Article: Football - What now for Bruce and Sunderland?

Steve Bruce, by his own admission, had a tortured last 3 to 4 months of the 2010/11 season. This after an equally disappointing end to the 2009/10 season as well. He said it was the worst period of his career and it wasn’t one of the bet for fans either.

The season didn’t start that way and by Christmas 2010, we were flying and the excitement across Wearside was contagious. We all hoped and dreamed about a European campaign but alas, this was not to be. He (Bruce) had to sit and watch as firstly Judas Bent upset the ambitions for Europe and then injury after injury compounded this unfolding tragedy.

I, along with many others, felt he had blown himself out and that the flame that once flickered and shone in his favour looked very dim indeed. Many of you admirably stuck by the man and to his unquestionable credit and more importantly, so did SNQ.

However, it was widely acknowledged, even by his most ardent supporters, that this summer was crucial in his SAFC career and he had to get it spot on right form the very start. There was quite simply no room for error or misjudgment in his planning and recruitment. The early signs were not encouraging. Within a couple of weeks of the end of the season, we had sold one of our most promising young prospects to Liverpool and many again thought here we go, Sunderland the selling club again. Welbeck, Onuoha, Mensah and Muntari all gone. Riveros off on loan rumours and 2 or 3 players back form loan deals we really didn’t want back. The signs were not good.

Still, on reflection, 20m quid was a bloody kings ransom for a lad who just didn’t seem to look anywhere near a 20m footballer and after the initial dismay, 24 hours sleep later and the 20m looked to be a good deal for us and the player. I will let Liverpool fans be the judge if it was a good deal for them.

So, we had the remainder of the Judas money; 20m for JH, Season ticket sales, sponsorships and most importantly, Ellis Shorts cash input, to re-invest in a new team. Then came the deluge of buying that has brought in 9 new faces inside 3 weeks shopping. Faces that apart from maybe 1 or 2 will add pace, skill, strength and depth to our squad and team next season. In O Shea and Brown we have the most decorated footballers to ever wear red & white shirts and in Connor Wickham one of the most talked about young players in British football. He was courted by some of the biggest and best yet we managed to get him in. Amazing stuff.

So, to answer the question posed at the top. Where now for Bruce and SAFC?

Bruce was my choice 2 years ago but I have to say by May of this year, my confidence and faith in him had drained to a point that I could have happily seen him replaced. The crowd and supporters were split into 3 camps. Keep him; Sack him; and give him the summer.

Thankfully the keep him brigade prevailed and now with this summers recruitment well under way, the wait and see brigade are firmly in the keep him camp now and even the most hostile opponents cannot fail to be impresses with the business done in the last 4 or 5 weeks. Where can he go now? Who knows?

He has definitely won round his doubters and perhaps with better luck on the injuries, a good striker still to be brought in, he can make a good fist for a top 8 place and another European challenge. Certainly none of the players he has bought will be looking for anything less, judging by their interviews post joining us and the likes of O Shea are born winners.

Unless this season is a total disaster, I can see him cementing his position from now on and really making a mark with us and that’s testimony to his ability to turn us and his management around.

Good on you Brucie.

 

i was like you i thought he had blown it, how important is that win at west ham looking now? without it we would have entered the summer in a dispondent mood and the club would have been alot less attractive to transfer targets. However that 3-0 win and sneaking into the top 10 (where we had deserved to be before the plague) has helped to totally transform the mood on wearside and now we look on to a new season with renewed hope of challenging in the upper reaches of the league and not simply battling to stay in it. Well Done SB and SNQ great summer so far!

 

Bruce's strength has always been with his transfer dealings in my book.

Although I have in the main been an advocate for keeping him, I still think he cannot afford another post xmas slump this year.

 

And I bet there was no mention of all the Sunderland squad actually being able to go on their pre-season tour due to the fact our squad is not littered with violent thugs!

 

I would wait untill the end of January, and hopefully be still in the league cup, and through to the 5th round of the f a cup by then. We still need that 20 goal a season striker with Gyan and a tall defender, but then again if we beat the mags 5-0 he will be up there with Bob stokoe(who should have been knighted for what he did in 1973) and Bruce can be given the freedom of the City and part of Gateshead!.

