'Little twerp' - ex-Crystal Palace chairman's response after former Newcastle striker criticizes Blackpool boss Steve Bruce

The former Crystal Palace chairman also defended Bruce for his approach to management, having worked with him briefly at Crystal Palace. However he said he would have advised his former manager not to get involved in a public slanging match after he responded to Gayle’s criticism in an interview with the Blackpool Gazette at the weekend.

Speaking to the Open Goal podcast, current Hibs striker Gayle claimed Bruce didn’t pay too much attention to tactics during their time together at Newcastle United - nor did he spend much time with the Toon players on the training pitch.

The well-travelled frontman also said Bruce only changed his approach at St James’ Park after a Saudi Arabia-backed £305m takeover of the club was completed.

In response to the criticism to the Gazette, the current Bloomfield Road manager questioned Gayle’s standing in the game and prompted people to make up their own minds after taking charge of more than 1000 matches.

Now Jordan has expressed his opinion on the war of words - and has come down firmly on the side of Bruce, as he also described Gayle as ‘an average player’.

Speaking on talkSPORT, he said: “I think that was a laddie environment (the podcast), with two non-critical little mates sitting opposite him, guffawing at what he (Gayle) said.

“Bruce managed for me, a long time ago. The one thing he did do was get himself on the training ground.

“Now, obviously, a long time has passed. Dwight Gayle, to me - average player, played at Palace. I think Steve told me a couple of years about the sort of contract demands, maybe a little bit longer than that, that Dwight Gayle thought he was entitled to play at Newcastle. The money he was on, and not money he wanted.

“I don't know why he wants to make those observations, and I doubt that there's anything seeded in accuracy, but it will play to the gallery of the people at Newcastle that didn't appreciate Steve Bruce, didn't like him as a manager, didn't like his brand of football. And to suggest that the chronological order is probably right - I don't think Bruce was there any period of time when the Saudi ownership took over.

“They were straight in the door, and he went out the other door, didn't he? So I don't know what the point is, but if I was Steve Bruce, and if I'd spoken to Steve about it, I'd have said to him, why would you bother with that little twerp and what he thinks?”

Bruce spent more than two years in charge of Newcastle and left the club in October 2021 with a 28.87-per-cent win ratio. Gayle - who joined from Palace in a £10m deal in 2026 - scored 34 goals in 122 matches for the Toon before moving to Stoke in July 2022.

Their paths haven’t crossed since, with appointed Blackpool boss last September after a period away from the game and Gayle joining Scottish Premiership side Hibs on a free transfer the same month.

Jordan added: “I always find myself defending Steve, because I like him as a friend, I also liked him as a manager, even though we had our differences at the time, and I think sometimes he's been dished out some treatment I don't think he's entitled to. I think that sometimes, also, at West Bromwich Albion, I thought he was poor when he went to West Bromwich Albion to do a job for them.

‘When someone sits in a little room with a couple of little twerps, laughing and guffawing about the fact that a manager doesn't lift a leg, and actually only lifted a leg when the Saudis walked in, as if that was somehow, he was going to punish the guys that were only going to get a benefit of the Saudis being here, I think it's a bit silly, and I think it's beneath Dwight Gayle, or maybe it isn't.

‘But it's certainly beneath Steve Bruce to respond to it. He doesn't need to. He doesn't need to respond to that, and the fact he's bitten on it means we're now discussing it’

What Dwight Gale actually said about Steve Bruce

‘I remember like some of the boys got chucked into the Man City shift, basically,’ he recalled.

'We had like a three-game week, and I think the gaffer sort of chucked a few of the boys under the bus in terms of who had to play against Man City away. And me and Matty Ritchie were asking for tactical improvements for weeks or months or whatever.

'And then we come in at half-time, and I think we were 2-0 or 3-0 down, and he's like, "Boys, you keep asking for tactics – I don't do tactics! Just put your boots on and work hard". (Against) Man City, that's not good enough to be like, "Just run about!" I was just in shock, but yeah, that's what he said.'

He added: 'He (Bruce) didn't really do much on the training pitch. But then, obviously, when the Saudi owners came in, he stuck his boots on and the whistle and was like, "If I'm going, then I'm going to run you into the ground," or something like that.

'So, we're doing some running drills and he's just running us and he's blowing his whistle and it's just, like, making it into a little bit of a joke and stuff. He's like, "They're over there watching you!"

‘I felt that he didn't perhaps spend enough time on working on a lot of things with us.

'I think he was trying to go game by game rather than perhaps develop us as a team. I just felt like we could have improved with a lot of things.'

What did Steve Bruce say in return?

Speaking to teh Gazette, the 64-year-old commented: : ‘Is that the legendary Dwight Gayle, who missed the chance in the (FA Cup) quarter-final against Manchester City? Is that the same Dwight Gayle? - Interesting.

‘I’ve been around the block a long long time. I’ve only managed 1,050 games but according to Dwight I don’t know what I’m doing.

‘I’ll let other people make their minds up who are a bit more established than Dwight ever was.’

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