MARTIN SAMUEL: It all points to Mauricio Pochettino at Newcastle, but sacking Steve Bruce is cruel

Newcastle’s prospective owners have a problem. It is the same one that affected Blackburn and Manchester City before them.

Stick or twist. Stick with the incumbent manager who certainly deserves his chance, or bring in the coach it is believed will deliver the club to its next level. Blackburn and City decided initially to stick; and then, predictably, to twist.

It is no doubt why Steve Bruce sees his departure in the coming months as close on inevitable. He’s been around long enough. He knows how this works.

Newcastle’s prospective owners have a choice out of Steve Bruce (R) or Mauricio Pochettino

Bruce has done a good job at Newcastle, with limited resources. The club broke its transfer record last summer, paying £40million for Joelinton, but that has transpired to be a poor investment, meaning Bruce kept Newcastle clear of trouble with much the same group that struggled last season.

The football hasn’t been scintillating – and he knows that – but the campaign has brought some notable victories over Tottenham, Manchester United, Sheffield United, Chelsea and their first league double over Southampton since 2004-05.

The new owners do not see managerial change as a priority. Yet nor did Jack Walker at Blackburn or the Abu Dhabi United Group at Manchester City. But it happened.

Don Mackay was Blackburn manager when Walker bought the club, narrowly missing out on promotion to the top tier on several occasions.

The complication was that while Mackay – late of Dundee, Coventry City and Rangers reserves – stayed in charge, the outside world remained unconvinced of Walker’s intentions. He may have had a lot of money, but was he serious about spending it? Was his Blackburn project for real? When the 1991-92 season began poorly, Walker took his chance.

Bruce has done a good job on limited resources but must know that his departure is inevitable

He sold his vision to Kenny Dalglish, whose arrival sold it to the wider community, attracting players who might not have been recruited otherwise – including Alan Shearer, ultimately. Dalglish acted like the guarantor for Walker’s regime.

Abu Dhabi, too, were determined to give their inherited manager a chance. Had the new owners succeeded in buying Kaka in that first transfer window, the Brazilian’s coach would have been Mark Hughes.

As it was, Hughes still had time with Robinho, Carlos Tevez, Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, Roque Santa Cruz, Vincent Kompany, Joleon Lescott, Pablo Zabaleta, Craig Bellamy, Nigel de Jong, and a substantial supporting cast. Hughes spent more than a year at City following the takeover, and was still in charge for the first five months of the second season, 2009-10, the club having lavished £120m on players that summer.

Abu Dhabi gave Mark Hughes a chance after taking charge at Man City but soon replaced him

Ultimately, what did for Hughes may be what does for Bruce at Newcastle, too. The type of players City were hoping to attract expected a coach with a reputation to match.

There was even talk of retaining Hughes but adding to his backroom staff, perhaps a foreign name more familiar to the club’s stellar targets. Hughes, loyal to his coaches Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzwiecki, resisted, but when results dipped it proved his undoing.

Roberto Mancini arrived and the following summer City bought Yaya Toure, David Silva and Mario Balotelli. The title-winning era had begun.

Coincidentally, Manchester City’s last opponents with Hughes in charge – by which time it was known he was leaving – were Sunderland, managed by Steve Bruce. ‘I can’t understand the logic of them appointing a foreign manager with no experience of this league,’ Bruce said after the game.

He contrasted Hughes’ treatment with the patience afforded Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, and said it was another decision that would kill the hopes of aspiring British managers.

Newcastle are desperate to win a trophy and so is Pochettino after missing out at Tottenham

And Bruce is still aspiring, even at the age of 59. Mostly, he aspires to work at a club that has the money to compete and that may be Newcastle one day.

Yet he is also a realist. He sees the stories linking the club with Mauricio Pochettino and knows they contain a cruel logic. Newcastle do not possess an endless list of options and neither does Pochettino.

They are a team that need to be built, he is a coach that loves building. They are desperate to win a trophy, and so is he after repeated near misses at Tottenham. It all makes sense.

As at Blackburn and Manchester City, the appointment of a marquee name would serve as a statement of intent. Who could Pochettino persuade to come with him? Dele Alli? Harry Kane? So we get it. Even Bruce gets it, probably. We understand the appeal of Pochettino and Newcastle. We know the message it sends, and why it changes the dynamic.

The appeal of Pochettino is understandable but the sacking of Bruce would still be cruel

Yet it is possible to know all that, and still feel sorry for Bruce. He captained Manchester United. He has done a good, or reasonable, job at just about every club he has managed, including Newcastle. He must know a player.

Certainly, given the year or so that Hughes had and the 2020 equivalent of £120m to spend in one transfer window, he would be hopeful of impressing.

Yet with UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules, Newcastle’s owners have to get it right first time. They can’t spend their fortune on a trial.

And what if they did, only to find the world is much the same as it was in 1991 and 2009 and they need that public statement?

It all points to change, and Pochettino; but that does not make it any fairer on the man cast aside to facilitate the great leap forward.

Police threat to end season open to abuse by supporters

Police have been consulted over how to prevent thousands of fans congregating outside Anfield if Liverpool win the title this season.

There will be some hollow laughs in the blue corner of Manchester over that. Their battered coach and images of Liverpool supporters standing on police vehicles that were supposed to offer protection are still fresh in the memory. And no arrests were made.

It has been left to Deputy Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the most senior police officer in the country with regards to football, to formulate a plan.