 

I do not think it was the ability to assemble a team that was ever my gripe with Bruce. He also seems a decent straightforward sort of guy. My problem with Bruce is when the going gets tough he appears clueless or unable to move to a plan 'B'. Teams will always have rough patches, we have had two in the past two season dues to a combination of injuries and suspensions meaning we did not have our 'A' on the pitch. Then it would seem we had poor spirit and fight and some truly awful 2nd half performances, as well as a terrible Halloween when the team was unprepared and not up for the fight. SNQ has stuck by SB and we scraped a 10th place, so we have had progress but this season for me is make or break for Bruce. We made a mistake selling Bent without a replacement, down to SNQ and SB, and to my mind we do not yet have brought anyone in to replace him. Insomnia does not fit that particular bill, although I like most others would say we have strengthened, goalkeepers, defenders and scoring midfielders. It is also good to have a couple of promising youngsters as forwards but we still need an attacking winger (preferably left) and a recognised senior striker, these of course are the hardest positions to fill, there are however several weeks of the signing season left.
So yes SB has nearly re-built the team and it looks promising but we have been here before, perhaps for SB it will be 3rd chance lucky?

 

Its been said by many on this board, the previous 606 and no doubt many other forums, that in order to have a successful team you need a manager that will be around for more than 2 seasons ...vis-a-vis the SBR years for Newcastle.

We need to stick with one man, so is this is Niall Quin's plan too? So when do you let go of a man like Steve Bruce and were the senior decision-makers tempted to go for O'Neil recently? Questions that few have the answers, though I agree he has done well and this transfer window has the hallmark of a top half team.

Concerning the new season and good time s to come? Well, yes I'm excited, I'm very excited and I'm also very pleased that Steve Bruce is in charge of the team that I am passionate about.

 

well said Cest

 

FFS those "bruce out" brigade who say he hasn't got a plan B, are clearly clueless.

With a depleted squad and terrible form which had us worryingly looking over our shoulders, he single handedly IMO guided us to 10th. Lesser men would have either left or been sacked - especially after the bollocking he got from ES after the Wolves game. (Heard this from a reliable source)

There were too many mackems too quick to call for his head (including Cest who I nearly always agree with, but on this occasion he was totally wrong), when he was faced with one injury to a key player after another - FFS some even blamed him for the injuiries.

The best chairmen give the best managers time to get it right - thank f8ck NQ is chairman and not a trigger happy Cest.

Lol Bart

 

Bart - you've misrepresented the theme of the thread mate. I am accepting that its a good job the board make the decisions not the fans, or at least not this fan but then have you never reacted badly and in error to anything in your life?

Oh were I that perfect?

Bruce did compound the external problems by deciding not to bring in ANY replacement for Judas and that left us terribly exposed. He cant just wash his hands of that and say it was a good decision. It was a one he got away with. Just.

It shows in his recruitment that he wont want to get caught out again and we have signed 2 strikers this window already

Sometimes even with a full squad his plan B wasnt good but again, he has addressed that by filling the squad with proven EPL experienced midfielders and defenders.

Far from pursuing a smaller squad which he talked of for 2 years, he has bought in 9 new players and we are still counting. An admission that he didn't get it right for the last 2 seasons perhaps? However, as I have said, this is an admission on my behalf that I got it wrong not an Anti Bruce thread.

 

Cest - I know it wasn't an anti-bruce thread, but one of the posters riled me a bit, saying that Bruce was "clueless and unable to move to plan B".

This is total sh*t IMO = coz if he did not have a plan B, C or D for that matter, we might have gone down and not finished 10th.

As I said Cest, your posts are well thought through most of the time, but you and many other mackems on this board wanted rid of Bruce, and this would have been a f*cking disaster for our club. What sort of message do you think that would have sent out to other potential managers.

I am over the moon that you now admit that you got it wrong - I say a few others should be doing the same.

Next season is massive for Bruce and SAFC = another bad run, or heavy defeat off the CRAAS could be costly. I have a gut feeling that this could be a good year for SAFC and then Bruce will be getting touted for the so called big clubs.

Lol Bart

 

i always felt he should be given the summer, but i was genuinely very apathetic towards the whole thing by the end of the season. i felt we fluked our way back into the top half, and then to see henderson on his way out almost immediately made me feel that we were back to the dark days of being a nearly club, just shipping out any player that came good.


bruce has bought wisely and bought well imo, and i still expect to see two biggish signings from him, all of which should help to create the squad depth we clearly have missed the past two seasons to maintain our early good form. bruce has also bought grafters, and that's one thing we have badly missed. when the chips are down, and we are struggling for a goal or to keep a lead, i know i'll be happier seeing vaughan, larsson or brown warming up than malbranque, mccartney or nosworthy.


i often felt the past two seasons it was just the bruce apologists reaching for anything to support their man unconditionally even when we were clearly suffering, but there is a particularly good stat in last months fourfourtwo magazine, that shows the number of minutes lost to injury for each club last year. sadly i don't have the copy to hand, but i know that we were top with 2001 minutes, and second was around the 1600 mark, which just goes to show what might have been, and how well bruce did in the circumstances.


that said, i do think there is still a question mark against our physios and fitness coaches. something isn't right there, and has held us back for two years now. i think more so than any new signing this summer, the most important thing for us next year will be to keep our injuries in check.

