I hated Bruce before he turned up as manager. He then set about being ****ing useless. It's not his fault he's here, of course, and his League One-level restrictions are embarrassing for everyone involved. But that doesn't detract from the fact he is ****ing useless, and always has been, and shouldn't be manager of this club. Neither should Pardew or Kinnear, but that's the owner. In hindsight, Pardew actually wasn't as bad as the grief he got. Not always, anyway. But Kinnear, like Bruce, was ****ing useless and twice as ****ing embarrassing.
It's pretty obvious with Rafa - we finally seemed to punch above our weight in terms of having someone to be proud of in charge of the club. Hell, it was unheard of under Ashley. And to a fan, the pride, the hope, is more important than the quality of football, the accumulation of points, the transfers. Objective is a word that just doesn't mean anything in any of this - football is tribal emotion, not a business decision. If it was purely objective, we could all follow Man U this year because on paper they have the best chance of playing good football and winning matches. So I'm not sure how we then have to put an objective discussion in front of Bruce, or Rafa. Rafa brought pride and hope, Bruce cheapens the club, degrades it, embarrasses the fans. That Rafa's "brand" of football was even worse than Bruce's is completely irrelevant, I'm afraid.