The difference between Bruce and McCann right now is that Bruce works for an unpopular chairman and his club is dangling perilously over the relegation trapdoor, while McCann works for an unpopular chairman and his club is top of the League on the brink of promotion. So rationalising dislike of McCann as being the same as Newcastle fans’ dislike is... well, bollocks.
So it’s not too different from last season when we were perilously on the brink of relegation after no wins in 11 and 21st in the Championship table by March last year then? I think there’s a lot of rose-tinted glasses applied on this board when it comes to Bruce. We might like him but Newcastle fans have valid reasons not to. He’s their Grant McCann.
the main difference between McCann and Bruce when we got relegated - is McCann lost Grosicki and Bowen, our two best players and Bruce got, Robertson, Maguire, Dawson, Hernandez, Diame, Snodgrass, Ramirez, Ben Arfa and lost Long - but McCann's a **** and Bruce isn't for some reason - then in the season after we got relegated, McCann is now top of the league and Bruce maintained the vast majority of his Premier League squad and he struggled to get us to 4th place in the Championship - I know which one I think's the biggest ****
Martin Samuel makes a few points about Steve Bruce and Newcastle and their fans. Saying owners make decisions not 50,000 fans. "If Newcastle are relegated, it will be because Ashley got it wrong, remaining loyal to a man he clearly admires. At least he knows more about him than whoever made up the banner with a picture of Bruce, marked ‘coward’. Nobody ends up with that nose, unless they are the bravest of the brave. One imagines nobody ends up Sir Alex Ferguson’s captain, either. Bruce personally has won as many league titles as Newcastle since 1905. As far as trophies go, club and manager are neck and neck. They just had 87 more years to do it."
Winning trophies as a player doesn't necessarily make you a particularly good manager. Bruce is one of the last people in football I'd consider a coward but he's been gash for Newcastle.
I didn't cherry pick it. I didn't link it as it was part of a column including other stories and would cause problems for people with short attention spans not used to reading proper journalists.
Martin Samuel is a proper journalist. You had better stick to the Athletic and spotty youths with an abysmal grasp of the English language.
He finished the same last season as Benitez the year before Who is universally loved. They sold the top scorer from Rafas season when brucey got there and gave him joelinton a non scoring forward. this season they were doing well until decimated by covid. Then injuries to their best three forwards all at once.
Bruce is almost universally loved here, McCann isn't. Maybe Newcastle fans are being fickle but for City fans to accuse them of being harsh on their manager is throwing stones from glass houses. I know some Geordies and they think Bruce is worse than Pardew and even McClaren. The general attitude is that Bruce doesn't have a plan at all.
The 'talking in meaningless generalities' hits the nail on the head for me. Like I said, I liked Bruce when he was here but he even talked in truisms and cliches when he managed us. Just used to shrug after games sometimes and say something like 'that's the way it goes in football some days'. Fair enough if he was some bloke in the pub but I'd expect an experienced manager to give a bit more insight in his post-match interviews.