Steve Bruce (now managing Blackpool)

[HaydnNUFC]

28 minutes ago, cubaricho said:

 

Great post dude.
 

On this pout though, I genuinely believe they’ll be in the mould of the 80s/90s/PFMs because that is what inspired them during their careers. It’ll be the Howes/Potters of the world who didn’t reach the professional heights the aforementioned dudes did and said fuck this and became actual students of the game that buck the trend of the British PFMs, not Gerrard or Lampard, who will get found out with relative ease and (hopefully!) moved on quicker than the Pardew/Bruce/Allardyce dinosaurs of the past were.

 

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

I think there's still time for it to be seen. Gerrard's achievements at Rangers, although winning things in Scotland with one of the Glasgow two on the face of it isn't an achievement that'll get you out of your seat, I still admire it given the context behind it. Especially when he had no previous managerial experience and seeing the previous likes of Warburton, Caixinha and Murty all fail. Especially the latter 2. 

 

Lampard's only positive for me so far is 2019-20 at Chelsea. Transfer ban, brought some brilliant youngsters through, finished 4th, got to CL knockout stage and got to an FA Cup final. The rest of it however isn't inspiring. 

 

Gerrard and Lampard as players worked under some of the greatest managers at their respective peaks though. Houllier, Benitez, Mourinho, Ancelotti. You'd hope that they've taken leaves out of their books. But Gerrard does seem like a disciplinarian with how he conducts himself in the press while Lampard looks a bit soft, no real authority about them. 

 

Time is on their sides but a few signs there that they'll be the newer, glamorous age of PFMs.

[Disco]

Sad thing is for every non fat stain manager you’ve mentioned they want to do something and/or improve themselves whilst the latter stain on society just wants to get paid snd rinse clubs and fans dry.  

[MrRaspberryJam]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10566907/Bruce-dreadful-start-West-Brom-damage-hired-Ismael-Wilder.html

 

"New West Brom boss Steve Bruce is already questioning his players’ mental strength"

[RUHRLYASLEEVESUP]

"The problem for Albion is that in Bruce’s month at the helm, form has deteriorated, with only a single goal to go with the one point earned.

Bruce has all but given up on the play-offs and his comments about his players after the recent defeat at Luton — ‘We have to do more, and in particular you have to have the ability to roll up your sleeves a bit more and show something"

Bruce Jnr played under his father at Birmingham and Hull - and did some scouting for Newcastle United during his two-and-a-half years as manager there.

"Let's play"

[nufcjb]

21 hours ago, Rod said:

That's the thing though, he's not a decent man.  Quite the opposite in my opinion.  Continually slagged the fans off, disgraceful comments aimed at Rafa and Howe and his appalling behaviour towards the press "have you had a slap from your bosses".  I honestly have never hated a manager at Newcastle as much as Bruce.

 

This sums up perfectly why I hate Bruce so much. Even more than Alan Pardew. All the things mentioned here, was the thing that made me totally lost my love following the club. Even when we had Ashley as owner and Pardew as manager, I'd still follow the club. Even when Ashley was owner and Rafa as manager in the Championship, I loved my club.

 

But Ashley as owner and an even bigger serial farud as our manager totally kicked the life out of me to follow the club. Fucking embarassing time of my life having him here.

 

So so glad we got rid and have a proper decent man here in wor Eddie.

[Guest]

Yeah we’re seeing the death of the PFM. For me, Hughes for example was one of the better ones of this ilk for a 5-10 year spell. He’s now at Bradford. Think we’ll see more and more over the next 1-2 years this happening.

[jackyboy]

When Bruce left Newcastle I wonder if he gave any thought as to why he had failed so miserably. Eddie how travelled Europe, learning from top teams and coaches so that he could improve. Bruce would have travelled to a few different Gregg's shops no doubt.

 

[Guest HTT II]

Regarding Dyche and Burnley, his football is ugly, but he’s no PFM typical British manager in that he’s very modern with his tactical training/coaching, fitness and other behind the scenes stuff, night and day compared to say Bruce for example.

[St. Maximin]

7 hours ago, Paullow said:

 

It didn't go great for him at Sunderland, and that, at the time, was a pretty big job (one of his 3 more higher profile roles along with us and Villa). We had just got back into the Premier League, and as a fan for like 27 years or so (as of now), I think that's the only period where I would consider they had a better squad / team than us - they had a fair bit of investment, had Bent, Gyan, Henderson, Mignolet, Welbeck, Sessegnon, Malbranque and a few other decent players, and in late January 2011 they were 6th in the league, and were only a point off 4th place after 24 games:

 

https://www.11v11.com/league-tables/premier-league/22-january-2011/

 

