Steve Bruce - SAFC Blog

Steve Bruce on the surrender to Liverpool: we deserved nothing

March 20, 2011 by Colin Randall

One or two visitors to Salut! Sunderland have spectacularly misunderstood a headline saying “don’t blame” the officials as meaning do blame them. They also think there was some suggestion here that a strong team was beaten by an ordinary one.

All we’ve said is that we looked to be fielding a strong starting 11. And they played well enough until the penalty but never threatened Liverpool’s goal. I heard one partisan (ie pro-SAFC) commentator say Pepe Reina could have settled down for a cup of tea and sandwich, so underemployed was he. Liverpool looked poor, too, but were the better side. All acknowledged in the reports so far. So what did Steve Bruce, who must bear some responsibility for the awful excuse for football we presented from penalty onwards, make of it? He’s been writing to Monsieur Salut again …

Steve Bruce: hearts in mouths but point was earned

March 5, 2011 by Colin Randall

In his post-match e-mail from the Emirates. Steve Bruce gets it about right and salutes Danny Welbeck’s heartening return …

Dear Colin,

Our resilience was back, which was good to see. We needed a big performance because we let ourselves down at Everton last week.

Asamoah Gyan and the Loan Striker State

March 2, 2011 by Colin Randall

Image: addick-tedKevin

Steve Bruce has talked up the performances of Asamoah Gyan and, in particular, his adaptability to the role of solitary striker.

He makes it sound almost like something we’d planned all along.

2014: where will we be then, where are we now?

March 1, 2011 by Colin Randall

That’s the year when Steve Bruce’s newly extended contract runs out.

At a time when a painstakingly detailed report on the Sunderland business model has just appeared (see below), it is not impertinent to wonder aloud where he will be then, and indeed where SAFC will find themselves.

If Bruce does well, returning to where we left off before the present run of defeats began, the risk is that another club – if not a post-Fergie Manchester United, then someone else – will come in to lure him away.

Managers, like players, can change allegiance at the drop of a hat provided the hat contains enough dosh or professional promise (just as there is no such thing as loyalty from club to them).

And if the decline worsens and we end up, despite all that Ellis Short money we’ve spent, hovering just above the relegation zone in an incredibly tight division, or a prolonged slump extends into next season, that absence of loyalty from clubs to their staff could see Mr Bruce on his bike out of the place.

Steve Bruce on Everton nightmare: as bad as it gets

February 27, 2011 by Colin Randall

To say the season is beginning to crumble away would be an understatement, and Steve Bruce knows it. Second best …

Salut! Sunderland’s week: from Millwall and Everton to Billy Hughes

February 26, 2011 by Colin Randall

The latest of our occasional looks back at the week just gone, with links in case you missed items the first time round and want to explore further. Click on the titles to see the postings in full …

Bruce in: good news, but still points to prove (and get)

February 25, 2011 by Colin Randall

On a balance sheet detailing the pluses and minuses of his management of Sunderland, Steve Bruce is comfortably in the black.

So the SAFC decision to offer him a new contract, and his acceptance of it, should be welcomed by supporters.

Fabio Capello, Bent and Villa: a storm in a teacup?

February 15, 2011 by Colin Randall

Mark Freeman

Andy Humble, out in Oz, was among the first to raise it, deploring at Salut! Sunderland the reported comment of Fabio Capello to the effect that Darren Bent had improved his chances of playing for England by moving from Sunderland to Aston Villa.

Sixer’s Soapbox: Spurs add to an already cruel February

February 13, 2011 by Colin Randall

It may be a taxing time for Harry Redknapp, but Pete Sixsmith sees his Spurs team show Sunderland exactly what you need to be a Champions League team.

T S Eliot (not a renowned football fan) wrote that “April is the cruellest month”. For Sunderland fans, replace April with February and you have a truism if ever there was one.

February sorts out the teams who will and the teams who won’t. Go into March top of the League, be it FA Premier or Northern, and the chances are that you will finish the season there. Ditto at the bottom.

Hit a slump in February and you can wave goodbye to a top six finish – it happened in 2000 with 2 points out of 9 and again in 2001 with a similar return and with an FA Cup exit thrown in.

This year we have played three games in February and have lost all three. We have scored some good goals, played some neat and tidy football – and have defended like Stockport County on a bad day.

Steve Bruce: on not learning our lesson

February 13, 2011 by Colin Randall

Who’d be a defender? Forwards make mistakes, midfielders make mistakes, but when the defence is at fault, there’s no hiding. As a former defender, Steve Bruce had comments on our failures at the back that raise some interesting questions …