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Opinion

I thought I couldn’t despise Steve Bruce more, then he said this on Friday…

3 years ago
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It was only one word but no doubt Steve Bruce really meant it.

Friday seeing the Newcastle United Head Coach quizzed by the media ahead of the visit on Saturday to Aston Villa.

Steve Bruce and his players going into the game on an abysmal run of nine games without a win, plus scoring only one goal in almost twelve hours of the most recent NUFC football.

Most of the media interaction was the usual, quite remarkably given such a soft ride by most journalists, despite the club in an absolute mess and Newcastle now seen as the most likely by the bookies to end up replacing one of the bottom three and go down.

However, one interaction did stand out…

Craig Hope of The Mail reporting via his Twitter account:

‘Steve Bruce was asked today if any boss could be successful under Ashley…

“What do you gauge as success?

“I gauge success last year as matching Rafa’s tally of points.

“He was a world-class manager.

“Where did he finish (10th and 13th)?

“Is that success?

“We matched the mighty Rafa.”

Just read that back…’We matched the mighty Rafa.’

Just how embarrassing is that?

A 60 year old bloke acting like a kid, it would still have looked excruciatingly bad BUT adding ‘mighty’ to that sentence, just makes Steve Bruce look SOOOOO much more embarrassing.

The thing is Steve, Newcastle fans don’t even dream of Rafa Benitez, they dream of Kevin Keegan and to a slightly lesser extent the days of Sir Bobby Robson.

For most of us, they were the two managers who delivered the best and most (relatively) successful football that most of us have seen.

With Rafa Benitez, he was more like a turbocharged Chris Hughton, both of them great people and full of integrity, managers who really got Newcastle United, who treated both club and fans with respect, who understood what we are all about and what our hopes, expectations and dreams are.

Our greatest dream isn’t that Newcastle United will play like they did whilst Rafa Benitez was here BUT what he did do was show NUFC fans a glimmer of something better, he made an effort to connect with Newcastle fans, he was on our wavelength.

To those who would claim it was all an act and he was playing Newcastle fans, well, you are about as embarrassing as Steve Bruce is.

Steve Bruce is pure team Ashley, belittling the Newcastle fans despite embarrassingly claiming to be one of us. The reality of course is that we all know he is a Man Utd fan above all else, evidenced when he was almost crying when Newcastle hammered ‘United’ 5-0 in 1996.

You then had his behaviour some 14 years later, nobody cared that Steve Bruce managed 5under1and, instead it was his embarrassing comments about Newcastle United whilst he was boss at 5under1and that made Newcastle fans take even further against him.

Rafa Benitez had a vision, like the fans, of what Newcastle United could be.

He wanted to have a long-term project of progressively making NUFC better and better, right throughout the club – first team, academy, training complex…the lot. Rafa Benitez said before and after he left, that he couldn’t stay at a Newcastle United that was set up simply for survival, with no plan on how to progress all levels of the club.

On the other hand, Steve Bruce is just so desperate for the job that he will say anything on behalf of Mike Ashley and make snide comments about Rafa Benitez.

How on earth have we ended up with this embarrassing clown?

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