They then only gained 1 point from their next 9 matches, and going on an infamous / trademark Brucey run. They did win 3 of their final 5 matches, including their last match of the season which, along with us being pegged back from 3-0 to 3-3 at home to WBA, meant they leapfropped us (and a few others) and finished 10th (ya kna) - only their 3rd top 10 finish since the 1955/56 season (that's crazy - 3 top 10 finishes for them in 67 years, and obviously counting).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010–11_Sunderland_A.F.C._season#Premier_League

 

The season after they only won 2 of their first 13 matches, 11 points, and he was sacked - so in 2011, his league record prior to his sacking was P27 W5 D6 L16 PTS 21 which was awful for the squad they had, and they were massively calling for his head.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011–12_Sunderland_A.F.C._season#Premier_League

Yeah good point. I remember Sunderland fans slated him, but I did notice the team declined a lot since he left so it seemed more respectable. However, the run of form looks pretty familiar and they did have some decent players around then as you say. I think Hull worked out reasonably well though, whatever it was he got right. Villa sounded shocking though - real elephant in the room last year that Smith was getting so much praise from pundits for how they picked up after his appointment, when Bruce was the reason. Shame we just happened to have unrealistic expectations though. 

[Groundhog63]

20 minutes ago, jackyboy said:

When Bruce left Newcastle I wonder if he gave any thought as to why he had failed so miserably. Eddie how travelled Europe, learning from top teams and coaches so that he could improve. Bruce would have travelled to a few different Gregg's shops no doubt.

 

Travelled? Sat on his fat arse texting Deliveroo 24/7, you mean

[nufcjb]

Went to Dubai to watch the cricket with his prick son didn't he?

[Skeletor]

 

[RodneyCisse]

The wheels are coming off.

[Guest]

Get in Ambrose.

[Guest HTT II]

Moyes could have easily fallen into the PFM trap, but seems to have reinvented himself at WHU. The likes of him and Dyche are not very innovative or even anything special, they find a system, plan, set of tactics and a tempo or way of playing built around specific types of players and when the spirit in the camp is good, confidence is high and key players are playing regularly, they tend to do well enough to stay up, finish mid-table or even flirt with European places.

 

Man management is very key to managers like them and of course player recruitment, more so than it is perhaps for other more skilled, crafted and innovative managers.

 

Howe for example is far more innovative, but the risk with someone like Howe is because he’s constantly looking at all angles to improve his ideas, players and performances, if his team is just not firing, going back to the basics so to speak, can be too little too late, to get him and his team going again. We seen that with Bournemouth. The likes of Howe has far more capability to transfer his methods and ideas to other clubs and players than the likes of Dyche and Moyes who need to be in an ideal set up/club ideally to deliver results. Man Utd, Sociedad, Sunderland we’re bad fits for Moyes. Preston, Everton and WHU are perfect clubs for him.

 

Managers like Bruce rely on individuals, bounces, luck, not having many injuries and lowered expectations because they literally have zero football nous or acumen, technically and technically. Such managers will always always end up going on long winless runs, players being injured all the time, players under performing, dire football and the inevitable relegations or failure to achieve promotion.

 

Rafa is more like a Moyes or a Dyche, but he’s more rounded in terms of tactics, fitness, data and of course he is a superb coach on the actual training pitch, arguably world-class still and easily one of the best in the world. He’s not very innovative either these days, although he was when he first took up management.

 

Football is forever changing for course, bit for me, it’s still a simple game. What Howe is doing is nothing out of this world like, but he takes in everything that is needed in the modern game for a club, players and coaches and uses it all and puts it all together in training, in the dressing room and during matches for himself, his players and his coaching team, in one package and it’s very impressive as we are seeing.

[Guest HTT II]

10 hours ago, HaydnNUFC said:

It stems back further but I think a huge watershed moment for English football was Guardiola being appointed by Man City in 2016. The season before he was there, Leicester won the league and all of the traditional 'top 6' bar Spurs were really shit. (I know Spurs capitulated after Leicester clinched it but 15/16 was good by their standards then) and the top 6 clubs never cantered to wins as much as they do now. Liverpool didn't win the league with 97 points ffs. 

 

There comes a minutiae of good with this though, as England have performed exceptionally well in the last 2 tournaments as opposed to what happened before and English clubs do quite well in the Champions League. 

