What he achieved despite the off field antics of the owners was incredible. He clearly wasn't happy with these but wasn't in a position to say much. It was left to him to appeal for calm and try to unite the club. Without this approach, things would have been much much worse. I can't think of anyone else who has the qualities to have achieved that.
He was criticized for us not moving up to the next level after promotion despite spending money. Something I think was massively underplayed was the amount of injuries to key players that season, not just in number but to key players or when a player was hitting form (ie Jelavic, Diame) or to several players in one position, etc. The injuries negated the money spent. Again to his credit, he never used that as an excuse.
He was criticized for his negativity, fair point but it is about winning. Yes he would take forwards off for an extra defender when 1 0 up, but although its not pretty and horrible to watch, look at the stats, he has a fantastic record for hanging on to leads.
He only got us up through the play offs, but who cares? It's very clear that a very difficult season for him with the hangover of relegation against the backdrop of the owners, a divided club and at times unmotivated prima donnas in our team.
He got stick for giving his son a contract. When he played, he never let us down. Good 4th choice centre back, which is how he played him. So long as his contract reflected that (which I have no idea), and it didn't create unrest (mmmm. Macca does spring to mind) then I have no problems with that.
In Brucie I trusted and am gutted at us losing the best manager we've ever had (and are likely to have for a long time).
Him having to ask the public to turn up for the Derby play off game summed it all up.
His mute employers doing **** all while the team manager has to step in and act as club spokesman/CEO/ Sales Director/ leader all rolled into one.
No wonder the poor bloke thought '**** it I've had enough'
