Aston Villa sacked Steve Bruce as their manager in October and replaced him with Dean Smith.
Ian Holloway has made it clear that Steve Bruce deserves credit for Aston Villa’s promotion and has claimed that he fell ‘foul’ of previously being Birmingham City manager.
On Monday, Villa booked their return back to the Premier League when Dean Smith masterminded them to a 2-1 win over Derby County in the Championship play-off final at Wembley.
Only last season, Bruce, prior to his sacking, saw his team lose 1-0 to London outfit Fulham in what was a dire performance from Villa, at that time.
Speaking to Full-Time Phone-In on TalkSport (27/05/2019), former QPR manager Holloway shared his thoughts on Villa’s promotion and gave a special mention to Bruce.
“I am going to say well done to Steve Bruce,” Holloway told TalkSport. “When it was top heavy he had to rebuild it. And one of his signings, McGinn has been sensational, Dean will know that.
“I have got to say Richard O’Kelly has been superb with Dean, they both deserve this. Absolutely amazing. Fantastic season and well done for English managers.
“The facts are sometimes as a manager you don’t get the time that you need to turn things around and to change things around. And at the time, they had a top-heavy budget. The balance in the squad wasn’t right. So, Steve managed to make some very good signings, almost got them promoted and it didn’t happen. He fell foul really because of working for Birmingham City.”
Villa’s decision to sack Bruce months after their play-off final heartache against Fulham has now proven to be a masterstroke of a move.
Not only has his replacement pushed them back to the Premier League, but he has done it by playing a number of highly-rated youngsters and an attacking brand of football.
As for Bruce, he is now in charge of Sheffield Wednesday and he’ll be hoping to help them earn promotion next season as they finished outside of the play-off places last time out.
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