's defence, he has had a number of injury and fitness problems to contend with this season - particularly after the Covid outbreak at the club last month.
But the issue has been backed up in the latest CIES Football Observatory study which has ranked teams from 72 domestic leagues worldwide according to the percentage of minutes played by the 11 most fielded footballers.
In terms of the Premier League, the study found that Newcastle had the lowest amount of minutes played by their 11 most fielded players - with their most regular players only playing together for 68 per cent of the season.
By contrast, the highest figures for the five major European championships were measured for two Premier League teams who have performed beyond expectations since the start of the season: Aston Villa (87%) and Southampton (85%).
