THE CONDEMNED MAN
Bizarre charade as Saudi regime fail to put Bruce out of his misery — but it’s only a matter of time...
BURIED on the Newcastle website beneath ticketing news and an interview with Les Ferdinand at 1pm yesterday was an extraordinary club statement revealing that Steve Bruce was not about to be sacked. Not yet, anyway.
As votes of confidence go, it was as hollow as an empty Gallowgate End. Twice in four paragraphs, Newcastle’s new mouthpiece, Amanda Staveley, spoke directly about her manager’s future.
‘Change doesn’t happen overnight,’ she said. ‘If we make changes then Steve will be the first to know.’
It seems, then, that Bruce had better leave his mobile on and his keys in the ignition. He will be in the dugout at what is bound to be a febrile St James’ Park for the game against Tottenham tomorrow.
Beyond that, he will know as well as anybody that the 11th posting of his managerial career will soon be at an end.
Those who have known Bruce during his four and a half decades in English football might feel that he deserves better than to be subjected to the sporting equivalent of death by a thousand cuts.
Others will say a Newcastle win percentage of just 29 per cent renders him fortunate to have survived this long.
Whatever the case, the 60–yearold looked every inch the condemned man as he appeared framed by the computer screen of a media Zoom call yesterday.
‘I hope you guys are getting a slap now from your bosses,’ said Bruce. ‘Whoever the source was who has been feeding you, they didn’t get it right.
‘I was told on Monday to carry on as normal. I said no problem.’
Bruce was referring to stories earlier this week that his end was nigh. A small victory in his eyes, perhaps, that he is still around. But in the bigger picture, these are just the semantics of a future at the club that will soon not involve him. If Newcastle’s new owners have just discovered it takes time to replace one manager with a better one then they are not the first to do so. Bruce is a good man and it’s never nice to see one suffer.
Nevertheless, when suggested that it is results and not the personal vendettas and the ghosts he sees round every corner that threaten to undo him, he could not bring himself to disagree.
‘I absolutely get that,’ Bruce said. ‘If you are in the bottom six or seven and haven’t won all season then very quickly you come under the pump.
‘When it becomes personal you just cry out for a bit of respect but results haven’t been good enough and I take that on the chin.
‘If you don’t get the results you will get criticised and that’s the nature of the beast.’
A Newcastle fan as a boy, Bruce allowed himself to look at the events of the last fortnight objectively for a moment.
He described Staveley and her colleagues as ‘very good people’ and suggested the Saudi takeover of Newcastle would do great things for both the club and the city.
To his credit he seemed to mean it and pointed to the example of Manchester City, transformed by 13 years of Abu Dhabi ownership.
With that in mind, though, we should recall the excruciating last knockings of Mark Hughes as manager at City, having to endure a home game against Sunderland in late 2009 the whole stadium knew would be his last. Hughes and his staff were sacked within minutes of a 4-3 win.
A decent guy deserved better and Bruce, a former team-mate, is now in danger of entering familiar territory.
City took a while to shake off the reputational damage of that abysmal day and, if Staveley and those in the Gulf she represents do care about image, then they might do well to end the charade over the future of their manager as quickly as possible, even if they do not yet have a replacement cued up.
‘I will have a crack and try my utmost,’ said Bruce when asked if he thought he had an opportunity to impress the new owners.
‘I will never give up. Maybe it’s because I was born here. That fight is still in me.’
Bruce chalks up his 1,000th game as a manager tomorrow. Whether he celebrates it will depend on the result. There will be joy in the air at kick-off as the misery of the Mike Ashley era is hurried off down the Tyne but that will soon change if Bruce’s Newcastle play poorly.
There will be 50,000 inside the great cathedral on the hill and they will not be slow to let their feelings known.
Bruce has always looked and felt like a sticking plaster at Newcastle. He has satisfied the rather unromantic requirements of one owner by keeping Newcastle in the financial sanctuary of the Premier League for two seasons but those incoming have a thirst to spend money and aim much higher.
Bruce is walking his last steps in Newcastle and should try to enjoy them. The next statement on the club website will have a degree of absolute finality about it.