He says that police should have the power to curtail the season entirely if fans do not stay away. It is, at face value, a sensible solution.

Fans will know the consequences in advance and cannot therefore complain if action results.

Police’s plan to end the season if fans do not stay away is flawed as some have nothing to lose

But here’s the problem. Take Liverpool. Once they have accrued enough points to win the title, will the type of fan prepared to put his family and friends at risk by eschewing social distancing for one giant jolly-up care whether the rest of the season is completed?

Liverpool will, indisputably, be champions. Who finishes fourth isn’t really of concern. Equally, what would a fanatical follower of a club likely to be relegated have to lose if the programme is called off?

It is going to be very hard to relegate any club without playing the season in its entirety. What is to stop a thousand followers of Norwich, say, or Aston Villa ensuring it remains incomplete?

The regular gatherings on Westminster Bridge to pay tribute to the NHS by causing it more work are evidence that not everybody gets this. Equally, some people are very cynical. Roberts’ plan can be undone by either faction.

Don’t let going to the Ryder Cup be a dream to die for

The problem for the Ryder Cup is the very thing that makes it unique. People. Noisy, excitable people. Thousands of them. It is why the first tee is such a special place, as they crowd around, hooting, hollering and singing, creating an impassioned, tribal mood in what are usually staid surrounds.

So those, like captains Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker, who say the event will not be the same without that atmosphere are correct. A hushed, barren Ryder Cup landscape would deliver little more than a regular match-play competition. It is the crowds that ramp up the tension and the thrill.

And the aggravation. For the Ryder Cup this year is at Whistling Straits, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin: AKA the middle of nowhere. Many courses are remote but not like this. Most spectators were to be billeted in Milwaukee, the nearest major city, 64 miles away. And it’s a pretty straight run, along the I-43S, with a journey time of just over an hour, depending on traffic.

Playing the Ryder Cup behind closed doors is criminal, playing on with fans is close to suicidal

But that means cramming everybody on to coaches, squashed in side by side: little germ tubes travelling to and from the course multiple times every day. It would be the great coronavirus incubator, with fans gathering from many of the worst-hit nations in the world. So while the Ryder Cup may be the last major event to fall in 2020, it is also the most obviously impractical.

There is talk of golf courses reopening here and that would be welcome. Distancing is certainly possible when playing. Professional competition, with its need for miles of cables and broadcasting fixtures to make it financially viable, however, is more problematic.

The Ryder Cup’s desire for a raucous, populated backdrop then makes it harder still. To play behind closed doors would be almost criminal — but to play with a full house is close to suicidal.

No sympathy for the thugs

Joe Marler’s ban from rugby, which is being served during the coronavirus shutdown, throws up interesting parallels. Marler was banned for 10 weeks for grabbing Alun Wyn Jones’s genitals during a Six Nations game in February and his suspension ends on June 7.

With the season unable to resume until June 27 at the earliest, it means he will have served the entire punishment at a time when he could not have played anyway. Organisers of the Six Nations, and World Rugby, are fine with this.

Then there is the case of the Millwall supporters serving bans, some of as much as three years, for football-related offences.

They have been told that as there are no games at present, the time being served is not active and the bans will resume on the date of the next competitive Millwall fixture. That is certainly inconsistent. But do we care?

Of course it’s all about the money, Gary

There is a reason Tim Martin is planning on reopening his JD Wetherspoon pub chain next month. It’s not because he thinks people are thirsty. So while Gary Neville is right in saying that football’s only motivation for attempting a return is commercial, it is hardly his most insightful observation.

All of this is about money: every sport exploring its options; every business reopening its doors; every conversation about an exit strategy. Money, money, money.

If the world was not facing economic ruin with millions unemployed and a colossal fall in tax revenues just at a point when governments needed that funding most, we could all sit tight at home and wait for some genius to emerge from a laboratory with a vaccine. Then we could hit pause again while it is mass-produced, then we could go about our day.

Sadly, life isn’t like that. Football should not be blamed as it gropes in the dark for a way out. It is what every business in the world is doing; every scientist and every politician.

Gary Neville’s right to say football’s motivation for returning is commercial. It’s all about money

German thrills will be brief

No wonder the Bundesliga is anxious to restart, having got European football’s field to itself and a captive global audience.

Some years its season would almost be finished but this campaign has been close, with eight points separating the top five teams and nine games remaining. Bayern Munich are four points clear, mind, so don’t expect it to captivate for long. It won’t be The Sopranos.

Flexible fixture list looks like the way to go

Football may just be going through the motions, making every effort to return before being thwarted by the Government, as keeps happening in Germany.

Perhaps, by doing this, the clubs have more chance of being compensated, or of protecting themselves against compensation claims and refunds. Let’s just imagine, however, that the 2019-20 season could conclude this summer. What are the issues?

One of them is the schedule, set out in an orderly fashion week by week. What would happen, for instance, if a club had to go into quarantine? Maybe more than one club. Might it not be better to look not at a regimented schedule, but simply a list of games that had to be completed.

So if Aston Villa were in quarantine and unable to play Everton, and Leicester were in quarantine and unable to play Sheffield United, but Everton and Sheffield United had yet to play, then that match could be given the go-ahead. It may lead to lop-sided programmes, with teams in quarantine having significant numbers of games in hand, but that would happen anyway.

At least if the list is viewed as a whole, it would stop a quarantined club taking its opponents out, too, so the season could progress, albeit strangely. And let’s face it, we’re in world of strangeness already.