Rafa Benítez (now unemployed)

[Rod]

1 hour ago, magvicar said:

He certainly wasn't anywhere near the best as a manager but he wasn't shit, otherwise he would never have managed at the levels he did.

When he came to Newcastle he came with mixed emotions among the Newcastle fan base. 

If Bruce was shit then he has to be lumped into 90% of all managers into that category and it just isn't the case.

 

He was a mixed bag for us and his tenure at the club was simply getting worse and worse and he did end up looking way below the standards he came in with, in my opinion.

 

 

In my opinion he's the worst manager I have seen at Newcastle so that makes him shit!  From being tactically pathetic and literally no idea how to implement certain players in their correct positions to his absolutely disgraceful dialogue with the press/media and him constantly bigging up the opposition no matter who we were playing.  Well I am staggered how any sensible football fan can defend the useless knacker.

[MrRaspberryJam]

17 minutes ago, Rod said:

In my opinion he's the worst manager I have seen at Newcastle so that makes him shit!  From being tactically pathetic and literally no idea how to implement certain players in their correct positions to his absolutely disgraceful dialogue with the press/media and him constantly bigging up the opposition no matter who we were playing.  Well I am staggered how any sensible football fan can defend the useless knacker.

 

Listed Rod I'm delighted you're back from your 5 day bender and I'm even more delighted you're willing to unleash your fury on some poor soul, but would you mind taking it easy on magvicar? He's a canny fella even if he is a wee bit of a Bruce sympathiser. 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by MrRaspberryJam

[Chris_R]

The assumption that because Bruce sometimes managed teams that were mid-table means he's not incompetent is a fucking wild claim.

 

1) Good players instantly get top managerial jobs when they retire. It's bonkers, but it happens all the time with no evidence to suggest they'd be remotely competent.

 

2) Not all clubs are equal. Finishing 10th doesn't make you the 10th best manager. You could have had the greatest squad in the league but you're shit, or the worst squad and you're a genius.

 

3) Even if all teams were equal (which they're not), finishing top proves nothing. If all the teams were managed by actual, literal seagulls for a season - with the seagull pulling names and formations out a hat, squawking at the players pre match and giving post match interviews - one team would still have to finish top, and one would finish bottom. The managers were still bloody seagulls though, so you can't necessarily say the one that wins the league is doing a good job. It might still be shitting all over the place, stealing chips and just making a fucking nuisance of itself.

 

The only way to judge a manager is what he consistently does over his tenure at various clubs, comparing what he inherits to what he leaves. Does he improve teams? Are the fans gutted when he leaves? Does he make a positive difference? To all these questions, where Steve Bruce is concerned, the answer is almost always "no". Most fans of his former clubs, if given the choice, would probably prefer the seagull.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Chris_R

[Skeletor]

6 hours ago, magvicar said:

He certainly wasn't anywhere near the best as a manager but he wasn't shit, otherwise he would never have managed at the levels he did.

When he came to Newcastle he came with mixed emotions among the Newcastle fan base. 

If Bruce was shit then he has to be lumped into 90% of all managers into that category and it just isn't the case.

 

He was a mixed bag for us and his tenure at the club was simply getting worse and worse and he did end up looking way below the standards he came in with, in my opinion.

 

 

 

[midds]

15 years ago I'd have read this horseshit and had a bite, now I just read this horseshit and smile

 

Go me.  

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

On 11/04/2023 at 09:01, magvicar said:

Bruce actually did ok to start with but lost the plot.

 

He did okay whilst having little influence? Then started doing shite after that increased? Funny that.

[brummie]

5 hours ago, Rod said:

In my opinion he's the worst manager I have seen at Newcastle so that makes him shit!  From being tactically pathetic and literally no idea how to implement certain players in their correct positions to his absolutely disgraceful dialogue with the press/media and him constantly bigging up the opposition no matter who we were playing.  Well I am staggered how any sensible football fan can defend the useless knacker.

 

Bruce is a fucking dinosaur, yes, and he made my eyeballs bleed watching my own team, but - and I am not even a Newcastle fan - my times attending Newcastle matches, the managers were Willie McFaul and Colin Suggett.

