Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Leeds United
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Sunderland
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Shola Ameobi has told Sky Sports’ The Football Show on Friday (10am) that he would urge Newcastle United’s new owners to keep Steve Bruce for the forseeable future and embed themselves at the club – before making a managerial change.
Newcastle are reportedly edging closer to completing a takeover that would see Mike Ashley’s heavily-criticised 13-year spell as owner come to an end. As with any takeover, rumours about the managerial hotseat have come to the fore.
Mauricio Pochettino, Rafa Benitez, Lucien Favre, Luciano Spalletti, Max Allegri, Jorge Jesus, Andre Villas-Boas and Julian Nagelsmann have all been linked. Indeed, Le10Sport have claimed that Newcastle are ‘very close’ to a deal for Pochettino.
Former Newcastle striker and The Toon’s current loan manager Ameobi has stated that his advice to the new owners will be to keep Bruce to begin with in order to keep stability – and only appoint a new manager when they have embedded themselves.
“I’m definitely a guy who doesn’t want to make a rash decision,” Ameobi said. “Steve Bruce has done a great job up here given what he has been given to work with. My advice would be to stick with Bruce.
“If a new owner comes in they will want to know how the club runs. It is important that we have stability. For me, I would be calling for the new owners to keep Bruce for the time being – then make a change when they’ve embedded themselves.“
TBR’s view – Ameobi has hit the nail on the head
Newcastle’s new owners are embarking on a project with a club that is loved by an enormous amount of supporters in the north east. The owners have to get it right, and earn the love and trust of Toon fans, which something Mike Ashley failed with.
Part of that, is remaining stable to begin with. Bruce is a Geordie, and keeping him to help run the club for the foreseeable future is the wisest move – but when the prospective owners get a feel for things on Tyneside, then a new manager should be chosen.
Ameobi is bang on – and it might just be that Bruce gets the chance to keep his job.
Receive weekly football news and updates to your mailbox