whats with all this HATE malarkey though ? i know ur sleeping off the pills but when you come to , i don't thinks anyone hates the man , Just maybe that he hell off his own pedestal once or twice - but he had every right to be on that pedestal for getting us to the top tier . He is one manager who history will never forget - his time here will never be just a footnote !!!
What a stupid thread, I don't know anyone who hates Brownie, pretty much everyone appreciates what he did for us. You can be grateful to him and like him, while still realising that he completely lost the plot in the second Premier League season. History will remember him fondly, it doesn't need rewriting.
I'd say Taylor was our best manager, taking a poor squad from League 2 to the Championship with a small budget, has any other manager achieved back to back promotions for us ? Those who forget that are probably pretty new to following City
Yeah totally agree. Nobody has ever even remotely suggested to me that they hate him. Yeah he was a bit embarrassing at times and he got carried away with his own image but I'll always have a massive soft spot and respect for him. He changed our club more than probably any other one person in its history. Simple answer is no. But he didnt have a small budget, he signed players other clubs in that league couldnt even dream of. That notwithstanding he did a wonderful job and gave me 3 of my top 5 moments ever in Hillsborough, Bramall Lane 3-2 and the win at Bratfud in front of 5000 travelling fans on 2 sides of the ground that all but sealed promotion and exorcised memories of giving them the South Stand (I didnt get to Yeovil). He's sadly probably not that warmly thought of the way Brown and Bruce will be because he's a less warm, approachable man.
Agree with all of this, I think the way that Taylor walked out on us has probably harmed his reputation with us as well. My most enjoyable times as a City fan have come under Taylor and Brown, though part of that is probably because of the name change that's hanging over Bruce's head through no fault of his own.
Why didn't we get promoted in the two years previous to that then? Let's face it they both have similar records including promotion and survival, you could argue Brown did it with a poorer squad, but Bruce got us automatic promotion. They both kept us up, again you could argue Bruce's squad was better but he also got us the highest ever league position in our history and our first ever major cup final. Brown was great for us and achieved a lot, but so has Bruce, why you want to put one above the other is beyond me, just be thankful we've have two great managers in such a short space of time.
I am not really a fan of Brown, although (believe it or not) I quite like Bruce, but I must agree you have a point that cannot he dismissed easily.
Brown broke through the barrier. Without that achievement would Bruce have even considered coming to City? He arrived at a former PL club not a club that had never been in the top division. Brown's promotion season was a greater triumph than Bruce's in my opinion.
Brown is definitely still our best ever manager. He achieved on a far smaller budget than Steve Bruce has had at his disposal. Brown wouldn't have waved the White flag at Europe either.
Players in: Jakupovic Proschwitz Faye Aluko Bruce Quinn Amos - loan Elmohamady - loan Players out: Bradley - loan Cullen - loan East - loan Stewart - loan I think it would be fair to say Bruce strengthen the squad quite significantly between Barmby leaving and September 1st, brining in some players on big money and breaking our transfer record without having to sell players. Clearly the owners backed him with the cash to improve the squad, which the two previous managers hadn't had the opportunity to do so we'll never know how they would get on with that kind of money behind them.
Most of those we're loans or free transfers though. In our three seasons in the Championship we spent around 4 million (10/11) 1.6 million (11/12) and 4 million (12/13), so Bruce didn't really have more to spend, he only actually paid for three players.
I'm not using this to bag Bruce with - the owners chose to back him with cash in the summer and especially in the January with some pretty big fees and big wages coming in without him having to shift anyone on. I'm not sure he only spent £4 million though - £2.6 on Proschwitz, approx £500k on Quinn and then Meyler and Brady are both listed as undisclosed on Wikipedia but from memory we paid about £2.5 million for them both didn't we? Takes spending to upwards of £8 million that season, without moving anyone on for a fee. Edit: Did we end up paying a fee for Aluko? I remember there being some controversy about it at the time with them obviously just having gone belly up but I can't remember whether it was ever solved? Wikipedia for what it's worth lists him as a free transfer so I haven't included him in any of the working out.
really?? Are you serious right now haha!! Bruce took us to an FA Cup final, what a great day out I think all would agree!! Problem? We had one of the easiest cups runs ever!! Now don't get me started onto Europe... he took us into Europe really??? Look what happened, it was a ****ing joke!!
For me Warren Joyce saved the club and needs to be spoken about a bit more, obviously fans are more interested in the glamour side of things these days
