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8 months ago
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Last week, Amanda Staveley was speaking at Bloomberg’s Power Player forum.
At the event in Jeddah, the Newcastle United minority shareholder declared ‘We had a team that was ageing, a coach that basically didn’t even want to come to work…’
Amanda Staveley later adding ‘We have an incredible coach (now!). We have an incredible team. Bringing Eddie Howe in and an executive team was really important.’
A week later (15 March 2024), The Telegraph have reported that ‘Lawyers acting on behalf of Bruce are understood to have contacted Staveley to point out that he had not once refused to come into work after the takeover and had helped advise them on the best course of action to take in the early days of the new regime.’
Amanda Staveley has now issues a clarification / apology via Instagram:
“I would like to clarify a comment I made at a recent speaking engagement.
“While commenting on Newcastle United at the time of the club’s change in ownership, I suggested the club had a coach who did not want to come to work.
“This suggestion was not correct; Steve Bruce was fully committed to his role at the club and always came to work during this period.
“I would like to make that clear that it was not my intention to question or undermine the professionalism of Steve, who was always professional throughout my dealings with him and committed to achieving the best for Newcastle United.
“I am happy to clarify my comments and I offer an apology to Steve for my comments and any unintended consequences.”
Steve Bruce says he is a Newcastle United fan but refused to resign despite the disastrous start to that 2021/22 season, with him making United look relegation certainties. Bruce clinging on and only leaving once he was sacked and could pocket what was widely reported to be an £8m pay-off, once his mate Mike Ashley had sold the club and the new owners inherited a total shambles thanks to Ashley and Steve Bruce.
As I said last week (see below), my take on the Amanda Staveley comments was that she clearly didn’t mean Steve Bruce had refused to come to work. Instead it obviously appeared to be a reference to what we had been told by the likes of Danny Rose in the past, that under Steve Bruce, he (Bruce) gave himself and his players an extraordinary number of days off, instead of working towards the next match at the training ground. Rose saying it was far more time off than he had ever experienced at Tottenham, as well as his knowledge of what happened at other clubs under their managers / head coaches.
Steve Bruce has of course had plenty of days off in more recent times. Since also proving a disaster at West Brom and sacked after only eight months in October 2022, Bruce has been unable to find another club these past 17 months.
My earlier article on The Mag about the Amanada Staveley comments on Steve Bruce – 8 March 2024:
Amanda Staveley has been talking about Steve Bruce.
The comments made during an interview on Thursday (7 March 2024).
Amanda Staveley speaking in Jeddah about a number of things, however, with her Steve Bruce comments I believe people are mistaking them for what really are, which I will explain under these quotes.
Amanda Staveley speaking (7 March 2024) at the Bloomberg Power Players event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, talking about when the Newcastle United takeover happened in October 2021:
“We are are patient and we were persistent [when trying to buy Newcastle United] but there needed to be dramatic change, as the club had been run in a very different format and we had very few commercial revenues.
“We had a team that was ageing, a coach that basically didn’t even want to come to work, a fanbase that was very angry and we had to take this incredible club and inject it with some life.
“We have incredible partners and they work incredibly hard to make sure that we are all very focused on the business plan. You have to be.
“You have to make sure that you make sensible decisions in terms of the transfer window, keep to your FFP constraints and try to do things that innovate and push outside the box, because that’s the only way we’re going to engage our fanbase and grow the club.
“We have an incredible coach (now!).
“We have an incredible team.
“Bringing Eddie Howe in and an executive team was really important.
“It is difficult, it is a very competitive market in terms of players and rules around that, so you have to be very focused.”
The Amanda Staveley comment on Steve Bruce that he was ‘…a coach that basically didn’t even want to come to work’ is the one that has attracted the most attention.
From what I have seen, journalists and indeed fans as well, appear to be taking this as Amanda Staveley supposedly referring to Steve Bruce no longer wanting to work at Newcastle United after the takeover.
Steve Bruce of course shamelessly refused to resign, despite Newcastle looking certainties for relegation under him. Supposedly a Newcastle United fan, Steve Bruce instead clinging on until the new owners were forced to sack him, getting a widely reported £8m pay-off as reward for doing such an appalling job.
What I believe Amanda Staveley was referring to, is something entirely different.
If you go back to May 2020, it was Danny Rose who first alerted us to this.
Taking to the Lockdown Tactics Podcast, the then Newcastle United loan player talked about the training regime he had been used to for the past five or six years at Tottenham, saying that he and his Spurs teammates would ‘…get one day off if you are lucky and that’s it, you’re grafting for the rest of the week.’
Dann Rose then comparing it to what he had experienced since his move to Tyneside, declaring ‘So now I’m at Newcastle [with Steve Bruce], you are getting two or three days off a week if you win. So I’m thinking what’s going on here then? It’s a shock to the system.’
Rose going on to make clear he had never anything like it at any other club, for a manager to give themselves and the players so many days off, instead of working at the training ground ahead of matches.
So when Amanda Staveley talks of Steve Bruce as ‘…a coach that basically didn’t even want to come to work’, I think she is referring to how little time he spent at work, instead of preparing the team for matches.
This was backed up after Steve Bruce got his pay-off, as we then had a procession of players admitting in interviews, that a big reason as to why Newcastle had started the 2021/22 season (nine games without a win under Steve Bruce) in such shocking form, was due to them not being fit enough compared to rival teams.
The very opening game was a perfect illustration of this, as Newcastle led 2-1 at the break, only to then look increasingly knackered in the second half as a far fitter looking West Ham went on to score three goals and win 4-2 at St James’ Park, whilst NUFC didn’t have a single effort on goal after the break.
Amazing how quickly time flies, the shambles of Mike Ashley, Steve Bruce and Lee Charnley now consigned to history although it feels like far less than two years and five months since that nightmare ended, with now a committed and professional set-up in place.
The centre-piece of that is of course Eddie Howe and we all know for absolute sure what Amanda Staveley means by her comment, when she declares “We have an incredible coach (now!).’

 
