Steve Bruce - officially confirmed (as Sheffield Wednesday boss)

[sickbeggar]

I'm still of the opinion that he had a mini-breakdown over the summer. Only thing that really explains the squad we started off the season with, and then all the really strange (for him) team selections. He certainly seemed to lose any spark he had in his interviews last season. Probably should have walked in May for his own good in hindsight - all that personal stuff and us in crisis can't have done him any good.

[Risso]

A melenoma is only serious if not caught early enough and it spreads.  If it is caught early enough, it's just a case of removing it and then monitoring the patient.  My mum had it a few years ago, luckily at the early stage, and with no ill effects since.

[SoccerHQ]

A melenoma is only serious if not caught early enough and it spreads.  If it is caught early enough, it's just a case of removing it and then monitoring the patient.  My mum had it a few years ago, luckily at the early stage, and with no ill effects since.

Yep must've been the case thankfully otherwise no way could he just continue weekly.

I did wonder if his sudden resignation at Hull just before the season started in 2016 and taking a few months off would've been the period he had the illness but article states last year so obviously not.

Regular testing from working in sport has obviously helped here.

[Villan For Life]

I'm still of the opinion that he had a mini-breakdown over the summer. Only thing that really explains the squad we started off the season with, and then all the really strange (for him) team selections. He certainly seemed to lose any spark he had in his interviews last season. Probably should have walked in May for his own good in hindsight - all that personal stuff and us in crisis can't have done him any good.

I think the squad that we started the season with was as a result of the near collapse of our club last summer and not as a result of Bruce's mental or physical health.

The fact that he carried on and turned up for training having suffered the loss of his parents and also the diagnosis of a serious disease shows the kind of bloke he is. He has his limitations as a manager but I respect him for getting on with things last year when others may well have buckled under the strain. He's a man whose integrity and commitment I admire and I wish him well, apart from when his new club plays us.

[sickbeggar]

I'm still of the opinion that he had a mini-breakdown over the summer. Only thing that really explains the squad we started off the season with, and then all the really strange (for him) team selections. He certainly seemed to lose any spark he had in his interviews last season. Probably should have walked in May for his own good in hindsight - all that personal stuff and us in crisis can't have done him any good.

I think the squad that we started the season with was as a result of the near collapse of our club last summer and not as a result of Bruce's mental or physical health.

The fact that he carried on and turned up for training having suffered the loss of his parents and also the diagnosis of a serious disease shows the kind of bloke he is. He has his limitations as a manager but I respect him for getting on with things last year when others may well have buckled under the strain. He's a man whose integrity and commitment I admire and I wish him well, apart from when his new club plays us.

Hmmm, maybe but there obviously was money available with buying McGinn, the loans and the aborted left-back move. Smith managed to bring in 2 defenders with no money, while Bruce thought we'd play the season with jedinak at centre-half, Tuanzebe at right-back, elphick on loan etc.. To me given his reputation, it was very odd behaviour and out of character for him.

[chrisw1]

I'm still of the opinion that he had a mini-breakdown over the summer. Only thing that really explains the squad we started off the season with, and then all the really strange (for him) team selections. He certainly seemed to lose any spark he had in his interviews last season. Probably should have walked in May for his own good in hindsight - all that personal stuff and us in crisis can't have done him any good.

I think the squad that we started the season with was as a result of the near collapse of our club last summer and not as a result of Bruce's mental or physical health.

The fact that he carried on and turned up for training having suffered the loss of his parents and also the diagnosis of a serious disease shows the kind of bloke he is. He has his limitations as a manager but I respect him for getting on with things last year when others may well have buckled under the strain. He's a man whose integrity and commitment I admire and I wish him well, apart from when his new club plays us.

Hmmm, maybe but there obviously was money available with buying McGinn, the loans and the aborted left-back move. Smith managed to bring in 2 defenders with no money, while Bruce thought we'd play the season with jedinak at centre-half, Tuanzebe at right-back, elphick on loan etc.. To me given his reputation, it was very odd behaviour and out of character for him.

Come off it, we tried to get a centre half and left back and they both fell through.  That's not Bruce's fault.  He can of course be blamed for inexplicably sanctioning the Elphick loan but not really for two deals falling through at the death.