 

I think Bruce has done a superb job, unlike other managers he has come up with the goods, he said he would establish us as an EPL team, he has dine that, he said we would finish top 10, he has done that. He said we would attract top class players (shopping in Harods) I would argue in Bent, Gyan, Sess, the utd lads and loans like Muntari and Mensah he has done that.

The man has dine everything he said he would do dispite a terrible injury crisis which was NOT his fault and arguably his star player leaving him in the ****.

Bruce is a winner, to answer Cests original question where next? Silverware and Europe, if ever a management team had the chance to take Sunderland to the next step it's SNQ, ES & SB.

We've got the fans, we've got the stadium, we have got the manager, we have got the players, we have got the passion, I feel now is our time!!!

 

Can't really argue with most of the posts on here but just to add my Two peneth worth, I am and have always been even in the darkest days of our second half of the season slump been one of the Bruce to stay Brigade. IMO a manager needs a couple of seasons to get it right, not replacing Judas was a mistake but don't think it would have made a difference. But back to what I originally wanted to say, cast your mind back a few years to a certain small club from the NW who were about to sack their manager after a couple of poor seasons and where they are now. Now I'm not saying that Bruce
is SAF but we could be his Aberdeen if not Man U.

 

to be fair, even the notion that he's had a couple of poor seasons is even a touch misguided. net transfer profit, two injury crises (one impossibly huge), and he still hauled us up from 16th, to 13th, to 10th.

 

Bart - when it comes to SAFC mate, I am happy to look the total fool so long as the club succeed and progress. As fans, sometimes we are just too close to the battlefront to see the strategy going on in the boardroom. As you say, luckily for the club, in SNQ we have an intelligent, level headed legend, who looked at the situation a little less fervently than the likes of myself and made the correct decision.

I'm happy to scoff my humble pie and as with any supporter, reserve the right to blow with the wind. Lol

I am very comfortable to re-establish my original thoughts that SB is the right man, at the right time for us and look forward to the new campaign. However, as you say, those 2nd half of the season slumps must be addressed this season.

 

Cest:He has definitely won round his doubters

Not this one. Although sensitive to all the well-thought-out arguments on this thread, I still feel SB, as the man at the side of the pitch making the decisions, is the weak link in the chain. As a recruitment agent, simply the best, selling the club to players whom we would never have had a hope of signing in the past. I just don't feel that once we have the players in, he has the qualities to fire them up when the going gets tough.
Certainly this new batch of recruits would appear to need less "firing up" so his recruitment would seem to be oriented towards compensating for this shortcoming but there always comes a time when the "gaffer" has to wield in with powerful (often unpopular) words and decisions to reorient, give a new direction to the ship. And SB does not strike me as the man to do that.
With the players he can attract, we probably can maintain a regular place between 8th and 12th, which, let's face it, is dreamland for those of us who have been supporting Sunderland for the past 50-odd years. However, if we want to really break into the BIG TIME (Europe, cupwins, derby games televised live), then I feel we will need to find another man.
Only time will tell. It's great being a Sunderland supporter at the moment (well. it always is,really, but it's just that I've got a smile on my face right now) but re SB, I remain a doubter who wants to be won round.

 

Chats - my literary gauntlet to SB this summer after a hugely disappointing end to the 2010/11 season was simple.

ACT. Don't dither.

Well, even an old cynic like me can hardly fail to be impressed with his summer recruitment so far mate. Larsson, Gardener, Vaughan, Brown, O Shea and Wickham are bold statements of intent. Westwood and Won are unknowns for me so I'll reserve judgement totally but the others are well tried and tested at this level and suddenly we now have a strong experienced midfield and defence to complement our younger squad members. I still feel a couple more will be added but whatever happens, Bruce cannot be accused of resting on laurels. He has moved very swiftly to rectify the errors and weaknesses in the squad and the Liverpool game cant come quick enough for me now.


Or our first home game for that matter?

 

Modern day owners and chairman demand near instant "success" - despite the all too numerous examples that this does not happen - and I for one am glad that ES and NQ have not been of that mind.

I've said since SB joined us that I will NOT pass judgement on his tenure until 2 1/2 or 3 seasons of his leadership. At this time (I believe) the general view is that SB has some obvious strengths, and also areas where improvement can occur.

SAFC has undergone a transformation in the last 5 years, huge progress - on and off the pitch - has been made, and this needs to continue. To all who have doubts or worries, keep things in context and support SAFC with everything you've got.

KTF