Sam Allardyce has issued a warning to Steve Bruce ahead of the arrival of potential new owners at St James’ Park – also sticking the knife into former boss Rafa Benitez for his spell in charge.
Bruce’s position has been a key talking point ahead of the eagerly anticipated takeover, with many fans feeling that the new owners will be wanting an elite level manager to take our club forward.
Allardyce has been in Bruce’s shoes before, being in the hot seat on Tyneside when Mike Ashley arrived as a new owner, and fears the current NUFC boss must be “very worried” about his future.
Here’s what he’s had to say during his latest appearance on talkSPORT:
“It’s going to be very difficult for Steve because obviously I’ve experienced new takeovers twice,”
“Once at Blackburn and once under Mike, I wasn’t his man, I can understand it not being their man, and Steve must be very worried from that point of view.
“At the moment they’re going to be a Premier League side next season, I think Steve in his first season has done a very, very good job considering he came in two weeks before the season started.”
Big Sam also insinuated that Benitez was overrated by many Newcastle fans, criticising the Spaniard’s style of play (the cheek of it!) when responding to big claims that he’d return for a second spell:
“There was lots of hoo-ha around whether [Bruce] was good enough or not and I still don’t understand why Rafa Benitez was deemed to be so good, I just don’t understand it.
“They played such negative football and it was unbelievable, but there you go.
“Rafa did a great PR job on himself and how he managed the club at that time.”
As if we’re living in a world where Sam Allardyce is calling another manager out for negative football!
Bruce’s style has arguably been even more negative than Rafa’s, so it is bizarre to praise one yet lay into the other – especially when Benitez was left to sign £5m Joselu’s, not £40m Brazilian’s.
Despite a poor spell at the Toon and a decent stint at Sunderland, I don’t actually mind Big Sam, but he is way off the mark here.
This is a crystal clear example of one friend looking out for the other and him having a pop at an old rival (him and Rafa never got on!), with Allardyce now on the verge of becoming a dinosaur of the football world by throwing these sort of biased opinions around.
Much and much,
For managers, leave Bruce in charge. Or Bruce can try for compensation.
Ascot 7(Quote)
Still waiting to see , been here a lot of times in the last 57 years as a fan.
Stephen Knowles(Quote)