Steve Bruce link isn't a bonus for Wolves fans

Steve Bruce moved back down from Newcastle to his family home in the country lanes south of Birmingham yesterday.

Steve Bruce is already getting the thumbs down from online Wolves fans. Martin Swain looks at the frenzied reaction.

Steve Bruce moved back down from Newcastle to his family home in the country lanes south of Birmingham yesterday.

Before Wolves fans start hurling themselves into canals across the Black Country, this is entirely unconnected with the managerial vacancy at Molineux but a long-standing domestic arrangement for the former Sunderland manager.

Nevertheless, it does seem that Bruce has attracted an extraordinary amount of hostility from Wolves fans despite appearing to have a CV certainly not significantly worse than some of the fellow candidates, real or imagined, to replace Mick McCarthy.

Yesterday, I asked Wolves fans on Twitter to tell me why the former Birmingham, Wigan and Sunderland manager prompted such animosity and the answers flooded back at a bewildering rate.

A perceived lack of loyalty, a legacy of Bruce's early-career shuffling from Sheffield United to Birmingham City via Huddersfield, Wigan and Crystal Palace, was chief among them.

But also mentioned were a win record in the same percentage region as the man he would replace, McCarthy, playing style, a sense of his being something of a throw-back to a disappearing age, his career links with Blues and Manchester United . . . pretty much everything that could be thrown at him was.

Some of this was entirely justified and rational. Some, I suspect, was fed by some past malice for Bruce and maybe an image problem.

The last time Bruce was on our TV screens he looked frazzled, tired, overweight, a little bit Martin Jol without the Dutch accent. This is not the picture of football management currently striking a chord with fans impressed by a stylish presentation both on the pitch and off it. Perhaps some of this anti-Bruce hostility lies in the appearance of the package?

It's interesting that a few years ago, when Graeme Souness was trying to buy and run Wolves, he too was given the same "stay-away" message by a significant body of supporters.

Now it is possible to see his name being warmly touted ahead of Bruce as McCarthy's successor although he hasn't worked as a manager since 2006. He has, however, emerged as slick, elegant, charismatic, forthright and a deeply-impressive performer in the Sky studios.

That image flaw may just be a notion – but the collapse of Bruce's Sunderland regime has certainly taken a heavy toll on a career path which before then wasn't worthy of the onslaught of scathing condemnation Bruce is enduring from fans unwilling to consider him for Molineux.

As a Premier League manager, he gave St Andrew's its most consistent years in the top flight having won promotion from nowhere following his contentious arrival from Palace, showing an early eye for the maverick signing (Christophe Dugarry and Robbie Savage for example) as well as the labourers.

He left Blues in a contract dispute as the Gold-Sullivan-Brady regime gave way to the Carson Yeung fiction and the new owner delayed ratifying his predecessors' agreement. By then, Blues had been relegated but promoted instantly when they featured in one of Molineux's finest matches of McCarthy's first season.

At Wigan, Bruce prospered still further with some impressive signings and sales which earned him a glowing commendation of owner Dave Whelan who felt it was only a matter of time before he ended up as United manager.

Neither did Whelan scold Bruce for upping camp to Sunderland, accepting the financial parameters were much more attractive. But it was on Wearside that it all went wrong for the Geordie.

Maybe he was always fighting that clash of locality. But in one-and-a-half seasons, they expected more than a 10th-place finish and then a dangerous slide towards relegation which was rescued when Bruce gave way to the man Wolves fans would have loved to have seen at Molineux, Martin O'Neill.

Bruce spent big on that team, though no more than his sales of Darren Bent and Jordan Henderson permitted. In fact, few denied that the players he had gathered were more than adequate as O'Neill has subsequently proved. The criticism I have heard repeated about Bruce – that he struggles to stop a rot once it sets in – was nevertheless fed by the 11 points from 16 games his team could only manage before his sacking.

The 51-year-old is an engaging and popular figure within the game as Wayne Rooney's tweet in support of his candidature suggests. Former Wolves skipper Geoff Thomas was of the same mind yesterday: "Got to be Steve Bruce now.Top guy with growing experience," he tweeted as Alan Curbishley's withdrawal was confirmed.

But it is a popularity which has not spread to the Molineux public.

The bookies still regard him as one of the favourites although, as the days pass without a follow-up call, his prospects do appear to be receding. Owner Steve Morgan is in the thick of his first managerial appointment and he would not be human if he were not influenced by the mood of the fan base he must engage.

Rightly or wrongly, they are telling him that one of the more experienced Premier League candidates is simply not welcome at Molineux.

It isn't making his job any easier.