 

How this comes back to Bruce though, I think Guardiola coming here really shown up how poor this league really was. The managers primarily. And its pushed Bruce's ilk, the has been, PFM, media friendly 'Brexit' manager so far down the pecking line that they don't get jobs in the PL anymore. If not for Ashley no PL club would've touched Bruce. Stints and relegations at WBA have finished off the chances of Allardyce and Pardew of managing in the division again. Mark Hughes since getting the bullet at Stoke and Southampton has only just gotten a job the other week, at League Two Bradford City. Pulis can't get a job for love nor money. Dyche is the only one left that you probably could count in this but I think that's an insult to him; despite that we're competing with Burnley to stay up and the football they play is horrid, he's done a superb job there with limited resources. Has been there for ~10 years and I actually like hearing him speak about football in general as well as the games. (Not including Hodgson here as Watford will probably go down and won't be there beyond this season imo)

 

The managers that are getting appointed now are the German/Austrian gegenpressing, intense football type; the Iberian tiki taka and tactical obssessives and the young(ish) progressive British coaches who are the antithesis of the manager of the 80s, 90s and pre-Guardiola era of the Premier League. Listen to how Potter, Howe, Rodgers and maybe Smith speak to the cameras compared to how Pardew, Allardyce, Holloway and Warnock spoke. These attitudes are reflected in their philosophies and work ethics. It remains to be seen whether Lampard and Gerrard will be the new era type of PFM or type of manager that is always talked up or defended in the media for jobs by their mates.

 

Bottom line is, football in this country has moved on miles in the space of less than a decade. And moved lightyears past Bruce, and his kind. He simply shouldn't be getting touched with a barge pole by any club worth their salt at a decent level.

 

 

 

Excellent post.

[Rod]

2 hours ago, jackyboy said:

When Bruce left Newcastle I wonder if he gave any thought as to why he had failed so miserably. Eddie how travelled Europe, learning from top teams and coaches so that he could improve. Bruce would have travelled to a few different Gregg's shops no doubt.

 

But Bruce doesn't think he failed miserably.  I honestly believe that Bruce thinks he did a good job here.  There is no other explanation of him being so confrontational.  He believed he was doing a good job and quite a few of him pundit pals thought the same.  It's staggering really.

[St. Maximin]

1 hour ago, Rod said:

But Bruce doesn't think he failed miserably.  I honestly believe that Bruce thinks he did a good job here.  There is no other explanation of him being so confrontational.  He believed he was doing a good job and quite a few of him pundit pals thought the same.  It's staggering really.

Based on the league table he didn’t fail miserably to be fair. 13th and 12th were decent returns on paper given our squad. The start of this season was a different matter of course. 
 

Obviously we know it goes far deeper than just looking at the league table. However, if you’re not prepared to research, it’s pretty reasonable to look at the table and then wonder where all the fuss is coming from. 

Saying that Willock massively dug us out of a hole and we were getting all the usual patronising rubbish from the pundits even when it looked like we were heading for relegation a year ago. 

 

[Mike]

15 hours ago, Wolfcastle said:

 

Foreshadowing the inbound 28% possession.

 

We would go entire games with like 15 percent possession. Maybe he's a fantastic manager but just hates balls? It'd be laughs if he was a therapist away from being SAF.

[gjohnson]

1000 games, never won a thing of note, managed to piss off most of Birmingham, Sheffield, Tyne and Wear.

How anyone can claim he's a good manager is beyond belief.

 

On the plus side...he's not here anymore, but for posterity i think we can legitimately claim he's the last of the current PFMs till Lampard and Gerrard take over the mantle.

[Guest HTT II]

52 minutes ago, St. Maximin said:

Based on the league table he didn’t fail miserably to be fair. 13th and 12th were decent returns on paper given our squad. The start of this season was a different matter of course. 
 

Obviously we know it goes far deeper than just looking at the league table. However, if you’re not prepared to research, it’s pretty reasonable to look at the table and then wonder where all the fuss is coming from. 

Saying that Willock massively dug us out of a hole and we were getting all the usual patronising rubbish from the pundits even when it looked like we were heading for relegation a year ago. 

 

The league table at that range is a low bar though, we could finish there this season despite being seemingly doomed and buried a few weeks back. 

[Guest HTT II]

I’d also say Hodgson, despite his age and some of the merry-go-round appointments, is no PFM, he’s very knowledgeable, a good man manager, was innovative in his day, has actually won stuff, managed abroad and did, for me, a great job at Palace and should Watford go down, if they keep him, he’ll take them back up. 

[Guest]

Steve Bruce must love the game or be determined to prove people wrong. I can't understand why he'd get back into management so soon after a payoff from Newcastle. He's never really taken an extended break since he began as a player. The guy cannot coach and I can't imagine he's had the time to ever seek out other coaches he could learn from and improve. 

[Manxst]

2 minutes ago, OCK said:

Steve Bruce must love the game or be determined to prove people wrong. I can't understand why he'd get back into management so soon after a payoff from Newcastle. He's never really taken an extended break since he began as a player. The guy cannot coach and I can't imagine he's had the time to ever seek out other coaches he could learn from and improve. 

He simply has to keep moving or else the bacon grease will accumulate to fatberg levels in his body. 
 

or maybe he feels responsible for the Steves and their mortgages. 

 

 

Edited March 2, 2022 by Manxst

[Guest]

I honestly don't know. The guy must be loaded from all the pay he's received as a player/manager and then the payoffs for being shite... I mean sacked... He owns and mismanages property, too. I don't understand the guy.