Steve Bruce admitted he would have to be “ready for what’s coming my way” after Newcastle exited the Carabao Cup with a 1-0 defeat to Brentford.
The Bees made six changes but still denied the Premier League outfit the chance to play in a first League Cup semi-final since 1976.
“I’m a resilient so-and-so,” Bruce told a post-match press conference. “The supporters are entitled to their opinion and I accept that. Bitterly disappointed and very, very frustrated tonight.
“You genuinely believe you could score but we had one or two instances where it didn’t quite fall for us. But we didn’t really create much at all.”
The 59-year-old is now among the favourites to become the next Premier League manager sacked with his side 12th having just five of their opening 13 games.
The disappointment of the failed takeover has arguably thrown their season into harsher perspective. A summer spent reading up on Kylian Mbappe and Mauricio Pochettino rumours has inevitably, much like the rest of 2020, dwindled into despair, but it did offer some cause for optimism with the arrivals of Callum Wilson and Jamal Lewis.
The suspicion is that Bruce could be doing better with the players at his disposal. It is possible that his tactical approach might be different were fans present at St James’s Park, but there are an increasing number of them who would like to see him no longer in charge.
Andrew, from the fan group “Newcastle United Fans”, summed up the frustration that many feel with Bruce’s lack of vision.
“A combination of ambition and decent football are the bare minimum most fan bases would expect,” he told i.
“If you’re going to play awful football – bring us a trophy. Don’t play awful football and have us in a relegation battle. Our squad is far better than how we are performing. A lot of fans want him sacked, as do I, but that isn’t going to fix the problem. As long as Ashley is there, it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge.
“The facilities at Darsley Park are well below the standard of other Premier League clubs. The club is destined for failure as the foundations are broken.”
Are Newcastle going backwards under Bruce?
A member of another fan organisation, Wor Flags, who stopped presenting their displays at St James’s Park in protest against Ashley’s running of Newcastle following Rafael Benitez’s departure, had a similar view.
“It’s not that we have expectations that we deserve to be higher up the table, but if you’re supporting any football club, you want to see some sense of ambition,” he said.
Benitez, by contrast, “seemed to get what it meant to be Newcastle manager”, from his demands to improve the Magpies’ training facilities to his community outreach work.
Bruce’s apparent acceptance of Ashley’s standards makes him a far guiltier party than his predecessor, even if the Spaniard was often accused of being overly negative against the very top sides.
“It’s an awful brand of football, we’re often terrible to watch. We’ve also seen players that were performing well like Fabian Schär and Sean and Matty Longstaff go backwards. It’s impossible to see what the ambition is and that’s not just about finishing in Europe or whatever, it’s the whole package.”
Newcastle’s style of play has been little more than functional this season, even against Championship Brentford. Of all the potential banana skins the domestic cups have to offer, Thomas Frank’s side were by no means the most humiliating on which to fall. There are, in fact, only 12 places between the two clubs in the Football League.
Yet with the festive fixture list pitting Newcastle against Manchester City, Liverpool and Leicester City, it is far from inconceivable that gap will be even smaller by the close of the year, whether Bruce is in charge or not.
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