My bench wouldn’t behave like that
BRUCE RAP FOR WOLVES
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STEVE BRUCE says he will not put up with any more Dances With Wolves.
The Aston Villa boss was not happy with the way the Wolves bench celebrated their 2-0 victory at Molineux in November.
He had to swallow it as the runaway leaders’ backroom staff went wild after putting one over their Midlands rivals.
Chasers
They meet again today with Bruce’s third-placed promotion chasers hoping to cut the gap on the leaders to seven points.
Bruce said: “They beat us fairly and squarely and you have to just take it on the chin.
“I think they’re vociferous all the time. That’s their prerogative.
“We bear that in mind for this game and let’s hope we’re the ones celebrating and not them.
“All that nonsense – I would not expect any of my staff to behave like that. Everyone is different. All of that nonsense doesn’t interest me one little jot – how we beat them is more important.’’
The Football League this week promised to address concerns from Championship clubs that Wolves might have an unfair advantage from their relationship with super agent Jorge Mendes.
But Bruce insists that he is just concentrating on trying to find a way to beat them on the pitch.
“It’s a big game, it doesn’t need any building up,” said Bruce. “It’s a full house and it is live on TV. You can smell the hot dogs. They’ve got a lot of good players and that’s why they’re top of the league.
“They’ve invested well and bought well. How they’ve done it I’m not too sure, but that’s for other people to ask.
“I don’t want to get into all of that nonsense, I am only interested in how I can beat them as a team.
“However they’ve done it, they’ve got a good side. They’ve got good players who played in the Champions League last year.
“We are a little bit envious of that – all of us are.” ® match and form can go out of the window for a derby,” he said ahead of the showdown at the City Ground tomorrow.
“We are not in the best of form ourselves so we can go there looking to play well on the day and try and win the game.
“We beat them earlier in the season but they have some new players now and I predict it will be a tight game. It will probably be