Captain's Blog: A Steve Bruce Retrospective
by michaelgraham on Feb 14, 2012 10:30 AM GMT
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I think most Sunderland fans will agree with me that it has been an odd kind of a season. The January transfer window has been and gone and the run-in is just starting to appear on the horizon, and yet for us the season feels so fresh as if it has barely just begun.
In a sense, it has. The club has been reborn under Martin O'Neill to such an extent that Steve Bruce's tenure this season feels like little more than a distant nightmare.
On Monday morning, however, that blissful oblivion to Bruce was shattered to some extent. I am sure I wasn't the only Sunderland fan besieged by Wolves fans eager to garner opinion on the man the betting markets have tentatively installed as the favourite to replace Mick McCarthy in the manager's office at Molineux.
So have the wounds sufficiently healed now for an objective and fair retrospective of Steve Bruce's reign as Sunderland manager?
Some people love to remind me that I was one of the last to turn against Bruce. Fair enough, of course. It is perfectly true, but I am not ashamed of it in the least.
Very rarely in life does anything avoid eventually turning sour and ending in tears. Darren Bent barely put a foot wrong on the pitch here, for example, but it ended in tears. So those who had gleefully predicted from early in his Sunderland career that this would also be the case with Steve Bruce and expecting a pat on the back for their 'insight' will have a long wait as far as I am concerned.
When Bruce arrived I was happy with the appointment. In this day and age with 24-hour news channels desperate for drama to break the monotonous regurgitation of the same old tired stories, it can be easy to allow yourself to get swept away with the speculation linking the club to names that were never really realistically in the fray. But, having lost all the momentum from promotion two years before, Bruce was a realistic contender who seemed ideally positioned to cement the club's position in mid-table.
Upon arrival, Bruce found a squad heavy in numbers but almost totally bereft of star quality. He wasted no time in displaying the transfer market acumen that even his biggest detractors dare not deny. What seemed an immovable rabble of deadwood to his predecessors soon found their way to the exit doors. In addition, Sunderland had almost immediately become an attractive destination for players who still had some repute with which to gamble.
To his credit, establishing Sunderland in the middle of the table was exactly what he did. Could he have done more given the generous backing of Ellis Short? Almost certainly.
But he achieved his remit with at least a modicum of aplomb. Sufficiently, anyway, so that when Sunderland looked likely to get dragged into a relegation battle, the bar had been raised enough to warrant quick and decisive action. The fact that was the case just 2 years after escaping the drop on the final day of the season is probably a reasonable tribute to the job he did.
The problem was that Bruce's success was inextricably linked to the form and fitness of his players and so it could never hope to be sustainable. There was never any evidence of a system or tactical plan in his mind. So the question of 'how will we score goals?' which Martin O'Neill has addressed so effortlessly, to Bruce was only ever a question of 'who will score the goals?'. Individuals didn't just shine in a Bruce Sunderland team – they carried it. When they could carry it no more, the wins dried up for weeks on end.
When positive results stopped, the excuses started. For most of us, the sight of Bruce, stood uncomfortably in front of the Match of the Day cameras, wearily swaying side to side, and spouting endless excuses each more ludicrous than the last will be the enduring image of his reign as manager. You never quite knew if his red face was the cold, his health, or just sheer embarrassment at what he was saying.
It would be revisionist history at its most transparent to try and suggest there were tears shed amongst the fans when Bruce left Sunderland. I was certainly a strong advocate of change by that point and he barely had a supporter left in the whole stadium. Despite media outrage, the decision to sack him is one that Martin O'Neill is currently vindicating on a weekly basis.
But now the dust has settled and the wounds have healed, I don't think it is unfair to say that Bruce did a reasonable job. He took a relegation-haunted club and established them strongly enough in the Premier League so that when the wheels came off they were able to attract a replacement of genuine pedigree.
You won't find many arguing that Sunderland are not better off having cut ties with Bruce back in November. However, it is just as true to say that Sunderland are better off for having him as well.
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But do you think he offers much different for McCarthy? He may have slightly more pedigree in the Premier League, but as Lambert (and Rodgers to a lesser extent) have displayed, tactical knowledge seems more important in this league than ever before. I don’t think Bruce can help Wolves with that aspect of the game.
