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Newcastle fans slam Bruce over Saint-Maximin injury

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Image for Newcastle fans slam Bruce over Saint-Maximin injury

OPINION

It definitely wasn’t meant to happen like that. Steve Bruce must have been kicking himself when, after a quarter of an hour or so, Newcastle United new boy Allan Saint-Maximin pulled up with a hamstring problem against Tottenham. Ordinarily, that would have been infuriating enough, but the fact that the Frenchman had only just returned to the side after missing last week’s 3-1 humbling against Norwich City gave the whole sorry situation a real air of being completely avoidable. This was the winger’s first start for the Magpies, and honestly, you have to question the wisdom of Bruce throwing him in from the outset, especially when it became almost immediately clear that he wasn’t 100%. This is a player who registered 4.2 successful dribbles per game in France last season, as per Whoscored, but who has come nowhere near that kind of form in the fleeting cameos he has managed so far. Bruce rushed him back out of desperation, and now he could be paying a much bigger price in the long run. As for Sunday’s game, Saint-Maximin going off proved to be a real blessing in disguise, with his replacement, Christian Atsu, providing the assist for Joelinton’s winner in an unlikely 1-0 victory, but all things considered, this was poor from Bruce.

Nothing But Newcastle have gathered some of the best tweets below:

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