Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[ozzjim]

I hope you lot are right about the Gabby thing not being as it seems from Bruce, but I reckon he genuinely likes the cock socket. He should have been sacked last season, even Di Matteo understood that you can't do what he did last season and be considered.  The idiotic fan cheering at VP when comes on is equally nauseating.  He has been massively overpaid for many years while allowing himself to not be in any fit state to do his job and then shamed the club on more than one occasion when supposedly club captain. He seems to be hankering after a player that disappeared 5 years ago.

[oswald funkletrumpet]

Maybe Bruce is talking Gabby up to get some sort value for him in the hope of sale. Because I cannot imagine anybody actually wanting to spend money on him.

Agree with that

With his attiude and general shitness i cant see anyone being stupid enough to want him. I expect him to see his contract out and retire even though he has been retired for two seasons

[Bestmate]

Maybe Bruce is talking Gabby up to get some sort value for him in the hope of sale. Because I cannot imagine anybody actually wanting to spend money on him.

Agree with that

With his attiude and general shitness i cant see anyone being stupid enough to want him. I expect him to see his contract out and retire even though he has been retired for two seasons

Just out of interest  what did you think  of  his  performance  when  he came on  against  cardiff?

[oswald funkletrumpet]

Maybe Bruce is talking Gabby up to get some sort value for him in the hope of sale. Because I cannot imagine anybody actually wanting to spend money on him.

Agree with that

With his attiude and general shitness i cant see anyone being stupid enough to want him. I expect him to see his contract out and retire even though he has been retired for two seasons

Just out of interest  what did you think  of  his  performance  when  he came on  against  cardiff?

Havent watched it

Even if he did ok im not going to jizz my pants becuase he did alright in one game

its a bit like your missus shagging a different blokes ten nights running and on the eleventh night she is nice to you so that makes it ok

[Bestmate]

Maybe Bruce is talking Gabby up to get some sort value for him in the hope of sale. Because I cannot imagine anybody actually wanting to spend money on him.

Agree with that

With his attiude and general shitness i cant see anyone being stupid enough to want him. I expect him to see his contract out and retire even though he has been retired for two seasons

Just out of interest  what did you think  of  his  performance  when  he came on  against  cardiff?

Havent watched it

Even if he did ok im not going to jizz my pants becuase he did alright in one game

its a bit like your missus shagging a different blokes ten nights running and on the eleventh night she is nice to you so that makes it ok

My missus  told  me she  reckons  he could  do a decent  job till the  end  of the season !!

[Ads]

Gabby played well when he came on. Was unlucky not to score with that curling shot, it was a good save from the keeper.

[chrisw1]

Maybe Bruce is talking Gabby up to get some sort value for him in the hope of sale. Because I cannot imagine anybody actually wanting to spend money on him.

Agree with that

With his attiude and general shitness i cant see anyone being stupid enough to want him. I expect him to see his contract out and retire even though he has been retired for two seasons

Just out of interest  what did you think  of  his  performance  when  he came on  against  cardiff?

Havent watched it

Even if he did ok im not going to jizz my pants becuase he did alright in one game

its a bit like your missus shagging a different blokes ten nights running and on the eleventh night she is nice to you so that makes it ok

It's nothing like that. 

It's just about making a cold hard decision on whether he can help us get where we want to be.  If the vastly experienced manager who has been promoted from this league 5 times thinks he can, then so be it.  Personally I wouldn't play him (I won't mention lollipops again just in case Footy gets worked up), but we need to trust Bruce to make these calls I guess.

[sid1964]

Has anyone noticed if Bruce has started to grow a beard and started to mumble at press conferences yet, because if he thinks Gabby is the answer, then we are in serious trouble!

We go again.

[Villa Lew]

We've made the centre pages of the Mail on Sunday Sports section, well Brucie has.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4097964/Steve-Bruce-going-strong-40-years-football-ahead-Spurs-FA-Cup-tie-Aston-Villa-manager-recalls-ups-downs-48-hours-d-signed-Gareth-Bale-Wigan-wonder-d-hand-now.html

[fredm]

I think it is just a case of trying to get through January without having to bring in another striker when we will have two returning in February.  If he can get Gabby all enthusiastic to actually try and compete during the matches this month any money we have can then be spent upgrading the areas that urgently need attention - midfield - and not on an attacker who could well be surplus to requirements in 4 weeks time.

[aj2k77]

If we go through January with just Gabby and McCormacdonalds then we will be nowhere near the play offs by the end of it.

[supertom]

If we go through January with just Gabby and McCormacdonalds then we will be nowhere near the play offs by the end of it.

We'll be closer to the relegation zone to be honest. Two fat bastards aren't going to keep us within sight of the playoffs. Although even that illusive sixth place seems to be edging away from us again.

[berneboy]

From today's Sunday Times:

IT WAS eight o’clock in the morning and Steve Bruce’s car was pulling into the manager’s space at Bodymoor Heath training ground for the first time. A sullen figure, shoulders slumped, more than a stone overweight, was beating him to the entrance.

It was a senior pro and Bruce had already informed his firstteam squad that day one of the sixth managerial reign at Villa Park inside 18 months would not begin until two o’clock in the afternoon.

