Style of Play
During the early part of his career, Bruce's sometimes over-enthusiastic playing style, which he later described as "rampaging", caused him disciplinary problems. He later developed into a solid and dependable all-round player, characterised as "an honest trier who made the absolute most of limited natural ability". In his prime he was particularly noted for his calm and deliberate passing of the ball, and his ability to control it under pressure, often with his chest. At the time, Mark Wright of Liverpool was said to be the only other central defender able to match Bruce's level of skill in these areas.
Bruce was also known for his unusually high goalscoring rate for a central defender, resulting from a combination of his ability to powerfully head the ball and his effectiveness in taking penalty kicks. Although lacking poise and grace, and often criticised for his lack of pace, his bravery and willingness to take knocks from opposition players made him the "heart" of the defence during his time with Manchester United. He was well known for continuing to play even when injured, including returning to the United team at short notice in 1992 even though he was awaiting an operation on a hernia. His indomitable spirit and motivational abilities were deemed vital to the United team, and Alex Ferguson has commented on his "determination and heart".
Read more about this topic: Steve Bruce
Famous quotes containing the words style of, style and/or play:
“American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“The boneless quality of English conversation, which, so far as I have heard it, is all form and no content. Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.”
—Margaret Halsey (b. 1910)