• Manager has chance to fulfil his high ambitions
• Bruce buoyed by club’s sound financial footing
Steve Bruce has thanked Wigan Athletic for twice saving his career as a manager but argues he had to leave in the summer to join Sunderland to fulfil his ambitions.
Bruce had been sacked by Sheffield United and Huddersfield when he took the manager’s job at Wigan for the first time in 2001 and was becoming disillusioned with life in the dug-out again when he returned to Lancashire following an acrimonious split with Birmingham City six years later.
However, the former Manchester United defender is unapologetic about leaving Wigan in June and insists he would never have been able to further his career there because it was impossible to keep his best players. That helped to persuade the lifelong Newcastle United fan that an offer from Sunderland was too good to turn down and he has enjoyed an excellent start at the Stadium of Light, guiding the club to eighth in the Premier League ahead of his return to Wigan tomorrow.
“The first time I went to Wigan, we were in the old second division,” Bruce said. “I was only there for a few weeks but when I went there I was questioning myself. I was seriously thinking I didn’t want to go into management after what happened in Huddersfield and Sheffield.
“Birmingham had become such a mess that going there [to Wigan] second time around did reinvigorate me a little bit. I was fed up with all the infighting and whether the club was going to be sold.”
However, it was the sale of Wilson Palacios to Tottenham Hotspur in January which convinced Bruce that, if another club offered him a job without such tight constraints, he would take it.
He said: “For a calendar year I think we got 60-odd points, which would have qualified us for Europe. But you know, if you’re going into January and losing your best players, it’s going to be tough. It was. We still managed to finish the season 11th but it could have been something better.”
At Sunderland, Bruce feels that, whatever he builds, he will be able to keep intact thanks to the financial backing of the American billionaire Ellis Short, who took control of the club just before he arrived as manager.
“I don’t have to sell anymore, that’s one of the big reasons why I came to Sunderland,” he said. “We are trying to be a big club in the signings we’ve made. Of course, if it’s really good business, everyone sells one now and again – Mr Wenger does it regularly [at Arsenal].
“Last Christmas I think there was a bid for Kenwyne Jones and they turned it down, which goes to show you. I came here not just because of a big crowd but because it has a big-club feel.”
