Steve Bruce (now unemployed)

[Robster]

I think the answer is that he's shown that he's OK-ish at a lower level. His personal man management of players has done enough in the early period at clubs to give him some sort of a reputation. He definitely did ok at Birmingham, relatively.
League One is where he should have been all his career. In 2021, he should be nowhere near the PL or The Championship.

[gjohnson]

Also...is it not possible that playing under arguably one of the best ever managers ever clouds owners judgements and puts a false reputation ahead of them?

Think of the players under Ferguson who have become managers...how many have actually been any good?

Hughes...fair to middling at best

Nevilles...both pretty rubbish

Ince....ego of Mourinho, performance of league one

Giggs....did ok, but not great

Bruce...less said the better

Solskjaer...doing ok, but nothing stand out

Bryan Robson....gave up after being relegated

Scholes...freely admitted he couldn't handle the hassle

Keane...Ok in Championship

Kanchelsikis...languishing in Uzbekistan

Sheringham...sacked from Stevenaage and an Indian club

Stam...sacked from Reading, last seen in MLS

Blanc...probably the best of the lot

Rooney...currently trying his best to get Derby into a relegation fight

 

Several more who get/got sacked within a single season.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Definitely. Football is (or was) a weirdly old fashioned place based on who you know and what your name is.

It's only fairly recently that managers like Tuchel etc have come through by actually being good.

[Darth Crooks]

 

[Sifu]

On 24/04/2021 at 15:45, et tu brute said:

Will he get manager of the month 

 

On 24/04/2021 at 15:49, Sifu said:

Ah fuck, this isn't beyond the realms of possibility 

So yep, nominated alongside Allardyce, Bielsa and Solskjaer.

[gjohnson]

6 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Definitely. Football is (or was) a weirdly old fashioned place based on who you know and what your name is.

It's only fairly recently that managers like Tuchel etc have come through by actually being good.

On a broader note...is this a new thing where fans can see a manager is terrible even before being appointed?

I mean who were the PFMs of the late 80's/Early 90's?

Consider Keegan for us....no experience, but came in and changed everything....who could do that now? Hatem? Cabaye?

There was a time just after he retired that I thought Beardsley would have been brilliant for us...(yes im well aware that he's been proven to be a terrible idea)

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I think we're in a fairly unique position where we know that the owner will make the wrong appointment 90% of the time, so it's a good bad that the manager will be shit.

If he'd punted on someone like Scott Parker, it would've been more difficult to tell. Depends on those individuals, I doubt anyone could say with any certainty. 

[Yorkie]

3 hours ago, gjohnson said:

Ok serious question time....

What is it Bruce has that has enabled him to take charge of 900 games over his career? 

Was he good enough at some point and just been left behind? Do a few promotions to the Premiership blind owners? 

 

I was going to write a post stating how there are probably underlying institutional/political forces and biases which keep incompetent fuckwits like Bruce circling around the top two divisions, but looking at the list of current managers in the PL and Championship, I actually think he could be a bit of a unique case.

In terms of managers who have absolutely no justification whatsoever in both being offered a job and keeping it - who else is there as undeserving as Bruce, relative to the club?

There's probably some who've outstayed welcomes and therefore are no longer justifying remaining in post, but were fair appointments in the first place (Hodgson? Parker? Mowbray, maybe? I haven't canvassed any fanbase, like...). But how many others have literally zero right in being in their position? 

The likes of Warnock and Allardyce never seem to go away but they have attributes which make them justifiable appointments. The only other one I can think of which seems like a total pisstake is Rooney, but at least he's an up and comer. 

 

[andyc35i]

14 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

I was going to write a post stating how there are probably underlying institutional/political forces and biases which keep incompetent fuckwits like Bruce circling around the top two divisions, but looking at the list of current managers in the PL and Championship, I actually think he could be a bit of a unique case.

In terms of managers who have absolutely no justification whatsoever in both being offered a job and keeping it - who else is there as undeserving as Bruce, relative to the club?

There's probably some who've outstayed welcomes and therefore are no longer justifying remaining in post, but were fair appointments in the first place (Hodgson? Parker? Mowbray, maybe? I haven't canvassed any fanbase, like...). But how many others have never had literally zero right being in their position? 

The likes of Warnock and Allardyce never seem to go away but they have attributes which make them justifiable appointments. The only other one I can think of which seems like a total pisstake is Rooney, but at least he's an up and comer. 

 

Without discounting how shite Bruce actually is, I’d argue Arteta is on that list. He got a massive job based on being an assistant to Pep. It’s a big risk appointing someone young and inexperienced so you could commend Arsenal for it in some way even though it has failed. It’s a hard one to judge because in the same way you can only have praise for the Rangers appointment of Gerrard.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2021 by andyc35i

[gjohnson]

1 minute ago, andyc35i said:

Without discounting how shite Bruce actually is, I’d argue Arteta is on that list. He got a massive job based on being an assistant to Pep. It’s a big risk appointing someone young and inexperienced so you could commend Arsenal for it. In the same way you can only have praise for the Rangers appointment of Gerrard.

