Michael Bridges was on Fox Sports News in Australia this morning reviewing the EPL and giving his opinion on Mourinho's position. He stated that Eva Caneiro's sacking, and the way it was handled, caused a lot of friction with the players, and he may have lost the dressing room. He then said that he'd witnessed this first hand himself with Phil Brown at Hull City when he sat the players down at half-time at Manchester City and had a go at us in front of all the fans, and from that moment on we did not want to play for him and he lost the dressing room. I know this has been done to death but thought it interesting as I'm not aware of any other players discussing this publicly, except George Boateng (?) who many felt had a particular axe to grind. Bridges's comments seemed to be just in passing.
Brown was out of order. Public humiliation of any individual can be devastating, with very little chance of recovery. Doing it to a group is lunacy as no-one has anyone to lean on for recovery or support. Essentially he was attempting to deflect his own deficiencies on others. Sickening it was. He got his just deserts eventually.
That was 08/09, correct? Surely the board has to pick up on this sort of issue and make a change one way or the other.
My intention wasn't to re-open the debate though I realise this could happen as a consequence of my post. I thought it was interesting that he mentioned it in his analysis. Whether it's Chelsea's current situation or us in the past, I totally agree with your sentiments. Such actions can only be divisive and have a detrimental effect on team spirit, cohesion and performance.
I posted it because I'm not aware of any players from that time, other than George Boateng, who have publicly commented on what happened, so it's a new insight. He also raised it to provide context to a current situation. You have a valid point about when does a thread lack currency and would be better located under the tigers history sticky. Over time, there will be more insights and revelations about that period in our history, and that discussion may best be located there.
You are absolutely correct in that statement, he was back at Carlisle when the incident occurred. In fact it appears he actually scored for Carlisle that very day in question, in a 3-0 win, so to also be sat listening to Browny having a go at "us" was quite a feat for him. And no wonder he didn't want to play for Browny ever again, he had been shipped out on loan for the remainder of his contract, with his last appearance for City being 9 months earlier.
Regards Chelsea , I think it's natural that as more of the traditional mid table lower clubs are given more to spend and those at the top are working near the end of the financial limits , differences should even out somewhat . Let's face it City were able to spend 10mill on a quite unproven striker - it wasn't long ago that was a headline figure for proven quality.. Financial parity resulted in the weakening of the PL clubs in Europe , and will continue until there is a clear and consistent "big 4" Why ? Because the VERY best players in the world don't want to risk playing Europa league football and the very positives that have defined the PREM . The margins are tiny , we probably dropped 20pts last season due to single lapses of concentration n what was often the last 10 mins ,
Haha sorry mate wrong sort of board. I meant the club's board at the time. Surely when your playing squad doesn't respect your manager you make a change to one or the other.
I remember reading a piece by Boateng, after he'd retired, which was very positive about Brown. He said PB had always been a "gentleman".
Bridges is a moron, and a **** pundit. (Being a **** pundit is mandatory for Australian football studio work). As mentioned above, he wasn't even at the club at the time. Lying ****
