I've always been in two minds about him. On one hand he did nearly get us promoted, and at the time I thought that was great, regardless of the shameful display in the final.
On the other, he started the next season with one recognised CB, allowing Elphick to go out on loan despite him being the only other one in the squad. I still don't fully understand how that came to happen.
Regarding the play off final, I wonder if he realised at the last possible moment what a charlatan Xia was and what would become of us of we got promoted under him. What if he secretly brokered the deal for NSWE to buy the club behind the scenes, shit the bed in the final to force Xia into selling, then started the season abysmally to give them an excuse to move him on and get Smith in to replace him knowing he would be a far superior manager? What if he also pretended to try and sell Grealish so that when NSWE rode in and stopped the sale they'd look like heroes and endear them to us from day one?
We shouldn't be deriding him. If anything, we should knock down the McGregor statue outside VP and replace it with one of Brucie, a true club legend.