Steve Bruce has completed double reunion with former Aston Villa men at Blackpool
Steve Bruce has been reunited with two former Aston Villa colleagues at Blackpool. The 63-year-old has been appointed as the new Seasiders boss this month after the club sacked Neil Critchley after a poor start to the season and the former Birmingham City, Aston Villa and West Brom has been tasked with injecting life into the Tangerines' season.
Bruce has brought faithful assistant Steve Agnew with him. Having not been able to call on another regular coach in Stephen Clemence, who has ventured out into management himself, Bruce will also have former Blackpool players Richard Keogh and Stephen Dobbie to call on as part of his back-room staff.
Bruce is onto his 12th different club in management but has decided, after almost two years out of the game, that he couldn't come permanently away from the game. Upon exploring the move to Bloomfield Road, he came across sporting director David Downes at Villa - Downes worked in the academy as a talent spotter for a number of years before becoming Villa's head of domestic recruitment in 2018 and following Bruce to Sheffield Wednesday.
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Bruce also now works again with Dean Hughes, who was a performance analyst at Villa between 2017 and 2019, when Bruce also spent time at Villa Park.
"I just decided retirement wasn’t for me, I’ve just missed football too much,” Bruce told SportsBoom.com. “I’ve been raring to go, even though there’s not many 60-year-olds in management these days, but you never lose that enthusiasm and love for the game, I’ve been very lucky to have had the career I’ve had. There was a time when I thought I’ve done my stint, but the enjoyment and love of football has brought me back to work.
“I never thought I’d step back for good, but I was wondering to myself whether I could step back and maybe do something in a different capacity, but when the opportunity came along here at Blackpool I thought ‘why not?’
"I know [sporting director] David Downes from my time at Aston Villa and I know [chief scout] Dean Hughes from my time at Hull, Aston Villa and Sheffield Wednesday. Once I’d met the owner [Simon Sadler] and listened to his ideas I then I thought to myself ‘let’s see whether I can try and get them to where they want to get to’.”