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Steve Bruce has rubbished Dwight Gayle’s claims that he did not prepare Newcastle United on the training ground.
In a stunning criticism, former Newcastle United striker Gayle ripped into Bruce’s methods as Toon boss. The 64-year-old was Magpies manager from 2019 to 2021 before being sacked one game into the Saudi-backed regime.
Gayle stayed on as a bit-part player under Eddie Howe before being released in 2022, six years after arriving and helping Newcastle earn Premier League promotion. Fast forward to the present and the 35-year-old - now at Hibernian - has sent ripples across Toon circles on social media.
Speaking on the Open Goal podcast, Gayle made the bombshell claim that Bruce admitted to not “doing tactics” as Newcastle manager. This echoes a Daily Mail report from 2021 when Matt Ritchie is understood to have fallen out with the ex-United boss.
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“He was ok,” Gayle said about Bruce. “I felt that he didn’t spend enough time working on a lot of things with us. Perhaps he was trying to go game by game rather than developing us as a team. I think we could’ve improved a lot of things.
“I remember some of the boys got chucked into the Man City shift. We had a free game week and the gaffer chucked some of the boys under the boss in terms of who had to play Man City away.
“Me and Matt Ritchie were asking for tactical improvements for weeks and months. We came in at half time and we were two or three down, and he was like ‘Boys, you keep asking for tactics, I don’t do tactics, just put your boots on and work hard’.
“We were like, it’s Man City, it’s not good enough to just run around. That’s one I’m in shock about.”
Bruce has now fired back at Gayle - insisting he will only take criticism from people “more established” than Gayle. Speaking after Blackpool’s 2-0 away win at Northampton Town, he said: “I’ve been around the block a long long time.
“I’ve only managed 1,050 games but, according to Dwight, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ll let other people make their minds up who are a bit more established than Dwight ever was.”
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