'Good as gold': After hilarious dig at Dan Ashworth Jonjo Shelvey now defends ex-Newcastle United boss Steve Bruce
Jonjo Shelvey scored some serious brownie points with Newcastle United fans with his snide dig at former sporting director Dan Ashworth.
While recounting the story of how he ultimately left Newcastle, Shelvey called Ashworth, who has become quite the pantomime villain around these parts, a 'midget'.
However, any goodwill he generated with that quip is likely to evaporate now, as in that same interview with Under The Cosh, Shelvey has leapt to the defence of former boss Steve Bruce.
Bruce is probably even more unpopular than Dan Ashworth, so defending the 'nice family man' is not going to go down well.
Jonjo Shelvey was a fan of Steve Bruce
We can understand why Jonjo would defend Steve Bruce; he probably played his best football at Newcastle under Bruce, but we also think that Shelvey may have missed the point as to what our problem was with him as a manager.
“It wasn’t a nice place at the time because obviously I actually really like Steve Bruce. I always got on well with him. He was always good to me.
“But I just had a feeling that they love Rafa so much the fans. So, whoever was going to go in there while Mike was still in charge, was never going to be liked. And the fact that Brucey had managed Sunderland in the past as well probably didn’t help. But for me personally, he was as good as gold.
“I mean, I know there’s this thing out there that he likes his days off and things like that, but everyone likes a day off.”
Jonjo Shelvey defending Steve Bruce's days off is the hottest of hot takes
Firstly, defending Bruce for his days off is a very hot take. The man was in Portugal more than he was in Benton. Yes, everyone likes a day off, but you've still got to work.
More importantly, though, it wasn't about the fact that we loved Rafa Benitez per se, but more like we'd traded in our Porsche for a 1999 Nissan Micra. If we'd brought in a manager of a similar ilk as Rafa, they'd certainly have been welcomed, but we brought in one of the most overrated managers in the game who ultimately oversaw the destruction of the spirit that Rafa had built.
Also, the Sunderland connection was obviously an issue, but the fact that Bruce is a well-known Newcastle supporter would have canceled that out had he been remotely good at his job. It wasn't about Rafa or the clubs he'd managed in the past; it was about how poor he was at those clubs and how poor he was at ours. Swing and a miss, Jonjo. But we get it, he's clearly had a much different relationship with Bruce than we as fans have.
