Aston Villa have named Steve Bruce as their new manager.
Pundit Ian Holloway has told Sky Sports that he thinks new Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce should have been appointed England boss.
Bruce, 55, left Hull City over the summer despite guiding them to promotion back to the Premier League with a play-off final win over Sheffield Wednesday back in May.
Now though, Bruce is back in football, having been appointed as Aston Villa’s new boss on Wednesday evening, replacing Roberto Di Matteo in the Villa Park hot seat.
Steve Bruce with Aston Villa fans in the background
The appointment sees former Birmingham player and manager Bruce take charge of fierce rivals Villa, and he’ll take charge of the club for the first time against Wolverhampton Wanderers this weekend.
Whilst some fans have reservations over Bruce due to his ties to Birmingham, he is largely seen as a great appointment for a struggling Villa side who have won just once in 11 Championship games this season.
Former Millwall manager Ian Holloway
With four promotions to the Premier League on his CV, Bruce has all the credentials that Villa are looking for – but one former manager believes Bruce should have landed a much bigger job.
Speaking to Sky Sports, pundit Ian Holloway suggested that Bruce should have been appointed England manager after Sam Allardyce’s acrimonious departure, instead of Gareth Southgate.
Holloway added that he predicts Bruce will ‘get Villa moving forward’ as he has more experience than predecessor Di Matteo, but thinks he will have to organise an unbalanced Villa squad.
Ex-Hull manager Steve Bruce
“This is England’s loss, Aston Villa’s gain, massively,” Holloway said. “I’m disappointed Bruce didn’t get the England job. I think he’s a fantastic bloke, who has achieved so much in the game. He was the perfect candidate and would have slotted in there like a glove after the Sam Allardyce situation. I’ve got nothing against Gareth Southgate but he was doing a fine job with the under-21’s – why change it?”
“It was always going to be a hard job and Roberto Di Matteo has taken the flak. Bruce will get them moving forward in a way that only he knows how to. He’s got more experience in that department than Di Matteo had, who had been working at a different type of level with a different remit.
“Bruce will assess where the strengths and weaknesses in that squad lie immediately because he’d have been watching their bad start. When I look at Aston Villa’s squad, it’s a bit of a mismatch of who is going to play where. Bruce will get them organised and get the best out of his players in a system that works.”
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