The Robson Report: Hull hath no fury like Steve Bruce scorned

By now, you would think, any football reporter who rushed excitedly up to the sports editor and exclaimed ‘I have a great interview with Steve Bruce about how unfair life is’ would be demoted to covering junior rounders. Not so. Jeremy Robson notes that Bruce’s mantra, ‘how I was sacked for being a Geordie’ with a re-run of that other whopper that ignorance of the world of the web also did for him, is bizarrely still seen as news …

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Steve Bruce, Spurs and Hull City. And the challenge of supporting England

Jake's way of looking back on a Salut! week

You can only guess at Steve Bruce’s thoughts as a string of modest Premier League posts sailed into view only to vanish beyond the horizon of his employability. Having downsized his ambitions and taken the Hull City job, what did he then think when the higher profile Spurs managership became available? You can also wonder at the thoughts of earnest BBC bigwigs at a loss for something dramatic to pull on the eve of Euro 2012. Two Salut! Sunderland writers placed themselves in the relevant minds …

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Sunderland Review of the Season: (4) a mixed start to O’Neill era

Sixer by Jake

This season, Monsieur Salut has decided not to offer his own end-of-season report. Not because he felt so demotivated at the end of it, though he did, but because it is not really fair to make such an appraisal on too few games attended and the rest followed by a combination of consistently admirable coverage by Nick Barnes and Gary Bennett for BBC Radio Newcastle (heard via the SAFC club site), lamentable stop-start internet streams – Jake did point the way, late in the season, to a slightly more reliable link but even that failed on the final day – and even, once or twice, Pete Sixsmith‘s text messages.

Pete, you see, was at every game; his accounts for these pages were a mixture of superb football analaysis and eloquent travelogue, but also of hope and despair. His commitment reached a level unseen from most of the squad at the back end of the season and his words were a pleasure to handle. Here, to end Salut! Sunderland‘s 2012 series of reviews, is his verdict …

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A prescription for Steve Bruce: take your medicine and lie down

Steve Bruce enjoyed prolonged support from Salut! Sunderland, not from every one of its writers but from the two most closely associated with it. We showed patience and understanding; we also set a deadline. It was reached with Sunderland AFC in a calamitous position, contrary to what Bruce argues now while claiming with more reason that the squad doing so well under Martin O’Neill is his squad. His retreat in recent weeks into autowhinge mode is presumably designed to boost the cv; it has begun to seem unedifying and absurd. Pete Sixsmith makes a similar point in his own way …

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Sweeney’s Cut: is Arsène Wenger the new Bruce?

Eric, flanked by friend and brother

Monsieur Salut is an unashamed admirer of Arsène Wenger’s. But Eric Sweeney, an occasional additional voice at Salut! Sunderland, combines appreciation for the job Martin O’Neill is doing at Sunderland with serious misgivings about yesterday’s once-mighty opposition …

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Bruce, bitterness and moving on

A penny for Steve Bruce’s thoughts? Given the probable size of our former manager’s pay-off, and the likelihood that discretion on his part was one of its conditions, a penny would not go very far.

But it is tempting all the same to imagine what must be going through his head as he reflects on his own demise as Sunderland manager and watches the exuberance and renewed hope that have accompanied the earliest days of the Martin O’Neill era.

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Luke’s World: Sunderland set an example Blackburn may follow

Salut! Sunderland is always open to new writers. Hilary Fawcett’s marvellous account of her twin obsessions with SAFC and Bob Dylan has won deserved acclaim. Now Luke Harvey, absent from these pages for too long, returns with a reflections on Steve Bruce’s demise – and how one game summed up a second club’s need for change …

Martin O’Neill’s start as Sunderland manager ultimately ended in triumph, and he was given a good, up-close look at his predecessor’s legacy.

That’s not to say MON has inherited only negative aspects from Steve Bruce even if recent weeks on Wearside might have made that look the case. Bruce did leave our new manager a team of unified and hard working professionals, something David Vaughan and Sebastian Larsson reinforced with their goals.

It would be folly and rather disrespectful to think Bruce did not care about our team. Even against his former employers – Wigan – in what turned out to be his last game in charge, you could see he wanted to win just as badly as we, the fans, did.

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Martin O’Neill, Box Fox and being a winner at 59

A few nights ago, I had after-show drinks with a Sunderland supporter who has recently taken over the role of Songman in the highly – and deservedly – popular West End production War Horse.

Bob Fox is someone I know well from my folk music pursuits. He is, like the new manager at the Stadium of Light, 59.

By the time our date in the pub came around, it was already football’s worst-kept secret that Martin O’Neill would get the job vacated by Steve Bruce. I hoped I might receive a text during the show confirming the appointment so that I could pass on the news.

In the event, the waiting went on a little longer and it was Saturday before the official announcement was made.

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Bruce’s Banter silenced, let’s hear it for O’Neill On Us


Welcome Martin O’Neill. The new manager of Sunderland AFC takes charge with an enormous fund of goodwill from, at a guess, the overwhelming majority of supporters. As results continued to disappoint, Steve Bruce’s post-match e-mails became one of the rods with which he was beaten. Bruce’s Banter has been seen here for the last time. We must wait to see whether O’Neill On Us* – look on it as O’Neill’s Onus if you prefer – is as regular a feature …

So, the new managerial reign begins with the briefest of statements from the incoming boss.

“It’s a very nice feeling to be back in football and to be the manager of Sunderland. It’s a big moment for me. I’d heard about what a good club it was but coming here, seeing the stadium and training ground, I’ve been bowled over. It’s absolutely fantastic.

I hope I can help Sunderland to very successful period. That’s what I’ve come for and that’s my driving ambition.”

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