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Difficult to forget what Danny Rose said 15 months ago about Steve Bruce as due to meet again

3 years ago
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Danny Rose was an interesting one at Newcastle United.

On loan for the second half of the 2019/20 season, which ended up stretching to the end of July 2020 due to the covid interrupted Premier League season.

Steve Bruce repeatedly saying how well Danny Rose was doing playing for Newcastle United, whilst fans generally saw a player who didn’t look particularly fit or committed and was putting in some poor to average performances.

Steve Bruce said he would do everything he could to sign the defender at the end of his loan spell but despite Spurs willing to trade him on for a relative pittance, Newcastle didn’t even put a bid in.

Instead, Steve Bruce chose to sign Jamal Lewis for £15m from Norwich in summer 2020 and he has ended up totally sidelined by the Head Coach, Bruce not giving him a single Premier League start since February 2021. Whilst Mike Ashley runs this club in an abysmal fashion, to think Steve Bruce isn’t massively to blame as well for the current mess…you would have to be very deluded. Only at Newcastle United can you go from paying £15m for a seemingly unusable left-back, to with a year now a position of not even able to make a loan signing.

Steve Bruce was said to want another left-back option this summer and ironically could have had Danny Rose on a free…

Interesting to see Danny Rose talking again (see below) about hard work in training paying off, considering what he had to say (also see below) about training under Steve Bruce 15 months ago when the defender was at Newcastle on loan (the subject of Steve Bruce and the level / amount of training that takes place, rearing its head yet again when instead of spending the full two weeks preparing for the game, only two weeks into the season Steve Bruce went on holiday to Portugal before the 4-1 hammering by Man Utd).

Danny Rose had a completely wasted year last season as he wasn’t allowed a single minute of first team football at Spurs as the final year of his contract ran down.

Rose was an unused sub for Watford in their opening three Premier League matches this season, before starting in the 2-0 home defeat to Wolves and then 3-1 win at Norwich on Saturday. The first Premier League football for Danny Rose in 14 months since his final games for Newcastle in July 2020, with ironically the third last of those Rose matches coming in a 2-1 defeat at Watford. That win actually gave Watford hope of staying up and they would have done, if not then losing their final three matches and relegated by a single point.

Now at a new club and playing football again, Danny Rose can’t wait to face Newcastle United, what Watford are seeing as another winnable match before the more difficult opposition that lies in wait in the near future.

Starting the season as one of the relegation favourites, Watford now have the chance to be sitting on nine points after six games and seven points already ahead of Newcastle, if winning on Saturday.

That is a scenario that doesn’t bear thinking about for Steve Bruce and his players.

Danny Rose talking to the official Watford site:

“It was massive [beating Norwich 3-1 on Saturday].

“Considering we had a bit of an upset last week at home [losing 2-0 to Wolves], we know these next couple of games [Norwich away and Newcastle home] before the next international break are massive.

“After that we play the top six, so we know that will be hard enough in itself. In games like today against teams that will possibly be around us, we have to make sure we get results.

“And it wasn’t just the result today, the performance was brilliant, so we’re over the moon.

“Throughout the week we do a lot of crossing and finishing and Kiko’s first game back in a while, it shows the quality he possesses in the final third.

“Not only that, Dennis has got in and beaten his man and it was a great finish. He could have possibly had two and Ismaïla [Sarr] could have had three or four.

“If we’re going to do well this season, Ismaïla and Dennis, and [Joshua] Kingy or [Ashley] Fletcher, the offensive players, are going to be vital for us.

“He [Manager Muñoz] spoke highly about starting games right and letting teams know we’re here and we’ve worked a lot on that in training this week.

“It’s great we managed to implement the game plan today. I think we thoroughly deserved the three points.

“We’ll have different tactics for each game.

“We know Norwich are a possession-based team and we analysed how they play in and out of possession.

“We knew as soon as we won the ball back we could hurt them straight away with the pace we have on the flanks, so I think counter-attacking we’ve got the ability to hurt anyone in this league.

“We are fully thankful for the support that they give us. It’s been a year-and-a-half where we’ve not had that, so every game we want to make sure we put in a performance and get a result that warrants the appreciation we have for the fans.

“It’s a long way that they’ve had to travel today [ED: It’s 124 miles from Watford to Norwich…] and it’s the least we can do, to put in a performance and win all three points for them.”

Danny Rose talking about how strict (or not…) managers can be, to The Lockdown Tactics podcast – 20 May 2020:

“I heard [Antonio] Conte had a strict regime when he came in at Chelsea, I heard that he wasn’t willing to compromise in any shape or form.

“Even [at Tottenham] under Poch [Mauricio Pochettino], he had a different culture to the British.

“It wasn’t that he didn’t understand it, you [he] know the British like to have a drink, it was just something he couldn’t get his head around.

“Even after we beat Ajax in the Champions League semi-final and it was obviously the biggest night of our careers, on the flight home we weren’t allowed a drink.

“It was ‘no you are training tomorrow, you are up at 9am’….so it is just one of those things.

“He was like ‘no we have got a game on Saturday’ – the night was over.

“I do fully respect what he [Pochettino] has done but at the same time, with that Champions League semi-final we had been together since we were 22 or 23.

“So for me, that’s all I’d known for the past five or six years, you would play and then get one day off if you are lucky and that’s it, you’re grafting for the rest of the week.

“So now I’m at Newcastle [with Steve Bruce], you are getting two or three days off a week if you win.

“So I’m thinking what’s going on here then?

“It’s a shock to the system.

“We would only get one day off if we were lucky under Poch.

“Even in international breaks, he would see the ones who would go away as having a holiday because training isn’t as hard with your national team.”

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