This week Wigan splashed out £3m on Former Manchester United Captain and Birmingham City manager Steve Bruce, bringing him back to the JJB Stadium for his second time in charge of the Latics.
As part of the deal Eric Black is expected to be announced as assistant manager within the next couple of days. I for one am not sure about this appointment, no doubt Steve Bruce is a strong character mentally, and will automatically command the respect of the Wigan Players, my worry is how good he is as Wigan's Manager. I thought we'd take a look through Steve Bruce's Managerial Career to see whether he warrants the price tag, or whether we're simply doomed!
Steve's first appointment was at Sheffield United, where he was player-manager. A neither Successful or Unsuccessful stay there resulted in United just missing out on the play-offs. A similar situation occurred at Huddersfield town, where Bruce began his first job where he was just in charge of the team, no playing responsibilities. Again, he narrowly missed out on the play offs and was sacked just into the next season with the club bottom of the league, some Huddersfield Town fans still blame Bruce for their position in the league at the moment, after showing so much promise when Bruce took over.
Then he began his first spell at the JJB Stadium in 2001 where after 6 weeks in charge he took Wigan to the play off semi finals and to this dramatic game against Reading (click to view).
Bruce then left for Crystal Palace again, where he lasted 4 months before handing in his notice and moving up to Birmingham to take over their. He took Birmingham up and twice, only to leave in November 2007 after Wigan and Birmingham agreed a compensation deal to take him and his assistant Eric Black to Wigan.
After Chris Hutchings left Wigan, there where many names "thrown into the hat" with bookmakers not taking any bets on Paul Jewell, Joe Royle, Graham Souness, and Bruce himself on separate occasions. With Bruce seemingly about to take over, and a reserve game at the JJB Stadium, the sky sports cameras took off to Wigan and asked the fans what they thought of his arrival, here's what they had to say (click here to watch).
Bruce's arrival marked the end of Mark Seagraves time at Wigan, and will no doubt signal the end for Frank Barlow, whether David Lowe and the rest of the backroom staff will follow Seagraves out of the JJB is yet to be known. What we do know is that Steve Bruce wanted his former teammate Dave Watson as part of his backroom staff.
My own personal opinion says that Steve Bruce isn't the right man to take us forward, although the lift of bringing a new manager in will keep us up. There's no doubt we have the ability to stay in this league, and with money spent in January there's every hope of a safe and secure finish towards the middle of the Premier League, although focus has to turn t keeping us in the league first!
I do believe this season has seen the fans get behind the team more than I have ever seen at the JJB Stadium, and this will only get better with a new manager in charge, and hopefully with our results picking up. Saturdays late 2-0 defeat to Arsenal was a huge positive, and if the team perform like that on Saturday, we'll pick up at least a point!
Lets all get behind the team on Saturday and make it a tough place for Sven and his team to visit!
Liam O'Connor (Probably Better Known as Babyliam on the Message boards).
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