“I think they like one of their own from the North-East,” said Steve Bruce, on the day he was appointed Sunderland manager in June 2009. “I hope I can win over the few doubters I have. But ultimately, it's the results on the pitch that matter.”
Never a truer word was spoken. For all that Bruce's Geordie heritage has been used as a stick to beat him with in the last few days, he has not been dismissed because Sunderland supporters are too parochial to embrace someone born in what they regard as the wrong half of the region.
He has been sacked because results on his watch have been nowhere near good enough. It is as simple as that. Perhaps his upbringing as a Newcastle United supporter did not help when the chips were down, but this is not the story of an otherwise successful manager being spurned by a fanbase who had it in for him from the start.
This is the tale of a manager who arrived on Wearside promising steady and sustained progress following the whirlwind days of Roy Keane, but who left last night having presided over two-and-a-half years of expensive stagnation.
When Ricky Sbragia finally relinquished caretaker control of Sunderland at the end of the 2008-09 season, they were 16th in the table. Today, after a total expenditure of more than £75m, the club fills exactly the same position.
There have been some high-profile departures in that time, and Bruce's net spend during his Stadium of Light reign is probably no more than about £12m, but it is hard to view his tenure as anything other than a wasted opportunity.
What about only a third top-ten finish in half-a-century? Well, few, if any, Sunderland managers during that time have been able to call upon the resources that have been showered on the club's bosses during first the era of the Drumaville Consortium, and more latterly under Ellis Short, and Bruce inherited a side that, while struggling, were already established as a proven Premier League force.
In that climate, finishes of 13th and tenth, and a failure to progress beyond the fourth round of any cup competition, must be regarded as an underachievement.
So why did it go so wrong? On the face of it, Bruce seemed a sensible appointment back in 2009. His extensive experience stood in marked contrast to the naivety of Keane, his achievements with Wigan suggested a manager capable of getting a club to punch above its weight, and his eye for a player had unearthed the likes of Antonio Valencia and Wilson Palacios. But both on and off the pitch, he has been unable to produce the goods.
A failure to retain leading stars has been a key problem, starting with Kenwyne Jones at the end of his first season in charge, progressing to Lorik Cana shortly after, and culminating in the departure of both Darren Bent and Asamoah Gyan in the space of eight months.
Financial constraints, which were out of Bruce's hands, undoubtedly played a part, but there were occasions when his man management left a lot to be desired, and it is surely no coincidence that three of the biggest profile strikers in Sunderland's history were all desperate to get out of the club by the time they departed.
Bruce was criticising Jones' attitude long before he was sold to Stoke – criticisms that will surely have got back to the Trinidadian – and his relationship with Bent had clearly suffered an irretrievable breakdown in the weeks before the England international joined Aston Villa. Bent wanted a new contract, but perhaps he also desired a manager who was willing to fight his corner.
The personnel problems were exacerbated by a scattergun signing policy that saw Bruce repeatedly claim he had “the core of a successful squad”, only to rip up the blueprint and go back to the drawing board as soon as the transfer window opened.
When he knew he was going to be short of strikers this summer, why did he spend more than £10m on Connor Wickham and Ji Dong-won and not play them? Why sign David Vaughan and Craig Gardner to add creativity and goals, then leave them on the bench? And that's before we even get to the likes of Marcos Angeleri, Paulo Da Silva and Cristian Riveros.
The rotating door policy meant supporters were never sure if Bruce truly knew what his best team was. Kieran Richardson has played here, there and everywhere during his reign, generally adapting to try to plug a gap. One week Steed Malbranque was absolutely integral to Sunderland's attacking, the next he was out of the side. Gyan was a World Cup superstar when he arrived, yet he spent most of his opening four months as a substitute.
There was little in the way of vision, just a series of short-term solutions to problems that kept reappearing.
Every now and then, there was a chink of light, such as the memorable 3-0 win at Chelsea – a result that surely represents the high point of Bruce's reign – or the Bent-inspired beach ball win over Liverpool.
But it would never take long for reality to bite. The two defeats to Newcastle were clearly catastrophic – especially the 5-1 humiliation on Halloween – but it was the lengthy losing runs in both the 2009-10 and 2010-11 campaigns that began to turn most fans against their manager.
The current season has been hugely disappointing, culminating in the scenes that accompanied the end of Saturday's 2-1 reverse to Wigan.
From that point onwards, Bruce's position was untenable, and for all that he is a decent, honourable man, who has always done his best to represent Sunderland in a positive light, yesterday's decision to dispense with his services was the right one.
The supporters had deserted him, and without the backing of the fans, it is all but impossible for a manager to succeed.
“I think they like one of their own from the North-East.” They do. They just didn't like the one that left yesterday.
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