Steve Bruce - SAFC Blog

Bruce’s Banter: ‘disappointment’ over Newcastle defeat is not enough, Steve

August 20, 2011 by Colin Randall

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This was the day we wanted revenge for that humiliation – two humiliations really – of last season. Losing at home is always bad, and we did plenty of it last season. To lose at home after all the assertive pre-match talking up of our determination, our desire is worse. And to lose at home to Newcastle United, with an abject second half display that wouldn’t have threatened Hartlepool Reserves, is the stuff of despair. Steve Bruce e-mails us, and a few others, with his own post-debacle thoughts …

Dear Colin,

We’re massively disappointed.

The domination we had in the first half and the chances we created; we needed to score and take advantage of the opportunities we had and if you don’t score you don’t win a football match and we’ve been punished.

Bruce’s Banter: a ‘great’ display against Liverpool

August 13, 2011 by Colin Randall

In his first e-mail to M Salut of the season, Steve Bruce rightly praises a superb comeback from a start that made us look as if we were heading for a battering. Sess and Brown were outstanding but others put in terrific second-half displays, too, and Larsson’s equaliser was stunning. Many thanks to Stan Simpson, of the Durham branch of the SAFCSA, for magically producing my ticket …

Hibernian 0 SAFC 0: the phoney war’s over, now for Liverpool

August 6, 2011 by Colin Randall

So we end the pre-season build undefeated in Scotland and the North East, winless in Germany and Lancashire.

Without the slightest disrespect to York City, Kilmarnock, Hartlepool and Darlington, the four teams we have beaten in the friendlies, it is fair to assume Liverpool will present a somewhat tougher obstacle in the opening Premier League game at Anfield next Saturday.

Bruce upbeat on Borussia Monchengladbach and Germany: a ‘tough training camp’

July 24, 2011 by Colin Randall

The personal e-mails from Steve Bruce after each match have not yet resumed. When they do, we’ll find a collective name for them. Bruce’s Blarney is tempting; last season, there were times when some Salut! Sunderland readers may have thought Bruce’s Bluster would fit.

But it is useful, all the same, to see what the manager has to say, even if the e-mail (personal to me but also thousands of others) contains thoughts marshalled or massaged for circulation by a press officer. And today’s thoughts, after a 0-0 draw with Borussia Monchengladbach left us winless but with positives to draw from three friendlies in Germany, were demonstrably his own since he gave voice to them on SAFC TV.

Are we really content with 4-4-1-1?

July 22, 2011 by Colin Randall

Steve Bruce swore until blue in the face that he was right not to replace Darren Bent in January.

Salut! Sunderland was equally adamant that Bent should not have been allowed to go anywhere without a replacement – even a stopgap one – lined up. We allowed for the possibility that what Bruce took to calling a “calculated gamble” was not his choice, but thrust upon him by an owner thrilled to bits with the business aspect of Bent’s sale to Villa.

If he really was content to muddle through with one fit first-team striker, pinning hopes on the returns in due course of Danny Welbeck and Fraizer Campbell, then that stands, in my humble view, as his biggest error of the season.

All looking good as Blackpool’s David Vaughan officially signed

July 8, 2011 by Colin Randall

“I’m over the moon,” says our own Jeremy Robson, greeting news at the Blackcats list that David Vaughan’s transfer to Sunderland is official. “(Charlie) Adam got most of the attention for Blackpool last year but DV was outstanding.”

And now he’s one of ours. Ellis Short cannot even complain that Steve Bruce is spending too much of his money since this one is free, Vaughan being out of contract at Blackpool.

John O’Shea: our second Manchester United capture is official, too

July 7, 2011 by Colin Randall

Manchester - Old Trafford - Manchester United vs Crawley Town Image: Andrea Sartorati

We stuck to our guns and stayed patient. Then the official news came, from both the Manchester United and Sunderland club sites: John O’Shea had followed Wes Brown into the Stadium of Light and joined SAFC for another of those idiotic undisclosed fees.

This is how the announcement came from safc.com:

The 30 year-old Republic of Ireland international … has agreed a deal which will keep him at the Stadium of Light until summer 2015.
O’Shea, who becomes Sunderland’s eighth permanent senior signing of the summer transfer window, will link up with former Red Devils teammate Wes Brown, who also made the switch from Old Trafford.
Speaking following the completion of his move, O’Shea said: “Once I’d heard reports about the club and the people here, the ambitions and what the manager was all about it was the only place I was going to come to.”

Gardner and Dong-Won transfers: more news to welcome

July 1, 2011 by Colin Randall

Salut! Sunderland continues to be impressed by Steve Bruce’s close season shopping exploits.

We’d love to reproduce the photo of Bruce with one of the latest new signings, Craig Gardner, showing our acquisition from Birmingham City looking suspiciously like Niall Quinn. But we’ d only have the heavies from the Football Data Co down our throats if we did so you will have to go to the offical club site for that.

Soapbox: gold to Ipswich, welcome to Wickham

June 30, 2011 by Colin Randall

Does this amount to strikebreaking, a scabby edition of Soapbox? Pete Sixsmith is meant to be on strike. Truth is he couldn’t resist upping tools long enough to tell us he likes what he has seen so far in the close season transfer dealings …

Many years of my working life have been spent working with 18-year-olds. Some went on to be doctors and lawyers. One has produced a bestselling novel. Some went into the caring professions – nursing, social work, comforting Newcastle fans. And some hit the depths and became teachers. But I have never taught one with an £8m price tag around his neck or hers.

Bruce on ‘frustration’ for supporters, waiting for deals

June 18, 2011 by Colin Randall

Someone – Birflatt Boy – took us to task the other day for commenting on the Asamoah Gyan tranfer gossip in the Mirror, overlooking the fact that the reason for doing so was to put Alan Nixon, the author of the speculation, on the spot.

Nixon is now firmly on that spot. We shall see how the close season develops and remind him, if we can, of what he so confidently wrote (while also being ready to acknowledge the quality of his sources if he turns out to be right).