Desperate, desperate, desperate. SKY’s Keith Downie is reporting via his Twitter feed that Steve Bruce is Newcastle United’s number one target to replace Rafa Benitez. Presumably this is number one after getting knock-backs from Roberto Martinez, Mikel Arteta, Patrick Viera and Steven Gerrard. Sheffield Wednesday, Bruce’s current employers after he was sacked by Aston Villa when they were in the Championship are reported ti be braced for an approach from Newcastle United. They shouldn’t be that worried, it will earn them some compensation and save them paying him off frorm his inevitable sacking about 6 months from now.

There was as yet unsubstantiated rumour that Kevin Nolan would be Bruce’s No.2 which might explain his nauseous arse-licking on Talksport last week.

This would appear to be a severely cack-handed way of appeasing a support in just flinging a notional Geordie to a support Ashley (and indeed Charnley) appear to believe confirms the brain-dead caricatures of the worst of the media’s cartoon view of Newcastle United supporters.

A potentially disastrous appointment which is arguably worse than Charnley’s previous decision to give the job to a nailed on dud in Steve McClaren.

Steve Bruce is a long-way down from Rafa Benitez and will do nothing to appease a support on the point of outright rebellion and raises fears Mike Ashley, unable to sell the club with a boatload of his debt weighing it down might have simply decided to trash the whole thing and take out as much as he can.

We’ll have to wait and see but nothing at all positive looks like is going to happen anytime soon.