Steve Bruce's 'disappointing' scouting trip for Newcastle United

Newcastle United’s head coach, along with his son Alex, was at Gresty Road yesterday to watch Crewe Alexandra’s 2-0 win over Peterborough United. Bruce may have been there to watch Peterborough’s Siriki Dembele, a 24-year-old winger. Dembele has scored five goals so far this season for the League One leaders.

Peterborough director of football Barry Fry insisted that the club, which sold former Newcastle striker Ivan Toney to Brentford for £10million in the summer, was not looking to sell Dembele before last month’s transfer deadline.

“We have no interest in selling Siriki,” said Fry. “We’ve had bids for him, but they’ve all been rejected, because the manager, the co-owners and myself agreed we’d not sell another player after Toney.”

However, if Bruce was there to watch Dembele, he will have been “disappointed”, according to the Peterborough Telegraph.