 

He's surely a better manager than them?

 

And I can't believe I am writing this. 

[Rod]

9 minutes ago, brummie said:

 

Bruce is a fucking dinosaur, yes, and he made my eyeballs bleed watching my own team, but - and I am not even a Newcastle fan - my times attending Newcastle matches, the managers were Willie McFaul and Colin Suggett.

 

He's surely a better manager than them?

 

And I can't believe I am writing this. 

I've had this argument loads of times with friends.  It's all about perspective.  Off the top of my head we are probably talking about footballers like Alan Shoulder, Glen Keeley etc during those periods.  Bruce took over a Rafa team, although not brilliant individuals, were playing to a system where everyone knew their roles in the team.  The team Bruce took over were more than competent and indeed very competitive.  He totally obliterated that well oiled machine and I can't believe I'm writing this and haven't said fecking once.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Rod

[HaydnNUFC]

5 minutes ago, brummie said:

 

Bruce is a fucking dinosaur, yes, and he made my eyeballs bleed watching my own team, but - and I am not even a Newcastle fan - my times attending Newcastle matches, the managers were Willie McFaul and Colin Suggett.

 

He's surely a better manager than them?

 

And I can't believe I am writing this. 

 

McFaul had 34.9% win rate from 149 games, Bruce has a 28.9% win rate in 97 games. McFaul also had his best players, Beardsley and then Gascoigne, sold by the board to either build stands or service club debt. With the exception of that being the tragic summer window of 1988-89 which resulted in us finishing bottom. Me fatha thinks that McFaul maybe could've turned that season around had we not sacked him and been flapping for a manager for months as we were traditionally slow starters under him. Suggett was the caretaker during that manager search before we ended up with Jim Smith.

[brummie]

Fair enough.

 

My memories are faded.

[Rod]

Just now, brummie said:

Fair enough.

 

My memories are faded.

Basically I'm repeating what 99% of fans on here think and that is Bruce was fecking shite.

[Ace]

Think the worst part of Bruce was how he just peddled Ashley’s lines and played on all the media biases against us to try and excuse his incompetence while pretending to be one of the fans. 

[brummie]

1 minute ago, Rod said:

Basically I'm repeating what 99% of fans on here think and that is Bruce was fecking shite.

 

Ha ha, I'm a Villa fan. Trust me, you don't need to convince me of that on Bruce.

 

I remember the likes of Graham Turner and Billy McNeill, and Bruce for us is right down there with those two.

[brummie]

1 minute ago, Ace said:

Think the worst part of Bruce was how he just peddled Ashley’s lines and played on all the media biases against us to try and excuse his incompetence while pretending to be one of the fans. 

 

Yeah, he's a fucking dreadful political operator who looks after number one, and - and I don't know if this happened with you, but it did with us - even used to get his idiot fucking son weighing in on twitter.

 

Gerrard was a clueless, obnoxious cunt, but Bruce was a different type of obnoxious, 'not my fault' wanker.

[Ace]

11 minutes ago, brummie said:

 

Yeah, he's a fucking dreadful political operator who looks after number one, and - and I don't know if this happened with you, but it did with us - even used to get his idiot fucking son weighing in on twitter.

 

Gerrard was a clueless, obnoxious cunt, but Bruce was a different type of obnoxious, 'not my fault' wanker.

Yeah his son was terrible and his mates in the media just chatted shit. 
 

You kept hearing he was a nice guy but every time he got a question that wasn’t sugarcoated he’d strop like and radge like a bairn.

 

Nothing was his fault. 2 years in it was Rafas fault we were negative yet Howe cast off all his shit in a couple of months. Dean Smith did similar with you. 
 

Also he’s a slumlord so doubly fuck him 

 

 

[Danh1]

36 minutes ago, Rod said:

Basically I'm repeating what 99% of fans on here think and that is Bruce was fecking shite.

It’s equally that the bloke was an utter cunt as well. Him and his cunt of a son crying on TalkSport about receiving non-existent death threats. Hate him so much. 

[Yorkie]

Walked away with how many million was it? 8?  Awful, awful bloke.

