Steve Bruce feeling the pressure at Newcastle after being ‘undermined’ following leak of bust-up with Matt Ritchie

Steve Bruce is feeling the heat at Newcastle after being ‘undermined’ by someone at the club, Trevor Sinclair believes.

The Magpies boss confirmed to talkSPORT that he was involved in a fall-out with Matt Ritchie following a story published by the Daily Mail on Thursday.

He insisted the matter with Ritchie is closed, but was angry news of the incident got out, declaring it ‘treason’ to leak such stories.

All is clearly not right behind the scenes at the club as they fight to keep their place in the Premier League ahead of a crucial trip to fellow strugglers West Brom on Sunday.

And having watched the Magpies manager’s spiky press conference on Friday, talkSPORT co-host Sinclair believes Bruce is clearly feeling the heat.

“Listen, Steve knows he’s under pressure and knows where they are in the table and he knows the situation they’re in,” he began.

“Sometimes that pressure does make you say things that you probably wish you hadn’t and the fact that Sam is saying he attacked a journalist for leaking this story, I would say that’s something that he thinks he shouldn’t have said.

“At the end of the day, the journalist’s job is to put stories out there and report what’s going on. In hindsight he would have preferred not to have said that.”

Sinclair suggested Bruce had been undermined and let down by one of his players following the leak of his bust-up with Ritchie.

“Something’s gone on at the training ground,” he continued. “There’s no cameras but there’s been a leak and I feel for Steve.

“I could sense that the most disappointing thing that’s come from this leak is that it was one of their own.”

Bruce has vowed to ‘circle the wagons’ after another difficult week on Tyneside as he attempts to drag the club out of Premier League relegation trouble.

He said: “When you’re up against that, you always believe you can circle the wagons. I’ve got complete faith in the squad of players I’ve got and I’m sure they have in me, and we will do our utmost to get out of the trouble, unfortunately, we’re in.

“We have a big game coming up at the weekend and let’s concentrate on that and make sure that we can get a result.”