Upwardly mobile Roy puts Bruce in his place

THE contrast between the two men prowling the respective technical areas couldn’t have been more stark.

While a string of increasingly stale-sounding excuses is all Steve Bruce can manage, Roy Hodgson simply manages, and how.

West Bromwich Albion and Sunderland are clubs heading in opposite directions, and it’s hard to divorce their vastly differing fortunes over the past two months from the effectiveness — or otherwise — of the two men who pick the teams.

While Bruce gives the impression of a man desperately grasping at straws, Hodgson, quickly rehabilitating his reputation after his unexpected Anfield aberration, outlined his clearly effective managerial modus operandi that has had such an immediate impact at the Hawthorns. Keep things simple, ensure your players are well versed in what is expected of them and their team-mates and, above all, keep smiling.

That’s something Bruce is finding rather difficult right now given that his hopelessly out of touch side have taken one point from the last 24 to tumble into the bottom half and leave them in the utmost danger of fulfilling each season’s recurring cliche as the side which drops like a stone towards the relegation zone.

After Paul Scharner sealed a stirring comeback with a well-struck late winner, the Sunderland manager was again at pains to point out the injuries that, not for the first time, he claimed had hampered his side, with the loss of John Mensah, Kieran Richardson and Anton Ferdinand in a chastening 90 minutes which saw them passed off the pitch by their visitors.

Bruce stresses he’s pointing out facts, not making excuses, but for a manager who has been bankrolled to the tune of £60m in less than two years in charge, his is a stuck record which sounds rather like the latter.

No doubt they will be starting to wear thin with Ellis Short, the club’s billionaire owner who hasn’t amassed his fortune in business by standing still, which is something Sunderland, currently occupying the 13th place where they ended last season, could well do.

Short expects a return on his not insignificant investment, as do supporters, who again turned out in their numbers, though only a fraction of the home contingent in a 41,000 crowd remained at the end, and most of those only to hurl abuse at the manager after his side had twice surrendered the lead to leave them without a home win since New Year’s Day.

For Sunderland’s eight games without a victory, the visitors are unbeaten in seven as they continue their upward mobility under Hodgson. “He doesn’t throw tea cups around the dressing room,” Peter Odemwingie said of a laid-back manager more likely to be found taking a civilised spot of early afternoon Earl Grey as to be aiming its accompanying crockery against the nearest wall.

Odemwingie, the Nigerian forward, poked home Albion’s first leveller with his 11th goal of an increasingly outstanding first Premier League campaign to cancel out Nicky Shorey’s headed own goal. Phil Bardsley’s sublime 30-yard effort restored the hosts’ lead, but once Youssouf Mulumbu had swept Albion level for a second time there was little doubt as to who had the momentum, a suspicion verified by Scharner’s close-range finish.

“There are all sorts of excuses you could give, but that’s all they are, excuses,” Bardsley conceded with a brutal honesty his manager would do well to take heed of.

“If we carry on as we are, then we’re going to be in trouble.”

The only trouble Hodgson seems to face is dampening expectations, although he is always one to look on the bright side. “If you look for the clouds too much you tend to miss the sun,” he reflected. “I don’t know about me changing the mindset here, you’re in danger there of getting into Uri Geller territory.” Bruce should be warned that any more lame excuses and he’s in danger of developing his own special power, not bending spoons, but stretching credulity.