Steve Bruce has hit back at Dwight Gayle after the former Newcastle striker accused him of employing archaic methods during their time together at St James’ Park.
The 35-year-old, who currently plays for Hibernian in Scotland, spent six years with the Magpies and scored 34 goals in 113 Premier League appearances.
Appearing on the Open Goal podcast, Gayle accused Bruce of ‘chucking a few of the boys under the bus’ in a game away to Manchester City and claimed he was a limited manager when it came to the tactical side of the game.
‘He was OK,’ Gayle said. ‘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.
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‘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.
‘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’.’
Bruce, one of the most experienced coaches in the game, returned to management last year following the difficult end to his Newcastle tenure and a brief, unsuccessful spell at West Bromwich Albion.
The former Manchester United captain is currently in charge of Blackpool and on Sunday issued a stinging response to Gayle’s criticisms.
‘Is that the legendary Dwight Gayle, who missed the chance in the quarter-final against Manchester City? ‘Is that the same Dwight Gayle? Interesting,” the current Blackpool boss told BBC Radio Lancashire.
‘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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