Second chance to be Magpies manager

‘Are you for real Freddy?’. I regretted it and thought I would regret it for evermore.”

Bruce never played for the Magpies, having been overlooked as a youngster and then snapped up by Manchester United after proving his quality at Gillingham and Norwich City.

Even when the call came to replace Rafael Benitez last month, he was not entirely convinced it was genuine.

He said: “I don’t if any of you know my lawyer, but he’s quite reserved.

“Typical lawyer, he’s got no real sense of humour about him!

“When he picked up the phone, I did say to him: ‘Matthew, are you taking the p*** out of me?’.

“He said: ‘No, I’ve got to ask you if you’d be interested’.

“I was in Portugal trying to prepare another team. I said ‘Is it for real?’. He said: ‘ Yeah, they want to talk to you and meet you as quick as they possibly can’.

“It happened like that, within 24 hours. It was quite remarkable.”

Bruce’s first game will be tinged with sadness with his parents Joe and Sheenagh – who died within three months of each other last year – conspicuous by their absence among the family members who will attend.

He said: “He never wanted me to go into management, my dad. He thought it was too stressful. He was probably right!

“My mam was a different animal. She’d be there.”

Unai Emery has praised the mentality of summer signing Dani Ceballos as he hopes to hand the Real Madrid loanee his Arsenal debut.

Ceballos, who signed on a season-long loan, could be in line to make his competitive bow, but it depends if the midfielder has recovered after taking a heavy kick to his ankle in a pre-season defeat to Barcelona last weekend.

Emery may now push to include the 23-year-old after Arsenal confirmed on Friday evening that neither Mesut Ozil nor Sead Kolasinac would travel with “further security incidents” being investigated by police following an attempted car-jacking last month.

And the Arsenal head coach is pleased to have Ceballos among his ranks.

“Ceballos’ mind is very strong,” Emery said of his compatriot.“his mentality. Last Sunday when he received a big kick on his ankle I thought: ‘Oh, it’s broken’.

“But after, on Monday, he was training, he said: ‘I’m fine and want to train’. He is showing us every day his ambition, his hunger is big. We need players like this.”