Steve Bruce: ‘Newcastle have to be a bit pragmatic’

will face

on Monday with their 60-year-old coach who had been criticized over an eight-game winless run across all competitions, ending to a disastrous 1-0 defeat against

Sheffield United

on Tuesday.

Over this period,

Bruce

had to deal with the effects of the pandemic that has deprived him of live-wire attacker

Allan Saint-Maximin

and, while admitting that the problems of his team extend beyond that, he won't take an approach to recovery.

Asked about the disquiet, Bruce said:

“I understand that. I could say we’ve had our most exciting player missing for weeks – I’m not going to use that as an excuse, but if you took Wilfried Zaha out of Crystal Palace, are they the same?

“It’s a fair criticism because the last game in particular was awful and if I was a supporter, I would feel exactly the same way.

“But I keep stressing, if you’re in the bottom half of the Premier League, you have to be a bit pragmatic. You’ll see every manager say, ‘The one thing we need is to give ourselves a chance by keeping a clean sheet’.

“Now, getting that balance right, I fully, fully understand. But have Newcastle been a good watch for years? We’ve been in the bottom half of the Premier League.

“Now we’re not saying it’s acceptable, but it’s the way it is, it’s the reality of what it is. We’re in the bottom half, so we have to have a certain way of defending well. But we have to offer more going forward.”

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