Dwight Gayle now confirms what we all suspected about Newcastle United's training under Steve Bruce

Newcastle United fans strongly suspected that Steve Bruce had very little interest in training when he was the gaffer.

Newcastle's players would often be visibly gassed well before the end of matches while our opponents ran circles around us leading fans to suspect that the training sessions put on by Steve Bruce weren't up to snuff.

That was also hardly helped by rumours that the team wouldn't train daily. It was evident when Eddie Howe took his first session following Steve Bruce's dismissal that our players were far from in peak physical condition.

Steve Bruce was handed a brief stay of execution following the PIF's takeover of the club, and now Dwight Gayle has spoken about what Bruce did in training immediately following the takeover.

Dwight Gayle didn't hold back in his criticism of Steve Bruce

In another clip from the Open Goal podcast with Dwight Gayle as a guest, the former Toon number nine lifted the lid on training under Bruce.

"I felt like perhaps he didn't spend enough time working on a lot of things with us. I think he tried to go game by game rather than perhaps developing us as a team.

"HE didn't really do much on the training pitch, but when the Saudi owners came in, he stuck his boots on and a whistle, and he was like, 'if I'm going, I'm going to run you into the ground', and he'd make a joke of it like 'they're over there watching me.'"

If that doesn't sum the man up then, I don't know what does...

How is he even still working?

...Oh wait, yes I do. Later in the interview, Gayle talks about him and Matt Ritchie asking Bruce for some tactical pointers to take on Manchester City:

"Me and Matty Ritchie were asking for tactical improvements for weeks or months or whatever, and we came in at half time at like two or three nil, and he was like, 'boys, you keep asking for tactics. I don't do tactics, just put your boots on and work hard' and we were like, it's Man City, that's not good enough."

It's also worth mentioning about him threatening to end the career of whoever was speaking to Craig Hope. But yeah, he's a nice guy is Bruce. Proper family man, nice bloke.