Thoughts on Steve Bruce as he returns with the Magpies | Vital Football

Thoughts on Steve Bruce as he returns with the Magpies

He's probably a great guy to have a few pints with but as a football manager I really do not like him. His style is absolutely horrible to watch and he has a nasty habit of turning on fanbases when times get tough. He tried to split the fans here and he's doing the same at Newcastle.

I also think his 'steadying of the ship' is overstated. He left us as a bottom half club and Smith worked a minor miracle to get us promoted that season.
 
I still like him. Always will.

We were a sinking ship. We'd tried countless managers and owners but were heading down down down, bit by bit, month by month. Lots tried and failed to restore us, but Brucie managed to turn the good ship Villa around and get us heading in the right direction again.

I don't really buy into all this Bruce-ball, Dinosaur nonsense. We were top goalscorers by a long way the one season in the Championship and I thought in general pretty exciting to watch.

Having said all that his time had probably come and we've seemingly moved on to the next level without him so it's all worked out well, but I'll always remember him fondly for turning this club around and getting us competing again.
 
I thought he would get us up but I wouldn't have wanted to keep him had we got promoted. He's far from the worst of the carousel managers (Allardyce, Hughes, Pardew etc) and he's a respectable man, but he's not a great tactician, his style is outdated by at least a decade, and he will never, nor is expected to by any of the clubs he manages, win anything of note.

He's such a journeyman that I could nearly forget he managed us. I don't associate him with Villa at all, and I certainly don't have any feelings of hate. I used to "hate" him a couple of decades ago because he turned Birmingham into a half decent side, but I must admit I enjoyed the rivalry at the time and considered him a solid manager.
 
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I don't think we'd be where we are now without him, put it that way. Had we made another Lambert/Garde/Di Matteo/Sherwood appointment at the time Bruce was hired I think we'd be in a really really bad place now.

It's all if's and but's but that's my strong belief. We were 1 more bad appointment away from disaster.
 
I don't think he deserves hate, very few managers do. But I don't think he deserves the "saved the club" accolade either. We were having difficulties adjusting to the Championship, many relegated clubs do, but I reckon we'd have turned it around anyway. I hoped he'd succeed in spite of knowing his record, but ultimately he wasn't the one to take us forward.
 
He's probably a great guy to have a few pints with but as a football manager I really do not like him. His style is absolutely horrible to watch and he has a nasty habit of turning on fanbases when times get tough. He tried to split the fans here and he's doing the same at Newcastle.

I also think his 'steadying of the ship' is overstated. He left us as a bottom half club and Smith worked a minor miracle to get us promoted that season.
sumof his transfers were bloody rubbish Lansbury Taylor im sure we could have got a better left back at the time wasted money really part from McGinn
 
I have a great respect for what Bruce did for us and he always seemed like a nice guy who was happy to be here and didn’t see us a stepping stone or a step down etc

Unfortunately he got stale with us, it happens to all managers after a while. When he took over we needed a back to basics manager to sort us out, but thankfully he revived us to the point where we needed someone who was prepared to unleash our potential up the league rather than just providing stability. He also had a terrible personal tragedy and combined with the wheels coming off the bus financially / with the owner it’s no surprise things went south after the play off season.
 
As manager he’s solid enough but he doesn’t have the extra bit of quality, even in the championship. He’s always playoffs and thereabouts or in the bottom 8 or so and playing within limitations in the Prem. With the team we had we should easily have been top 2. There were games when the players looked like they had no idea.

I thought he was ok at the time but come the period he was sacked his time was clearly up and we needed better that he could deliver.

If fans were allowed in and he comes back as opposing manager I would give him a decent reception. Decent football man who gave his best at a difficult time for him personally but just not quite good enough.
 
Nice bloke who did a decent job for us , but some of the football I saw us play at times was absolutely dreadful.

I think he should have quit after the Fulham game , he looked dreadful healthwise and must have needed a break after what he had gone through with his parents. I wish he would pack up now as well. He doesn't look after himself and the pressure of that job can't be helping him.
 
I don't think we'd be where we are now without him, put it that way. Had we made another Lambert/Garde/Di Matteo/Sherwood appointment at the time Bruce was hired I think we'd be in a really really bad place now.

It's all if's and but's but that's my strong belief. We were 1 more bad appointment away from disaster.
I thought we were already in a disaster. We'd been in a disaster since Houllier left. Smith's appointment marked the turning point for me.
 
No need for hate, he did the job as best he could. When he came in I genuinely thought we were heading for another relegation scrap. He quickly turned things around and built a strong morale within the squad. On his first game in charge we had just slipped into the bottom 3 due to other results earlier that day, so getting us to 4th spot that season was a decent achievement for me.
Unfortunately we didn't really turn up at Wembley and he needs to shoulder the blame for poor tactics that day. Overall the football was boring and when you aren't winning people start getting disgruntled with that.
Its all in the past now and the club is still on the right track it seems, with a manager who is performing way above my expectations of him
 
What people do seem to forget is just how toxic the club was when he took over. From top to bottom, from board room, to manager, to players to fans, everyone hated everyone else. It was awful.

He turned that around. He brought in the likes of Terry and Snodgrass who completely revitalised the dressing room. The fans got back on board again and the club and fans all seemed to be pulling in the same direction again.

I do however acknowledge that by the end it had gone pretty much full circle and the atmosphere was getting toxic towards him again. In hindsight he probably stayed 6 months too long, but credit to him for not walking when both his parents died.
 
Didn't like him before, didn't like him when he was our manager and I don't like him now. The credit he gets for "turning the ship around" has always baffled me. He managed to get the most expensive squad in the history of second tier football mid table after a bad start. Woo hoo.

Then he takes a squad that should piss promotion and finishes 4th then bottles the play off final. I won't go into the following season as he'd fallen apart by then so it's probably unfair to judge him as he clearly wasn't in the right frame of mind.

As far as I'm concerned he coasted on his reputation and relied entirely on luck and the odd bit of magic from the likes of Jack, Adomah, Snodgrass and the like. If we didn't get that we were stuck.

I know lots of Villa fans like and rate him. I don't understand why but its all about opinions. As far as I'm concerned Dean Smith got us back to being Aston Villa.
 
Steve, did the job that was required at the Villa when he arrived. That mainly was to stop us doing a Sunderland and disappearing without trace. There were a few things that conspired to his demise and he left not a moment too soon for the Villa and him. I could never hate anyone who works or plays for the Villa and he deserves at least a bit of respect for what he did at the time.
 
I don't bear any grudges about Brucie. He did an okay job for us, arrested our descent into oblivion but disappointed in terms of getting us up.

However I really don't rate him as a coach/ manager. He is very agricultural and basic in terms of approach, and I don't like his repeated theme of shouting 'fans panic/ no crisis here' etc, and getting his media chums to big him up when things get difficult.

The thing I like about Dean (this season at least) is that he has been very honest post match and calls the games as most of us see them.
 
What people do seem to forget is just how toxic the club was when he took over. From top to bottom, from board room, to manager, to players to fans, everyone hated everyone else. It was awful.

He turned that around. He brought in the likes of Terry and Snodgrass who completely revitalised the dressing room. The fans got back on board again and the club and fans all seemed to be pulling in the same direction again.

I do however acknowledge that by the end it had gone pretty much full circle and the atmosphere was getting toxic towards him again. In hindsight he probably stayed 6 months too long, but credit to him for not walking when both his parents died.
There was an air of toxicity at the point of him leaving though and a lot of that was driven by him directly.

I think it's fair to say he did something approaching a decent job in some ways but he undone a hell of a lot of his work during his final season (or what he was around for).