Steve Bruce's 'honest' assessment of Newcastle United's FA Cup failings

Bruce's side was held to a goalless draw by Oxford United on Saturday – and the club faces an unwelcome fourth-round replay at the Kassam Stadium next week.

The game was played in front of a sell-out 52,211 crowd at St James’s Park after the club slashed ticket prices for children.

Newcastle, however, struggled to break down the League One team.

“I always knew they would come out and support us in the FA Cup,” said Bruce, United’s head coach.“Let’s be fair, we’re not going to win the Premier League are we? I think any club, and this one in particular, are just desperate to try to win something. We’ve seen it – 30,000 for Rochdale, 50,000 (against Oxford) – there’s not many can do that.

“It was good. It’s just disappointing for me that we haven’t given them anything to shout about. Some of them were probably here for the first time – and we didn’t do enough.

“We have to be honest – we didn’t play anywhere near well enough. The number of times we miscontrolled it was unbelievable. It went under our foot, we misplayed it, it went out, we misplaced a pass – all of that was pretty evident.

“We’ll be better a week on Tuesday, because I don’t think we could be any worse.”

The game kicked off after news broke of a Saudi-backed takeover bid.