Not really...a blind one armed monkey could take Rangers to first or second in the SPL

[Yorkie]

6 minutes ago, andyc35i said:

Without discounting how shite Bruce actually is, I’d argue Arteta is on that list. He got a massive job based on being an assistant to Pep. It’s a big risk appointing someone young and inexperienced so you could commend Arsenal for it in some way even though it has failed. It’s a hard one to judge because in the same way you can only have praise for the Rangers appointment of Gerrard.

I think it's entirely fair to say Arteta was a punt given that he hadn't had a manager's job before, but he came with enormous pedigree and an existing connection to the club; I don't think his appointment is remotely comparable to Bruce tbh. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

With Arteta, at least you can be fairly confident that he has a lot of the right knowledge. The risk is that he’s never had to apply it as a number one.

That’s definitely a risk but at least there’s some reason to think it might have worked. 

[gjohnson]

7 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

With Arteta, at least you can be fairly confident that he has a lot of the right knowledge. The risk is that he’s never had to apply it as a number one.

That’s definitely a risk but at least there’s some reason to think it might have worked. 

Weren't we the same when Vieira was being suggested for here?

He's not exactly pulled up trees in his managerial career

[Sima]

47 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

There was a time just after he retired that I thought Beardsley would have been brilliant for us...(yes im well aware that he's been proven to be a terrible idea)

The little fuckin creep can’t even get his missus’s poachies right, man.

[Rocker]

2 minutes ago, Sima said:

The little fuckin creep can’t even get his missus’s poachies right, man.

Aye, and I've head he's been on the chicken wraps as well.

[gjohnson]

Yes with hindsight and recent events make it a terrible idea...but back in 97' it seemed good

[Consortium of one]

In the end the best managers have the best players.  Yes, an ill-fitting manager can drag good players down, too.

That leads to the allure of Rafa who, instead of taking over a ready made club that just needed some tweaks, came to Newcastle to build something from the ground up.

 

[ToonArmy1892]

At least Arteta has won a trophy.

[TRon]

10 hours ago, et tu brute said:

Against the better teams in the league (if you can actually really class Arsenal as one), you cannot have your two central midfielders basically sitting right in front of your central defence, as that just invites wave upon wave of pressure and makes it very difficult to exert any forward movement and momentum. This was noticeably demonstrated by St Max time and time again coming deep into his own half to try and receive the ball. The warning signs were there against a ten men West Ham, who dominated the second half until the arrival of Willock.
 

It’s blatantly obvious the central midfield of Shelvey (especially) and Longstaff are too slow with not enough forward movement to make any positive impact on a game. Football has changed so much in the last two years never mind five or ten, however we have a dinosaur and totally inadequate manager, who is unable to see obvious problems with the personnel and set up of the team. I still can’t believe we are sitting 9 points clear with 4 games to go. He is lucky we have two players in St Max and Wilson who are better than players within the teams below us, and have been able to make some point winning contributions with the ability they have. 
 

We are and always will be under Ashley a club struggling to keep afloat before we eventually fail and disappear down the plug hole.

It's been a pet peeve of mine having immobile central midfielders since the days of Nicky Butt. The last time we had two going through the middle who both had an engine of sorts was probably Jenas and Dyer. Tiote and Cabaye were class in that season we finished 5th, but even then Cabaye wasn't the quickest but he made up for it in class. But it still meant we ended up with Tiote bombing on more than he should have. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

You can have two sitting midfielders, they just can't be the ones we have who can't run or retain the ball.

The passivity of our play is also a major problem, more than any formation. Of course that's also related to the selection of players who can't press.

[Papavasiliou]

12 minutes ago, TRon said:

It's been a pet peeve of mine having immobile central midfielders since the days of Nicky Butt. The last time we had two going through the middle who both had an engine of sorts was probably Jenas and Dyer. Tiote and Cabaye were class in that season we finished 5th, but even then Cabaye wasn't the quickest but he made up for it in class. But it still meant we ended up with Tiote bombing on more than he should have. 

Cabaye was a fucking terrier most of the time. Chasing people down and forcing them to make shit, rushed passes (or failing that just kicking them up a height and collecting yellows).

I maintain a lot of Tiote's defensive dominance around that time was due to Cabaye forcing errors that Tiote could mop up.

[et tu brute]

2 hours ago, TRon said:

It's been a pet peeve of mine having immobile central midfielders since the days of Nicky Butt. The last time we had two going through the middle who both had an engine of sorts was probably Jenas and Dyer. Tiote and Cabaye were class in that season we finished 5th, but even then Cabaye wasn't the quickest but he made up for it in class. But it still meant we ended up with Tiote bombing on more than he should have. 

Yeah those two were certainly an exception to the norm, due mainly to having ability, but matched also with the workrate required to operate within that role,

[TRon]

2 hours ago, Papavasiliou said:

Cabaye was a fucking terrier most of the time. Chasing people down and forcing them to make shit, rushed passes (or failing that just kicking them up a height and collecting yellows).

I maintain a lot of Tiote's defensive dominance around that time was due to Cabaye forcing errors that Tiote could mop up.

I agree, Cabaye certainly put his foot in, but because he wasn't the quickest that still meant he wasn't going to be as effective as a box to box midfielder as someone who could cover large areas of the pitch quicker. Anita had the same issue. Ritchie has it in our current set up. 

[andyc35i]

Tactical masterclass so far tonight aye?? 

[Slim]

Manager of the month