wow
Has this lad done something to seriously upset you? I can see the relevance in the contradictions you have pointed out but cut a little slack here. I don’t think we were put back at square one with regards to where Bruce left us, for the simple fact that we have a much better playing staff now than the one he inherited. He must be credited for that. For the record I wanted SB out before most so I am certainly not trying to portray him an any sort of ultra positive light. I’m also not sure that the comparison to a company can match up too neatly to the world of top flight football. I don’t believe there was a too much better candidate at the time for the squad of players and reputation we had then. It’s a strange sort of hierarchical system that of football managers. As the first reply points out someone like Steve Bruce has limitations at this level but had enough experience about him, at that point, to clear up the mess and create a platform, one similar to the one we are currently springing off. Someone like Rodgers or Lambert may not have had the time to turn what we had then into a side capable of beating the drop, in my opinion. Someone like O’Neill would have been one of a few managers who doesn’t appear to have to fit into this hierarchy anywhere due to his talent being as widespread as it is (as it seems). We just simply couldn’t have attracted someone of that calibre, at that point. They would have had to have been prized away from a club. I have way, way, way more cons than pros about Bruce and was going to make some points as to why this article is a couple of years premature. Your points made me consider the pros slightly (as if I needed to be any more against him) and I can see you are intelligent and knowledgeable, but there is a fine line between debate and sheer disregard for anything a specific person says. I had a good rant about McCarthy on another site yesterday but I wasn’t trying to put anyone down who didn’t agree. Football isn’t as black and white as some parts of life and nothing can divide opinion more. I don’t agree with all that these lads say, and I wish they would reply more than they do as well. ‘Tak a chill pill marra’
by Goldylad on Feb 14, 2012 3:48 PM GMT via mobile reply actions
I never really turned on Bruce until a few games into this season. Like most I was pretty down about the second half of last season and I was more disappointed than most about selling Henderson. But I thought that by delivering a top 10 finish he had earned the opportunity to have another stab at it this season.
But after another meek cup exit and letting Gyan slip through his fingers, I thought that enough was enough.
Your point about it may be being a little premature to reach the conclusion I did may have merit. I can see why people will prefer to wait and see what happens when O’Neill’s honeymoon period comes to an end before making any judgements. For me, though, the very fact Bruce left us in a position to attract someone of O’Neill’s pedigree without having to make big promises about transfer funds makes Bruce’s relative success here pretty much axiomatic.
Could Bruce gives Wolves something that McCarthy can’t? May be. He has taken 3 premier league clubs into safe midtable before which seems to be the next logical step for Wolves. Sustaining it is the problem he has. I’d love to see him get the opportunity, though.
by michaelgraham on Feb 14, 2012 4:51 PM GMT up reply actions
Errrrm...
I had no idea such a harmless little retrospective about Steve Bruce would cause such a kerfuffle.
OK, Laeo, I think you need to calm down a bit. You have made it abundantly clear, and did for months before that too, that you had a serious agenda against Steve Bruce. That’s fine. You didn’t like him, or rate him. So for you to then come on here and try and claim that what you offer is ‘objective criticism’… well quite frankly it is ludicrous. Disagree with me all you want. I welcome it. Opinion pieces like this exist to create debate. But don’t expect me to take it seriously when you try and play the objectivity card on this one.
And, as Simon has already said, this whole thing isn’t about you. The comment which you claimed was aimed at you wasn’t. I am very active on Twitter, I post on message boards, I also have friends/family and a bit of a social life, believe it or not. The amount of time I spend every week openly debating all things SAFC is actually a bit of an undertaking. Most things I respond to but some things I can’t due to time constraints. Generally speaking, the ones I prioritise are the ones that seem willing to engage with the discussion with a little respect. With your personal criticism, odd nicknames, and general tone, you very seldom give that impression. Just saying.
Which leads me nicely onto your pretty astounding point that I am not prepared to enter into a discussion about what I write. If I didn’t want the discussion, I wouldn’t bother with the writing, and that goes for all the sites I write for an not just this one.
On the blog itself… well it is just my opinion on Bruce’s spell as Sunderland manager. That he inherited a poor squad that had survived by the skin of their teeth, established the club in midtable, and left it with a considerably better squad are facts that I think can’t be disputed.
I think it is fair to say we were in a better position when Bruce left than when he joined so on the whole he didn’t do too bad but like Keano and Reidy before him he’d gone as far as he could.
It is interesting that you say his success was linked to the fitness of players, I think in his short time at the club MON has also had to deal with quite a lot of injury problems. The difference is we now have a “team”, we play a fixed system and if one player drops out, the incoming player knows exactly what his job is. Players like Colback and Gardner were able to slot in comfortably at full back. Forgotten man Kilgallon was able to slot in the back four. When Catts and Vaughan dropped out Gardner and Colback again filled in. Turner came in and filled in for Brown. In each case the performance of the team was not affected, something that would have happened to a Steve Bruce side.
Absolutely spot on
That for me is the key difference. Bruce told his players to go out and win the game. O’Neill tells them HOW to win the game.
by michaelgraham on Feb 14, 2012 9:22 PM GMT up reply actions
This is why I don’t think Bruce would work at Wolves in the long term. If he gets a short term deal and keeps them up, I think he’ll get a longer contract. I think it is just because I want to see less experienced managers given a chance.
by SteveRoffeKTF on Feb 15, 2012 3:35 PM GMT up reply actions
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