After seeing much criticism of our fanbase around our dissatisfaction with Steve Bruce and then witnessing a recent post-match interview with him where he claimed that the players simply weren’t “Playing well enough”, I decided to have a look at his previous post-match interviews.
Watching through them, I have found a worrying trend of excuses, references to luck and a constant commentary on how hard his job is.
While I can sympathise and agree with some of his comments and also recognise that managers are in a high pressure job in which things occur that they sometimes can’t control, I was very concerned with the lack of culpability from Bruce whenever something wrong happened.
I have tried to be as fair and consistent with my annotations of Bruce’s interviews and have cut media that doesn’t have relevance to my point (interviewer questions about specific players etc.)
In the interest of further fairness, I have only included one interview from each match as I’m sure he would probably repeat himself (as all managers do) in a different interview about the same match.
As already mentioned, some of excuses are valid but I have still listed them for consistency sake.
I have worked hard at this and you may find that you disagree with some of my interpretations and comments but I hope that this shows at least one thing – Everything hasn’t been fine and dandy under Bruce:
It is definitely a possibility that my maths has gone wrong at some point but this is my count for some of Steve Bruce’s go-to interview phrases and techniques for the first half of his first season in charge:
- Excuses = 52
- Disappointment = 18
- Difficulty = 40
- Fortune = 14
What needs to be remembered is that these numbers come from just 20 Premier League post-match interviews. I am certain that if you were to look at his pre-match interviews, programme notes etc. you would find even more of the same.
Words are important and what Steve Bruce is saying tells us a lot about how he is handling our football club.
I genuinely believe that he would struggle to explain any real tactical reason that we lost, won and drew the games that we did based off what I have witnessed him saying in interviews.
This video was just a snapshot of what Newcastle fans have to contend with under his management.
Mike Ashley definitely is the major problem with the long term survival of Newcastle Football Club, but Steve Bruce is an immediate threat.
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Jesus wept! When I was working towards my degree, we had a fellow student who yearned to be an English teacher. She looked the part, all big beads and floaty frocks and the voice. Only a couple of things stood in her way. She had neither the apptitude nor the ability. When caught out, she’d cry and say “Oh, I but I tried my best. Surely, I deserve a second chance/more time/ some help?” and nine times out of ten, that’s what she got. Bruce reminds me of her. Clueless, hapless and feckless, he has nonetheless bumbled his way from one club to the next, never changing his script, always giving the same wooden,below par, performance yet, incredulously, being taken seriously (by those who should know better) as a credible football club manager. For 20 years he has taken a wage to which he is not entitled but is allowed to prosper because no-one has the chutzpa to say “No! You really can’t do it.”
Lindsay Wilkinson(Quote)