A former Sheffield United player who last worked at Celtic: Who is new Sheffield Wednesday assistant manager Mike Trusson?
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The 61-year-old has become the Owls’ second coaching addition of the week after Craig Gardner.
The appointment has taken many by surprise, with Trusson not among the names to have been most heavily linked with joining Wednesday since confirmation of Pulis’ joining last week.
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Hide AdSo who is Mike Trusson and what is his background? We took a look.
Was he a player?
Oh aye. Trusson was a combative midfielder and amassed over 400 professional appearances as a player between 1976 and 1996, beginning his career with Plymouth.
He latterly represented Brighton and Gillingham – where he was a teammate of Tony Pulis – before a stint with Hong Kong-based side Sing Tao. At the height of his career he played 126 league matches for Wednesday’s city rivals Sheffield United before an equally successful stint at Rotherham.
He won the Blades’ player of the year award on two occasions.
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Hide AdHe finished his professional career with Bournemouth, where Pulis was by then manager.
What about his coaching experience?
Oh his return from Hong Kong, Trusson once again joined up with Pulis and moved in youth coaching with Bournemouth before stepping up into a first team coaching role.
He is vastly experienced and has worked with Pulis at Gillingham and a handful of other clubs, both on the coaching side of things and in recruitment, serving as one of Pulis’ senior scouts during his long spell at Stoke City.
He last worked with the Owls boss in the Premier League at West Brom as his head of recruitment before moving north of the border to take up a role as European Scout for Scottish giants Celtic.
What’s he said?
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Hide AdSpeaking to swfc.co.uk, Trusson said: “I’m delighted and massively looking forward to it, it’s a great challenge.
“I’ve known Tony for a long time, we played against each other as players and got to know each other through kicking each other really!
“We both moved to Gillingham at the same time, then Tony went to be assistant at Bournemouth and eventually became manager when Harry Redknapp left. Then he asked me to come over and I became youth coach and then first team coach at Bournemouth.
“I’ve worked for him as a scout at pretty much every club he’s been at, then I got the call asking if I wanted to be assistant manager at Sheffield Wednesday. It’s a great club and I’m really looking forward to it.”
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Hide AdHe added: “I was working as a European scout for Celtic and I was enjoying that but when you get this opportunity at such a great, historical club like Sheffield Wednesday, it was a no-brainer.
“The one thing that strikes me is there’s a lot of quality in the squad. Our challenge is to bring that quality out, make the players better and start getting results.”
Anyone for trivia?
It’s not only in football that Trusson has worked.
After playing he dabbled in marketing and was a driving force behind London-based football-themed restaurant and bar ‘Football Football’ in the 1990s.
He has another soft link to sport in Sheffield, having worked as sponsorship manager for the World Snooker Association.