Steve Bruce has been confirmed as West Brom’s new manager on an 18-month contract.
Bruce considered retirement due to the toll of abuse he received before being sacked as Newcastle head coach in October.
But the 61-year-old emerged as the front-runner
to replace Valerian Ismael, who was sacked by West Brom on Wednesday after just seven months in charge.
Assistants Stephen Clemence and Steve Agnew, as well as coach Alex Bruce, join James Morrison and Gary Walsh in the club’s backroom staff.
Bruce said: “I am delighted to have the opportunity to manage a club that has such great history and tradition. It is a club I obviously know well from my time in the Midlands, and I am already relishing the challenge of taking it forward.
“I did not envisage I would return to management this quickly, but once I got the phone call from Ron (Gourlay), I knew I could not resist the challenge of getting this club back to where they want to be.
“I am coming in with one aim and that is to get Albion to the Premier League.”
Gourlay, West Brom’s newly-appointed CEO, added: “Steve is a highly-respected and experienced manager who has an impressive record of earning promotion to the Premier League.
“His excellent man-management skills, tactical nous, and ability to hit the ground running were among the many reasons we decided he was the man to take us forward.
“Promotion remains our objective for this season, and we are confident that with Steve leading the club we have given ourselves every chance of achieving that goal.”
Former boss Ismael departed following two consecutive Championship defeats, which left the Baggies fifth, eight points adrift of the automatic promotion places.
He won just 12 of his 31 matches in charge and the Albion board felt the poor run of results was unacceptable for a club with aspirations for promotion this season.
The club were in advanced negotiations with Bruce, who has managed West Brom’s rivals Aston Villa and Birmingham, hours after Ismael’s departure was announced.
Bruce has led two clubs – Birmingham and Hull – to Premier League promotion from the Championship and West Brom hope they can become the third under the former Manchester United defender.
Analysis: Football is in Bruce’s blood – despite brutal experiences
Sky Sports News senior reporter Rob Dorsett:
Steve Bruce, at the end of his Newcastle tenure in October, looked a haunted man. Castigated and ridiculed by the vast majority in his home town, he looked broken.
He said as much at the time: “It has been very very tough. To never really be wanted, to feel that people wanted me to fail and saying I would fail, that I was useless, a fat waste of space, a tactically inept cabbage head.”
He went on: “I’m 60 years old and I don’t know if I want to put her (his wife Jan) through it again. We’ve got a good life so, yeah, this will probably be me done as a manager.”
He certainly doesn’t need the money. Reports suggested he received around £8m in compensation when he was sacked by Newcastle. But football is in Bruce’s blood. And in that final interview, he left a lingering possibility. He was done, he said: “….until I get a phone call from a chairman somewhere asking if I can give them a hand. Never say never, I’ve learnt that.”
Geographically, West Brom suits Bruce and his family – he lives a little further north up the M6 in Staffordshire.
But after his brutal experiences on Tyneside, Bruce will be wary of the response he might get from WBA supporters. Hounded and verbally abused at the end by some Newcastle fans, he will need convincing he won’t get similar treatment at the Hawthorns.
And some Albion supporters will have real concerns over Bruce’s potential style of play. He was criticised at Newcastle for being too defensive, too long ball. WBA’s fans turned quickly against Valerian Ismael when he adopted exactly the same style of play at West Brom this season. That ultimately cost the Frenchman his job.
Bruce has always argued that his is a pragmatic approach. He works with the resource he has, and adapts his style to the type of players he has in his squad. A brutal, towering defender in his playing days, Bruce can point in the past to teams he’s managed which showed an adept flowing football with attacking flair.
The Albion fans might take some convincing.
Bruce sustains promotion tilts or delivers
Sky Sports’ Adam Smith:
West Brom are sixth in the Championship, hanging within the play-off places by goal difference and sit eight points shy of the closest spot for automatic promotion, currently held by Blackburn.
With 17 games left to play, Bruce clearly has an opportunity to stop the Baggies’ worrying slump in the standings after four defeats in six games and deliver the club’s promotion plan.
His CV generally follows a familiar pattern: assuming second-tier roles with designs for promotion, or top-flight clubs with survival missions.
Arguably, he has largely succeeded on both fronts, while Newcastle’s recent struggles and negative tactics taint an impressive 24-year career in the dugout.
The chart below reflects this clearly, with his win percentage effectively doubling in the second tier – from 27.9 per cent in the Premier League, to 47.3 per cent in the second tier.
Is that enough? Well, Watford achieved a 58.7 per cent win-rate last term to secure promotion as runner-ups – but clearly Bruce has not achieved promotion-winning returns in each of his 12 stints across 10 seasons in the division.
His record includes sustained returns at Villa, Hull and Birmingham, where he primarily managed in the second tier.
The 61-year-old certainly has experience of winning promotion to the top-flight, achieving it twice during his seven seasons at Birmingham – initially in his first term and proceeding to maintain Premier League status for four years.
He achieved the same feat in his first season at Hull and sustained two seasons in the top-flight before the club slipped back into the second tier – but delivered immediate promotion again before standing down.
Bruce also guided Wigan to a 14th and 11th-place finish in the Premier League during the 2007/08 and 2008/09 campaigns, respectively – followed by achieving similar standings over two seasons with Sunderland.
Hitting the 1,000 landmark in his final game in charge at Newcastle appeared a fitting point to bow out. Indeed, he contemplated it.
But Bruce clearly has the appetite and record to deliver, sustain and win promotion tilts. West Brom will be hoping this campaign delivers the latter.
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