Steve Bruce has copped his fair share of criticism about his tactics in recent weeks. In fact, the Newcastle manager’s outlook has been a hot topic of conversation since he arrived on the scene at St James’ Park. Bruce made it clear he wanted to play on the “front foot” way back in pre-season 2019 shortly after he arrived. But he quickly discovered that the crop of players he had inherited were almost locked into a defensive mindset under Rafa Benitez. Bruce was then forced to go back on his word and stated a few times last season his side weren’t “ready” to switch to a more offensive formation. But Bruce made a tactical admission after the 1-1 draw with Wolves.
Steve Bruce said “Look we tried to be a bit more open in the last few weeks. And we’ve had a couple of hiding. So it was important that we addressed the balance of that. With the injuries that we’ve had especially in midfield. We don’t need any more that’s for sure. They didn’t give up. We have had some poor performances there is no doubt. You have to have a certain resilience in the Premier League. We have been too open and too easy to play against – we certainly were not at Wolves. I think we have to still improve going forward. First and foremost, we have to make sure we give ourselves a platform and a chance. Unfortunately, this season we have been a tad open so it was good to see that resilience we had especially with the injury problems we had. We had Miguel Almiron and Ryan Fraser in there. These are attack-minded players but we played ever so well. We needed to show that resilience. But I thought we were going to get punished for the one mistake we made in the match. So I was delighted overall. Wolves have been a very good team since they were put together. A point is a very good result for us.”
