From the Mirror.... http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/new...urning-their-season-around-article886990.html Steve Bruce insists HE should be getting the credit that's been heaped on successor Martin OâNeill for saving Sunderlandâs season. OâNeill has led the Black Cats from the bottom three to within striking distance of matching their highest ever Premier League finish in a whirlwind four-month reign since replacing Bruce before Christmas. Bruce feels the club's billionaire owner Ellis Short got rid of him too soon, having backed him with major funds for significant surgery to the squad last summer. And the 50-year-old Geordie believes OâNeill is now reaping the rewards of his hard work. Bruce said: âI completely rebuilt our side with the money we received from Liverpool for Jordan Henderson. âMartin OâNeill is a good manager and has undoubtedly motivated the players, but whatâs now being seen is the players I brought in bedding down and proving how good they are. "James McClean and Stephane Sessegnon are the headline stealers, but we signed them, of course. âIâm genuinely pleased for Sunderland and for Martin, yet we were only 11 games into a new season when I left. I wasnât given much time, was I?â Bruce insists he was driven out by hatred from Wearside fans over his Geordie roots. He added: âWe had had a slow start, but werenât in serious trouble. We werenât staring at relegation. âWhat I needed was time for new players to bed in, to get used to new surroundings and new tactics. I wasnât given that, which disappoints me. âThe owner saw the hatred that was directed towards me from the terraces and thought Iâd never recover from it. "Even if I had won the next six games, some people would never have forgiven me for being a Geordie.â
All I got to say about this twat is as one other unfortunate one, once said, If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
Bruce would have more credibility if MON had taken time to get results. Instead he came in and immediately started playing players in their correct positions and getting the best out of them, something Bruce was completely unable to do. I don't know how he has the nerve to even mention McLean when he never got a look in under Bruce. A little while ago there was a comedy article in 4 4 2 where MON finds all these ingredients in Bruce's desk and makes a great curry out of them and then wonders why Bruce had been using them to make a sponge cake - or something along those lines but you get the drift.
was an article along the same lines yesterday and a lot of mags were defending bruce, like to see what they think of him now?? the bloke is nuts..
Bruce is starting to make me and other Mackem's who backed him look very foolish. He really does need to move on and get over it.
2 facts mr bruce 1. YOU never signed jimmy Mcclean... pop and sir niall signed him and you didnt even know he was a footballer when you met him to sign him.... 2. YOU never signed Sess... pop and sir niall signed him and you played him as a lone striker....
If he acted with dignity it wouldn't be too bad but the bloke is completely off his very flabby tits!
"got rid of him too soon" Mr Bruce the Average length of a premier leqague manager is 1.4 years you had well over that and Mr Bruce your not the average manager you are sunderland 6th worst manager of all time you have a in ratio of 29.6% quite a few managers who got us relegated have better win raio then you
Your right. There was always gonna be people who wouldnt accept him for his geordie roots but tbf he started ok. He had deffo lost the plot by the time of his sacking tho.
Bruce is beginning to really irritate me, as are the idiot commentators who are perpetuating the myth that he signed Maclean ! Ok he signed some decent players but was seemingly incapable of moulding them into a team. As said elsewhere here there was an immediate improvement when MON took over - he's had the tactical nous and man management skills to get them to perform and found ways to get the best of the likes of Bendtner and Sess, while giving others such as Maclean their chance ! FFS Bruce shut up and move on - the Geordie thing is getting way old now !
We didn't get rid too soon we got rid too late in my opinion, we should have had a new manager in at the start of the season not half way through when we were staring at the relegation trapdoor gaping wide. No doubt SB will spout about our wonderful 10th place finish which in all honesty is looking fairly rubbish considering what MON has done in such a sort time. He needs to forget about it and put it down to experience not try and earn scraps giving interviews to anyone who will listen.
I agree it was too late not too soon. I advocated his removal at the end of LAST season and certainly didn't want him here for the start of this one. It was obvious he had lost the plot very quickly into the summer when we sold Jordan for a kings ransom and still didn't go out and buy the Judas replacement. By the time the season started we were woefully under prepared and woefully short of the right personnel to actually make a fist of the season. The players looked confused and demoralised and his team selections and tactics were bizarre. He cut a forlorn figure on the touchlines and offered nothing positive in after match interviews. That said, he still received 98% support in games from fans, even after the Halloween horror show up the road (only him and SAF could have survived that humiliation proving what a terrific set of fans we actually are. I can tell you now a Sunderland supporting Newcastle manager ending up on that kind of hiding against your local rivals, would have to have a police escort if he ever showed his face in the toon again). Bruce, you are becoming a complete joke figure with all this bull **** about your time at SAFC. You were backed by Ellis Short and Niall Quinn; by the players (for most of the time) and by us as fans for 98% of the time. You were quite rightly sacked because your results, team performances and such like were the 6th worst in our history. You could have left with dignity but now you are just making a cock end out of yourself. Its because he has this "it wasn't my fault" attitude and a "all the good things were down to me and all the bad ones down to someone else" interview, that no other club wants you. I am eternally grateful to ES for pulling the plug as he did and ridding us of this fat useless ****er when he did and I feel fully vindicated for my hugely aggressive stance on this ****er, and for most of the time as a lone voice against him. His Geordie roots DID play a part IMO for the derby games and his obsession with that fact effected our ability in those games. Look at Mon's first derby with the same players, same pressure and same fans. We came within 2 mins of sealing the win there in his first attempt and with only 10 men. Bruce would have lost that game the other week by 2 or 3 goals IMO and we wouldn't have turned up.
Fair points mate but, he didn't play them and couldn't get the ones he did play to play as a team. I too was hopeful at the start of the season when we brought in the players he did but, it just wasn't to be. Doesn't alter the fact I still think he should have went at the start of the season.
The bloke is proving to be an absolute deluded knob-end. Thank goodness ES got shot when he did and thank goodness for the defeat against Wigan, it has turned our whole club around for the better.
He's clearly a broken man looking for excuses to heal the wounds and get himself to sleep at night. He's clearly a proud man and this has hurt him more than he's ever experienced before. I can't speak for every fan but I couldnt give a toss if he had a Newcastle badge tattooed on his backside as long as we were winning games. if he doesn't accept that a 29% and falling win ratio is failing then he will never be a success as a manager. If he can somehow be honest with himself and look in the mirror and accept that he made mistakes and got things wrong and was rightfully dismissed he may be able to learn from it and turn his career around.
He will be off to Wolves or somewhere simlar at the end of the season and start talking about what wonders he is going to do there if they hand him megabucks and he will never mention us again - in the meantime he will continue to spout on about how unlucky he was in the hope of getting an interview from a chairman who doesn't look too closely in to his record