[St. Maximin]

Playing Devil’s advocate, but it’s not hard to see why people defended Bruce tbh. We finished 13th and 12th under him, which imo was on paper around par or overachieving if anything. We finished comfortably above mastermind Graham Potter’s Brighton I believe. 
 

Of course his managerial qualities were still terrible, his overall attitude even worse and he was well defended by his mates in the media, but we shouldn’t be that shocked by the “he did as well as Rafa” comments because a lot of football fans will just look at the table and not follow other teams closely enough to see what the football was like. 
 

Thankfully Howe’s brilliance combined with Bruce’s car crash performance at West Brom have proven he’s a fraud to most people. 

[GideonShandy]

Absolutely had it up to here with people defending Bruce, even with a "Devil's Advocate" disclaimer (and especially on the Rafa Benitez thread.)  The hell with him and his ghastly son. 

[HaydnNUFC]

16 minutes ago, St. Maximin said:

Playing Devil’s advocate, but it’s not hard to see why people defended Bruce tbh. We finished 13th and 12th under him, which imo was on paper around par or overachieving if anything. We finished comfortably above mastermind Graham Potter’s Brighton I believe. 
 

Of course his managerial qualities were still terrible, his overall attitude even worse and he was well defended by his mates in the media, but we shouldn’t be that shocked by the “he did as well as Rafa” comments because a lot of football fans will just look at the table and not follow other teams closely enough to see what the football was like. 
 

Thankfully Howe’s brilliance combined with Bruce’s car crash performance at West Brom have proven he’s a fraud to most people. 

 

Maybe but that's down to the 'look at the top line/results, fuck the context' method of analysis and punditry that plagues this country. Bruce took over Benitez' team that was playing nice stuff at the back end of 2018-19 and despite losing Rondon and Perez had added £65m worth of talent to it in ASM, Joelinton, Krafth and Willems on loan. Those first 7 games were embarrassing from a tactical perspective and he reverted to using a 5-4-1 after we got annihilated at Leicester which was a lot less nicer on the eye than the 3-4-3 we were using at the back end of 2018-19. That 5-4-1 was reeling from the benefits of Benitez' coaching and from October-December we were picking up results. Then injuries, rushing players back etc saw us bring in 3 loans: Bentaleb, Rose, Lazaro. Bentaleb was atrocious, Rose meh and Lazaro the best of the trio who also got played the least.  We limp past two League One teams via replays in the FA Cup before West Brom away which for the first 50 minutes was probably the best we played under Bruce pre COVID. He then intervened with his wank substitutions, conceded twice late on and end up hanging on at the end before having a fucking giggle about it, "this job should come with a health warning", so you fat gormless globule, its your shite game management that sees us hanging on you fucking clueless bastard. The last game pre COVID was the win away at Southampton which practically saw us safe.

 

Post lockdown we were a total shambles, two wins against Sheffield United and Bournemouth aside the rest of that season and the whole of 2020-21 was the most miserable I've been as a Newcastle fan since the second half of 2013-14. Bruce consistently patronised the fans, talked down, embarrassed the club and got away with it due to the lack of crowds. ASM and Willock saved him post March. 

[teohgk]

Why are we talking about Bruce in Rafa thread? absolutely disrespect imo

[magvicar]

15 hours ago, Rod said:

In my opinion he's the worst manager I have seen at Newcastle so that makes him shit!  From being tactically pathetic and literally no idea how to implement certain players in their correct positions to his absolutely disgraceful dialogue with the press/media and him constantly bigging up the opposition no matter who we were playing.  Well I am staggered how any sensible football fan can defend the useless knacker.

The worst? I'm not so sure.

I can name many a manager that would be classed as worse overall but they all come under different attributes or stigmas where fans and memory serves each.

[magvicar]

9 hours ago, Super Duper Branko Strupar said:

 

He did okay whilst having little influence? Then started doing shite after that increased? Funny that.

What do you mean by having little influence?

[bowlingcrofty]

I think people are being a bit harsh on Bruce, after all he did recommend Howe as his successor.

[El Hozzo]

Can't 'this person' have his own thread (which can then be avoided) 

 

it can be titled 'Cunt'