Steve Bruce waits on decision from Newcastle United owners

Bruce and his players today met Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, her husband, at the club’s training ground.

United’s head coach is set to lose his job ahead of Sunday’s Premier League home game against Tottenham Hotspur, which will be attended by Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the club’s new non-executive chairman.

There have been “we want Brucie out” chants this season, and more than 94% of respondents to a NUST survey said they wanted Bruce to resign “in the best interests” of the club following a 2-1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers before the international break. The club is 19th in the Premier League.

Graeme Jones, Bruce’s assistant, is likely to be put in interim charge of team affairs.

However, Bruce, for now, remains in his position following the £300million takeover. The 60-year-old – who is on a rolling contract at Newcastle, and would be entitled to a pay-off of around £8million – said last week that he wanted the chance to prove himself to the club’s new owners.

“I want to continue, I’d like the chance to show the new owners what I can do, but you have to be realistic, and they may well want a new manager to launch things for them,” said Bruce.

PCP Capital Partners chief executive officer Staveley – who has taken a 10% stake in the club – had planned to meet Bruce and the players last Thursday, but the squad had left the training ground by the time the deal had been passed by the Premier League.

Bruce had already given his players Friday off, and the planned meeting was rearranged for this afternoon.

Staveley and Ghodoussi were introduced to the squad in the training ground canteen before watching the afternoon’s session.

Speaking to the Gazette last week, Staveley said: “What we can say is that we’re very aware we’re sitting in the relegation zone, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure the football club gets out of that position.

"We’ll make the decisions that need to be made, but we’re going to do a full review of all the club, not just on the footballing side.”

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