Bruce met his new staff and asked them what Gabby Agbonlahor was doing, skulking around so early in the morning.

“I said, ‘Why’s he in? We’re not in until two,’” reveals Bruce.

“The lads said he’s training with the 17 year olds. I said, ‘Go and tell him to train at 2 o’clock with the rest of the first team’. That was the first thing I did on my first morning. On that same first morning I spoke to him, I said, ‘Gabby, I’m not interested in what’s happened in the past [he had been pictured with a shisha pipe last April]. You’ve had problems. That is gone as far as I’m concerned. You know as well as I do you could be in better condition. I know you’ve been kicked.’


“He could have had his side of the argument, but he responded in a different way. He’s lost seven kilos. He looks like Gabby Agbonlahor again. If I can get him firing in the Championship he could be as good as any striker in it.”

There are no motivational slogans on Bruce’s office walls. There is a settee — which Tim Sherwood would lie upon — but the new manager insists that he hasn’t had the time to use it. There is a magnet board with players’ names on that has followed him wherever he has been in 17 years of management, but there are no pictures. “You’re never there long enough,” he says.

He quotes England’s all-conquering Australian rugby coach, Eddie Jones, and Dylan Hartley, guffaws at weekly fights in training and then exhales at the thought of travelling in the kind of luxury that Arsenal’s players will enjoy in their new Emirates aeroplane which was showcased last week.

He remains a mixture of old school and new thinking. If, more than anything, there is a reason for his longevity, then it perhaps lies in the warmth, the genuine spirit of a people person.

When Manchester United won their first domestic championship for 26 years, as Oldham beat Aston Villa way back in 1993 on a Sunday afternoon, the entire squad immediately, without invitation, headed to Bruce’s house. At six o’clock in the morning Bryan Robson was walking around the house tidying up empty beer cans.

At 56, Bruce looks a more complete manager, more at ease even. “Some respond with a stick, some respond with a bollocking, that ‘I’ll show you’, and some respond with an arm around the shoulder,” he says.

“It’s a different world we live in and football is not the same as it was 20 years ago. I never thought that I would be saying that. Players are different today. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know.

“This old school Aussie has walked in at England and he’s not lost a game. He brings back Dylan Hartley, who is all passion and spirit and of course does a few things wrong, but he’s identified him as a leader. Some would say he’s trouble but it was a wonderful piece of management.

“I heard him the other day saying that the old ways were maybe the best, but what he believes in now is that you need to have a mixture. You can’t go back to being a dinosaur. It has changed. Society has changed. The world changes and a football manager changes too.

“Players are a little bit more precious than they used to be. Some of the stuff that we used to get up to, it would be mind blowing. Two or three would be done for GBH in games for a start. There was a fight every week in training.”

For too long Villa brought in players just for the sake of it. I will not do that
There is a smile and a fond memory from the past, but Bruce has not stayed there.

He excelled at Hull but still quit following promotion back to the Premier League. It remains a politically destructive football club.

Aston Villa came calling when they were careering towards a second relegation in two years. A European Cup winner was heading to League One when Bruce received the nod. More Red Adair. There have been seven wins in 14 games since then. It is seven points to the playoffs and 11 to the abyss. Bruce did not worry about egos when he took over at Villa Park.

“Let’s be fair, four wins in 50-odd games [Villa’s record before he arrived at the club] — if you’ve got an ego that certainly dented it,” he chuckles. “They needed help. They needed a bit of confidence and a bit of belief back. On the whole they’ve done very well for me. I said to all of them, ‘You have a chance.’

“I won’t just bring in players, but if there are players who can improve us I will. Too long in the past they’ve just brought in players here for the sake of it. I’m not trying to belittle anybody. But we have to improve the squad rather than just add to it.

“For the rest of the squad the message is simple — I’m here to do one thing, get us promoted. You can come with me and do it my way and it’s not easy, but I think that I know what it takes to get out of the Championship.”

First comes Tottenham in the FA Cup at White Hart Lane, one of the ties of the round, and Bruce is an admirer of what Mauricio Pochettino has achieved there. “Tottenham are one of my favourite teams now, I have to say,” he adds. “They’re fabulous and five or six of them are English, which is great. It’s a really difficult game for us. This is the best Tottenham team I’ve seen in my 30 or 40 years in the game. They’ve had individuals but never a team like this. Pochettino has done a great job, and he did at Southampton as well.

“Maybe they were too young last year for the title but they were really close and now they’re a year older. I just watched in awe, they are fit and energetic.

“On Sunday, wow, the most difficult tie anyone could have. Can we go and produce a performance? Can we go and play? Can we go and cause an upset? Let’s go and have a crack at it.”

At the head of the Aston Villa attack will be Agbonlahor. “He has done everything he can to get himself in good condition,” says Bruce.

“It’s his turn. People are away. It’s Gabby Agbonlahor. He has played 300 times in the big league and he has scored 80 goals. And he has only just turned 30. He’s made a few mistakes, but I’ve wiped that slate clean for him. We threw him a

[CJ]

I'm intrigued to find out what we threw at Agbonlahor. A set of scales? A diet book?

[Dave]

I'm intrigued to find out what we threw at Agbonlahor. A set of scales? A diet book?

"We threw him an all-you-can-eat barbecue to celebrate"