[sickbeggar]

Well if Smith can get 2 defenders in January and all the limited options available in mid-season, then Bruce should have managed at least one in 4 months whether some deals fell through or not.  And Jedinak? He was quite clearly not a centre-half and Bruce just persisted and persisted with him. The whole defensive set-up was something you'd never expect from Bruce in a million years. You can throw a lot of things at his style of management, but putting out a complete car-crash of a defence isn't usually one of them.

[Diablo]

A bare-bones honesty interview about the last 12 months in the Telegraph today, not a subscriber so carnt read it but maybe you can: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/03/03/exclusive-interview-steve-bruce-calls-past-12-months-worst-year/amp/

Any chance a kind person who can access this could cut and paste it?

[chrisw1]

The point is neither Smith nor Bruce actually negotiate the transfers.  So the signing / failure to sign players is not necessarily their fault.  And they didn't have 4 months.  Most of that was us wondering whether we'd survive, not negotiating acquisitions.

The decision to loan Elphick out and playing Jedi at centre back was of course down to Bruce and for that the criticism is reasonable, although arguably he wouldn't have had to do the latter if we'd got the targets in.

[sickbeggar]

The point is neither Smith nor Bruce actually negotiate the transfers.  So the signing / failure to sign players is not necessarily their fault.  And they didn't have 4 months.  Most of that was us wondering whether we'd survive, not negotiating acquisitions.

The decision to loan Elphick out and playing Jedi at centre back was of course down to Bruce and for that the criticism is reasonable, although arguably he wouldn't have had to do the latter if we'd got the targets in.

Think we'll have to agree to disagree. There was obviously finance available with 7 players coming in and missing out on others. Bruce was  closely involved in transfer dealings judging by the Bryan fiasco and the priority was to sort out the defence first - you can go into a season without a Bolasie or an el ghazi, no back 4 is more of a problem. Then to compound it with his mental team selections and sending the only other centre half out on loan, well to me it shows he probably wasn't thinking clearly.

[Risso]

You can see most of Steve Bruce’s scars, the broken nose, the gash above his eye, but it is the ones buried deep inside that make their way to the surface as he reflects ahead of his first Steel City derby as Sheffield Wednesday manager.This is Bruce raw and uncut – on the trauma of losing both his parents and his job as Aston Villa manager last year, and of being diagnosed with cancer.
[/color]He talks of the “guilt” he feels about “not spending more time with my parents because I was consumed by my job”, how he still “reaches for his phone every day to call my dad... the grief that consumes me every time”.
[/color]He speaks about his wife, Jan, and the “heroic” role she played in looking after his mother, following a severe stroke. But also how, without her, he would have walked away from football years ago.
[/color]“When I heard the word ‘cancer’, I was in bits,” he admits. “I panicked, I think everyone does, it was very scary, horrible. Thankfully, the melanoma does not appear to have spread. They’ll continue to monitor me, I’ve got scars on my face, on my back. Good thing I was never worried about my good looks...”
[/color]Bruce describes the past 12 months as “the worst year of my life”. But the meeting on Sunday night with Sheffield United, the club where he embarked on life as a manager 21 years ago, sparks other memories.


[/color]Steve Bruce (second right) begins his managerial career at Sheffield United CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES[/color]“I began my managerial career in Sheffield and it might come to an end in this city too,” Bruce said, at his desk, where a laminated match file, emblazoned with the opponents’ club crest, takes pride of place. “If I’m here in four years, things will have gone well. That might be it. In four years, I’ll be 62. I played almost 1,000 games as a player and I’m approaching 1,000 as a manager. That’s pretty impressive.
[/color]“Every time I took another job, my dad would ask, ‘Why are you putting yourself through it again, haven’t you got enough money?’
[/color]“I wish I’d spent more time with them, I think anyone who loses their parents will understand that, but I also know what he would have said. ‘You crack on Steve, get on with it, son’.
[/color]“Geordies get up every day, they go to work, they put a shift in. That’s what my dad taught me, but I still have that guilt... I miss them both terribly.”
[/color]Bruce, though, has a derby to prepare for. United are third in the table, pushing for automatic promotion, but Wednesday are unbeaten in six games since Bruce took control and could still make the play-offs. “I was player-manager at Sheffield United,” Bruce said. “I played my last ever game for them. It was terrible. We lost 4-1, I think to Sunderland. Fancy that, a Geordie, being forced to retire because of a defeat to Sunderland.


