Last week, the ex-Toon striker lashed out at Bruce for his training methods on Tyneside. Gayle accused the 64-year-old of admitting to having little knowledge about tactics during a drubbing at Manchester City.
"He was OK," Gayle told the Open Goal podcast. "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 three-game week and the gaffer chucked some of the boys under the bus in terms of who had to play Man City away.
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"Me and Matt Ritchie were asking for tactical improvements for weeks, 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'."
This provoked an angry response from Bruce following Blackpool’s 2-0 win against Northampton Town. He referenced the number of games managed in professional football and Gayle’s horror miss against Manchester City in 2020.
"Is that the legendary Dwight Gayle, who missed the chance in the quarter-final against Manchester City?” Bruce asked BBC Radio Lancashire. “Is that the same Dwight Gayle? Interesting.
"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."
Agbonlahor - who worked under Bruce at Aston Villa - has now leapt to the manager’s defence. The former striker went one further, claiming Gayle was never good enough to play Premier League football.
“First of all, for me, I was under Steve Bruce at Aston Villa,” Agbonlahor told talkSPORT. “He was amazing to me and did get involved in training. He did put on sessions. I don’t know where that’s come from with Dwight Gayle.
“Steve Bruce, when he sees that, probably thinks about Dwight Gayle ‘You were the nearly man in the Premier League’. He wasn’t good enough for the Premier League and had to go down to the Championship. Now he’s playing in Scotland.
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“He wasn’t good enough for the Premier League so don’t be speaking bad on a manager who’s managed over 1,000 games. You’re telling me he’s never put on a session? I didn’t like that interview from Dwight Gayle.
“I thought it was disrespectful and spiteful. Steve Bruce wouldn’t have wanted to have a bite back but sometimes you have to when someone’s speaking like that. Fair play to Steve Bruce. He was a top manager that I worked under.”
“I can’t imagine many players coming out and speaking like that about Steve Bruce. He’s very well respected in the game and still managing today at Blackpool. Put some respect on his name. As Brucey said, maybe if it were someone who had a proper career, he’d have listened to them. Not someone who failed in the Premier League.”