Steve Bruce: “Newcastle was a greatly run club under Mike Ashley. We never had a lot of money to spent, we would spend exactly what the club generated & that wasn’t enough to be successful. It’s like when I managed Sunderland, I said: “In 10 years, people will look back & think I did an alright job”
by TheBiasedSportsLover
10 Comments
Niall Quinn had a choice between Steve Bruce and Roberto Mancini…
The funny thing about Ashley was he was incredibly cheap most of the time, but then would go on random massive spending splurges.
Spending £40m on Joelinton when he wouldn’t sack Bruce was funny.
Newcastle’s bleating about Ashley is one of footballs biggest and most insulting myths.
2 stints in the Championship, winning it at a canter both times, between years of Premier League stability. There isn’t a violin small enough.
The irony now being thar they have more money than they can shake a stick at but can’t spend it!
Does anyone even deny he did a pretty good job at Sunderland for 18 months?
Problem is he was sacked after nearly a full calender year of disastrous results after Bent left:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Sunderland_A.F.C._season](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Sunderland_A.F.C._season)
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Sunderland_A.F.C._season](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Sunderland_A.F.C._season)
Yet bizarrely he refuses to accept that he’d run out of ideas and keeps insisting he was sacked because he’s a Geordie. Weird prick.
Might be one of the very few things Newcastle and Sunderland fans can agree on – how much we hate Steve Bruce.
The problem is that “alright” is the extent of his ambition.
Every Newcastle player or staff that I’ve heard speak about Mike Ashley say he was brilliant to them. He didn’t invest enough into the club, that was the main issue. But he was and still is a great businessman. Steve Bruce was an average manager at best, he done an okay job at both Sunderland and Newcastle. Shouldn’t get any more praise than that.
Anyone who thinks we hated Ashley just because he didn’t spend enough on transfers is clueless.
Seen this below comment a few times but honestly it can’t be repeated enough for those who lap up this sort of nonsense Bruce comes out with.
Mike Ashley is hated by Newcastle fans for many valid reasons (Credit to u/xScottieHD for the bullet points)
• Sold Strawberry place on the cheap. One of the clubs very few options for expansion and development. New owners were forced to buy it back at a significantly higher cost last year.
• Academy left derelict will all the regions talent going elsewhere due to zero investment.
• Training ground easily the worst in the league and barely league one standard. Absolutely nothing invested in infrastructure.
• Stadium allowed to rot while plastered in Sports Direct advertisement for practically free. Catering forced to use old tables for hospitality cheese boards for example too.
• Treatment of legends such as Keegan and Shearer.
• Jonas Gutierrez kicked to the curb after his cancer diagnosis after he saved the club from relegation.
• 2 relegations of which hadn’t occurred prior in the Premier League era.
• Went from regular European qualifiers to scraping survival.
• Giving stupid contracts to managers and players (e.g. Pardew 8 years) (still affecting the club massively today).
• Allowed players such as Mitrovic & Toney to come through the club and leave while refused to sign players such as Bowen on the cheap.
• Jobs to his mates rather than to those qualified. Cockney Mafia.
• Commercial revenue decreased from £27.6m in 2007 to £26.5m in 2022 despite enormous growth of the PL and inflation. Revenues were on a par with Spurs when he bought the club, now nowhere near. Club is massively hamstrung today as a result.
• Average net spend of £9.3m per season. Couldn’t even manage a £1m Choudbury loan.
• Despite being some supposedly smart businessman he ended up selling the club at a very cheap price.
And honestly, all that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what a bad owner he was.
Never had the pleasure of eating a buttie at either Stadium of Light or St James’ Park, but how would each fanbase rate their respective bacon?