Bruce's Insomnia !

Steve Bruce has just received a complaint from a player that his bed at the pre-season training camp is too soft, and he’s not sleeping well.

The tiniest detail duly noted, and taken on his shoulders, Bruce’s response illuminated the emotional roller-coaster Premier League bosses will embark on this week.

What did Bruce say to his insomniac? “I told him: ‘Try being a manager and sleeping, son’. That’s 10 months of no sleep. Ten months of not switching off, thinking about every little thing.

“It feels OK now, because we haven’t started yet, but pretty soon that fear kicks in. The adrenaline that pushes you.

“You can’t help yourself. You look down that list of fixtures; we’ve got Liverpool first, then Newcastle at home, and we all know what that means. It takes over your life.”

“Then pretty soon it’s May again. When it’s finished, you get away for a couple of weeks and just collapse. That’s what I did for a month this summer.”

For all the financial rewards and accolades when it is going well, Bruce, 51, says his mam and dad still worry about him “getting battered” during losing spells. He worries about the amount of time he devotes to his wife Jan, and the all-consuming nature of being the man where the buck stops.

But it is also addictive, rejuvenation coming with nine new signings added to his squad at a cost of £25million.

And despite being a boss for 12 years, he takes inspiration for the undimmed enthusiasm shown by friends Sir Alex Ferguson and the late Sir Bobby Robson in working into their 70s.

“The only problem is you become selfish,” says Bruce. “Sometimes people can be having a coffee with you and you’re not even there – you’re planning the next day’s training session. You get a bit weary sometimes of being the boss. Every day it’s your decision. Decisions all around.”

Bruce admits he paused for thought when Sunderland offered him a three-year deal at the start of the year. “The only thing that made me hesitate briefly was that I’d been doing it 10/11 years and hadn’t had any kind of break as such. Do I have that same enthusiasm that you need.

“That’s why I admired Sir Bobby, Sir Alex, Harry Redknapp, Arsene Wenger – they’ve got that real hunger and desire about them when they’ve been doing it so long. It’s incredible what they do.

“That was the big thing I asked myself, whether I’d got the enthusiasm. To be fair, it only took me about 24 hours, because I’ve enjoyed this job at Sunderland more than I’ve ever enjoyed anything else.” Last season Bruce says was his “most frustrating ever,” despite Sunderland finishing top 10 for only the third time in half a century.

Bruce added: “We had a wonderful start. People sum it up: great until Christmas, absolutely hopeless after that. We lost eight on the spin, only took one point from 10 games or something.”

He has learned lessons. Most of all he never wants to experience a 5-1 defeat to Newcastle ever again.

“The worst day, the worst night I’ve had in football. I just remember going to bed at 10 o’clock thinking ‘I just need this day to end’.

“But there’s another game three or four days later – we went to Stoke and I remember we got away with Cattermole handling the ball off the line. We got off and running again. Then we had probably the best result of my career, when we went and won 3-0 at Chelsea. From the depths to the heights. It’s the extremes.

“It’s in those horrible moments when the walls close on it on you that you find out about yourself and being a manager. It’s vitally important in those times that you don’t beat yourself up too much.

New season, full of promise and expectation? “With what we’ve brought in I’m certainly excited,” he adds. “After two years this is my Sunderland. The squad is a million miles better than then.”

Back to that bed problem. The player has shifted the mattress onto the floor and a restful night awaits. For Bruce and others the insomnia is just about to kick in.

... 13 Days To Go!!!