Newcastle to brutally Steve Bruce sack in ‘next few days’ with Graeme Jones to step in

Newcastle legend Alan Shearer discusses the club takeover

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Newcastle will sack Steve Bruce this week ahead of the club’s first Premier League match since their Saudi Arabian-backed takeover, reports claim. The Magpies’ new owners will bring to an end Bruce’s 96-game tenure at his boyhood club before he gets a chance to oversee even one match under them. Next Sunday’s clash with Tottenham would’ve also been his 1,000th as a manager.

Newcastle fans are strongly in favour of Bruce being axed with the north east club sat 19th in the Premier League table having failed to win any of their first seven matches of the season.

The club’s supporters trust revealed last Tuesday that 94 per cent of their members are keen for the club to get rid of Bruce with the manager having made it clear he will not walk away from his position.

The 60-year-old has publicly pleaded for a chance to prove himself to the new Saudi owners at St James’ Park but the Daily Mirror say he will be dismissed in the coming days.

It is claimed that there is a collective agreement within the hierarchy that a new direction is needed, with Bruce to be told his time at the club has come to an end in the next week.

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Bruce’s assistant manager Graeme Jones will replace him for the visit of Nuno Espirito Santo’s struggling Spurs and could act as caretaker boss for several weeks.

That is while Newcastle draw up a list of potential replacements with the Mirror claiming they expect to receive plenty of applications from managers, with some having already gotten in touch about the job.

The report adds however that none of Antonio Conte, Roberto Mancini and Zinedine Zidane will be replacing Bruce, with Steven Gerrard and Roberto Martinez among the bookies’ favourites for the role.

The speed of the Newcastle takeover means it has proven too tough for an immediate successor to Bruce to be lined up. Rafa Benitez was previously the top target last year but he is now happy in the job at Everton.

Amanda Staveley, the PCP Capital Partners CEO who has become a director at Newcastle, said of the club and Bruce’s future after the takeover was confirmed: “Relegation is a real big issue at the moment, performances could do with some improvement.

“But we’ve got a great squad. This squad shouldn’t be in 19th position, it shouldn’t. With some fair wind and hard work, we’ll get there.

“We’re proud to be part of the Premier League. It’s an incredibly competitive league which we love, Premier League football is the best in the world.

“Newcastle United is the best team in the world, we want to win trophies, top of the Premier League and in Europe. But trophies need investment, time, we want people to work with us to get to where the club needs to be.

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“There’s an international break now, everyone is just relieved at getting some rest before the Tottenham game.

“We’re very supportive of Steve, we’ve spoken to him and what we won’t do is talk about him or players, we’re going to do a review of football operations, commercial side of the club, we’ll come back and make some decisions.

“I’m not able to talk about anything as to players or managers at this stage.”

With Bruce to be axed, it is thought he could be paid off a sum of around £8million in compensation as Newcastle look to avoid the drop back to the Championship for the third time since 2009.

Staveley also opened up on the plans of the investment group, which is led by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), to strengthen the club’s first-team squad.

“We’ve got a great squad,” she added. “I had a great chat with Jamaal [Lascelles] tonight as captain.

“We’re really excited about strengthening the squad, but we have to work within Financial Fair Play and make sure this is done over a longer term.

“But you can know and be reassured that we want to invest at every level. We want to get the best squad we possibly can. Everybody talks about it [big-name players], but what you need is a team that works well together. That’s also just as important.”

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