West Bromwich Albion manager Steve Bruce is now under increasing pressure following his side's 3-2 Championship defeat to rivals Birmingham Cityy.
Bruce was the manager of Newcastle United for just over two years before his exit in October 2021, leaving the Magpies with a 27.4% win rate after 84 games in charge.
He's since gone on to manage West Brom but the Baggies have endured a difficult start to the season and their problems deepened with a damaging victory to their rivals. Birmingham City striker Scott Hogan scored a hattrick which was enough to take down Bruce's men despite Birmingham coming into the game three places below the Baggies.
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After the game, Bruce was angry with his side's performance, calling it "disappointing" and "awful" before comparing it to a "schoolboy pitch with 11 year olds".
"Where do I start? The disappointing thing is that we didn't take part in the game until the last 20 minutes. In a big derby game, we fell short.
"We didn't win a challenge, couldn't deal with Deeney at the top end of the pitch, the physicality of Birmingham, we were nowhere near where we should be.
"Individual error is something you can't fix. The concentration from our defence at times was awful, I'll grant you that. The goals we've given away is something you've seen on a schoolboy pitch with 11 year olds, it was that bad," he continued.
"Unfortunately, it's happened too many times, individual error, mistakes. The disappointing thing for me was that we didn't do any basics well enough, we didn't compete well enough, we didn't do enough to influence the game.
"When you put that in with the hideous defending that we did, you're in for a poor evening. Not showing up in a derby - awful."
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