The club lost Darren Bent the previous January, and with Jordan Henderson leaving for Liverpool during the summer, Bruce’s hand was forced to make changes to the squad.
This saw Manchester United duo John O’Shea and Wes Brown join the club, along with the likes of Ahmed Elmohamady, Craig Gardner, David Vaughan, and Seb Larsson, as well as maverick striker Nicklas Bendtner, who arrived late in the window.
As can be the case, changes to the squad can take time to settle down, and with Liverpool, Newcastle, and Chelsea in the club’s first four games, Bruce wasn’t given a favourable start to get an early win under his belt.
After a credible draw with Liverpool at Anfield, Newcastle was the team’s first home game of the season. A narrow defeat to a Ryan Taylor free kick followed, but the standard of performance by the team - particularly Asamoah Gyan - was causing concern and apathy.
The morning of the derby game, newspaper reports began to circulate that Gyan was being linked with a move away from the club to the UAE in a big-money loan move to Al-Ain, and despite the club dismissing these rumours, his standard of performance showed a man disinterested.
Ghana’s football champion Asomoah Gyan waves to the crowd upon his arrival to attend a match at the Al-Ain Club in the Gulf emirate of Al-Ain on September 16, 2011. Gyan signed earlier in the week a contract to play for the Emirati club. AFP PHOTO/STR (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)
Ghana’s football champion Asomoah Gyan waves to the crowd upon his arrival to attend a match at the Al-Ain Club in the Gulf emirate of Al-Ain on September 16, 2011. Gyan signed earlier in the week a contract to play for the Emirati club. AFP PHOTO/STR (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
A couple of days later, fuel was added to the fire as Gyan was left on the bench for Sunderland’s League Cup game with Brighton & Hove Albion. In a 1 - 0 defeat, Bruce named a strong starting line-up with only a couple of changes from the derby defeat. With Gyan being Sunderland’s only real recognised striker at the club, Stéphane Sessègnon played up front in the cup defeat.
The team looked disjointed as Craig Mackail-Smith’s header in extra time gave Brighton the win, and with the fact that this was a strong team on the back of a derby day defeat, Bruce was already under pressure three games in. It also didn’t help when he tried to ‘big up’ a team playing their trade in the league below.
“We could not have asked for a more difficult cup tie than away at Brighton,” said Bruce. “They had just got promoted, and the same goes for Swansea at this stage of the season. They are very similar. They have played the same way for a number of years, keeping the ball for long periods.”
After the game, midfielder Jack Colback spoke to the media, suggesting that the squad were conscious of the sluggish start to the season.
“We’re disappointed to let the fans down. There were a couple of thousand down at Brighton, which is brilliant, and we’re sorry we couldn’t get a win for them because they deserved it.”
Things didn’t get better instantly, as the team didn’t pick up their first home win against Stoke until a few weeks later from this date.
With the club in need of a striker to supplement the younger options in Ji Dong-Won and Connor Wickham, there were serious concerns when Bendtner was left alone as Gyan inevitably left for the UAE in early September.
And with Bruce struggling to get a tune out of the squad, he followed in November.
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