[/color]“I got a bit of stick off Dean Saunders. I tried to have a go at them after the game and he said, ‘You weren’t any better’.
[/color]“You can’t manage the team, give out a bollocking. I can remember them looking at me in the dressing room and I could tell they were thinking, ‘You were f---ing awful, Steve’. That was it in a nutshell.
[/color]“I’ll be forever grateful to Sheffield United. It was my first manager’s job and it was a steep learning curve. I only lasted 12 months, it was a quick and brutal introduction.
[/color]“I can remember, we were playing Bristol City and I could hear Dean Saunders whistling coming down the stairs carrying his bag. I said, ‘Dean, where are you going?’
[/color]“He said, ‘Has nobody told you? I signed for Benfica an hour ago. I’m on the 3.30 from Heathrow’. That was three hours before kick-off. What it taught me was, what I’d done as a player, it meant nothing. I was Steve Bruce, Manchester United captain, but nobody gave a s---.”
[/color]Then, in 1999, came an offer from Huddersfield, an initially positive experience that eventually led Bruce down a dark path into depression.
[/color]“I got the sack after 18 months. That was the moment where everything came crashing down. We sold our centre-forward, Marcus Stewart, with 12 games to go. We were second in the table. In Huddersfield, they still think it was me, but why would I sell my centre-forward? It was the owner – we didn’t even make the play-offs.


[/color]Steve Bruce (left) as Huddersfield Town manager CREDIT: ACTION IMAGES[/color]“We’d had a positive 10 months, but it drifted away. We lost to Grimsby and I got the sack. It was then that everything hurt. Management back then was just a substitute for playing. I just wanted to stay in the game. I thought I had something to offer. But after Huddersfield, it hit me hard. I became a recluse; miserable, bitter. Thankfully, I was having a bit of work done on my house, so I put my boots on and I got stuck into labouring. It kept me sane.
[/color]“I disappeared. I didn’t even watch much football. Jan, my wife, forced me out of the house on my 40th birthday to go to a game. When I got back, the kids were all dressed up, she was all dressed up. She’d organised a surprise party, but I didn’t want to go. I was that bad. That was the low point...
[/color]“I’ve seen that happen to so many players. You’re institutionalised and you come to the end and it’s brutal. I’ve had a conversation with Alan Shearer about it. He had the same. Niall Quinn was another one. That six months after losing my job at Huddersfield, I was in a downward spiral. Jan was brilliant, a rock.”
[/color]Had it not been for a surprise short-term offer from Wigan in 2001, Bruce admits he may not have returned and gone on to have success at Birmingham City, Wigan, Sunderland and Hull City.
[/color]“Working for Dave Whelan at Wigan, he was so positive, so helpful,” Bruce said. “It ignited something over those seven games. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I almost gave up. To have had the career I’ve had since, well, I’m proud of that for more reasons than I’ve admitted before. So, when I took my break after my operations, I knew I’d come back. I just didn’t think it would be this quickly.
[/color]“I want to get Wednesday back into the Premier League. I’ve taken this  job because I believe I can get them back there. It excites me. I like the owner. It felt right and I know exactly what my dad would have said if I told him that.”

[Risso]

Apologies for the formatting etc.

[Rigadon]

A bare-bones honesty interview about the last 12 months in the Telegraph today, not a subscriber so carnt read it but maybe you can: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/03/03/exclusive-interview-steve-bruce-calls-past-12-months-worst-year/amp/

Any chance a kind person who can access this could cut and paste it?

The Birmingham Mail probably already has

[wittonwarrior]

First of all I do not subscribe to any of the distaste for Steve Bruce and think overall he did really well up to the play off final and his clear mistakes afterwards into the start of this season

One thing he does very well is his handling of the media.   I lost both my parents in the space of 12 months in 2017/2018 but picked myself up and got on with life.   Bruce however seems to use loose veil
Reasons why not everything went hunnydori for him - there is no need !  There are a hundred and one reasons why we failed as a club, yes you were contributory but so were many more.

But please Steve Bruce don’t start playing the card game it’s not fair to victims who suffer with serious illnesses physical, psychological or without funds to seek private help

[Diablo]

Apologies for the formatting etc.

Thanks for posting the interview.