Steve Bruce has admitted he will be relieved to get to the international break with his job intact after a difficult start to his reign as Newcastle’s head coach.
The 58-year-old Geordie will see his side move to 15 Premier League points from their opening 12 fixtures if they can get the better of Bournemouth at St James’ Park on Saturday, representing a satisfactory return in his eyes.
Bruce said: “I think some of us look at October, November and think we have gone past that hurdle of getting the sack. I shouldn’t say that, but a lot of managers, we all think we have to get to the breaks and we have to get past the other break.
“It’s always the time when managers are sacked. How often does it happen? It gives the clubs two weeks to get a new manager and it always seems to happen then.
“All of us, say, ‘Let’s get through that first one in September’. You usually get away with that one. October is a bad month, and this flaming one at the end of November is awful.”
Watford’s Javi Gracia is the only Premier League managerial casualty to date this season, but a total of 17 men have lost their jobs in the top four divisions, and that is a source of disappointment for Bruce.
He said: “I always feel for the ones at the other end because everybody thinks there’s a roundabout that you get back on, and some people work extremely hard, do all their badges, do everything properly and then get one crack at it and it doesn’t quite go their way and all of a sudden, they’re looking at a different profession.
“I always look at that and think it puts people off and certainly when I was younger, I didn’t adapt to that very well. I just used to spit my dummy out and walk out, basically.
“I don’t know how many have gone this year. Seventeen? There you go, it’s ridiculous – and by Christmas, there’ll be another 17 as well, so it’s tough, it’s a tough gig.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here