Sports

Steve Bruce offers management from the 1980s – his Newcastle appointment makes me angry


Steve Bruce’s appointment by Newcastle United makes me angry on behalf of every young coach out there.

He’s not going to bring excitement or imagination, and he’s not going to bring fresh, young signings to Tyneside, so what the hell is he doing there?

It’s analogue football in a digital age for the Geordies under Bruce.

And I have had to wonder these past few days what Toon owner Mike Ashley thinks his new boss has done at Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday, however short a time he has been at Hillsborough, to warrant a crack at St James’ Park.

Bruce’s win-ratio is distinctly ­average at best.

Steve Bruce has been appointed the new manager of Newcastle

Younger managers such as Macclesfield’s Sol Campbell must be wondering what they must do to get a chance at a big club, ahead of the usual suspects like Bruce, Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Ashley is determined to keep finding ways of flicking V-signs at the Toon Army.

But surely there has to be more for him at Newcastle than that?

Surely he and managing director Lee Charnley must have thought somewhere along the line that a younger, fresher, hungrier appointment would have at least had Toon fans thinking, ‘We’re trying to push ­forward and give someone with new ideas an chance’ in the wake of Rafa Benitez’s sudden departure?

Ashley and Charnley missed the chance to appoint a young and hungry manager

We can all see that football has changed in that fans of every club want to see the game played a particular way.

That way is front-foot, attacking football that gets supporters off their seats. There are a lot of changes in the game that I don’t like but this one I do.

Last week, I was at Liverpool’s training ground to interview Jurgen Klopp for my new podcast and we talked about his philosophy of putting out teams he himself would like to watch.

I wonder if Bruce would really like to watch the teams he puts out? I’d suggest the answer is no.

Instead, he’ll look to play football that keeps Newcastle safely in the Premier League, and that shocks me given he played for one of the greatest and most exciting club teams there has been, under Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

Bruce on the training ground after taking over at Newcastle

The football Bruce serves up is not what ­people spend their hard-earned ­money to watch.

These days, fans are far more accepting of their club yo-yoing ­between the divisions if they are at least trying to play football that is good to watch rather than the turgid fare so many supporters have had to sit through over the past few years.

Look at Fulham. Yes, they were relegated from the Premier League last season with just 26 points, but at least they had a go under Slavisa Jokanovic and had played ­exciting football to get promoted.

Daniel Farke has been a breath of fresh air at Norwich and they have been rewarded with promotion to the top flight too all thanks to good ­management and inspired signings.

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I’d imagine Bruce will recruit players he knows he can trust not to fail – and that in itself is failure. It’s 1980s football.

Newcastle is like a rotting corpse and if I was a fan I’d think ‘stuff this’.

It’s almost like Ashley has looked at it and thought, ‘What appointment can we make to most upset our supporters?’

While Bruce will probably keep Newcastle up, it won’t be pretty.

And for £500 or £600 a season, pretty football is the very least fans should be able to expect.





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