Newcastle United trio Rolando Aarons, Jack Colback and Achraf Lazaar are all unregistered to play in the Premier League this term.
Newcastle needed to register a 25-man squad for the Premier League campaign, and the trio all failed to make the cut.
When Bruce returned to Newcastle, Aarons, Colback and Lazaar were all offered chances to impress over pre-season.
However, none of the trio did enough to convince Bruce that they were worth registering to play this season.
And Bruce admits that it was tough leaving them out of his squad.
“Rolando and Lazaar, Jack Colback, all of them were difficult,” he said.
“Two of them played for me last year.
“You have to pick your squad, it’s just 22 outfield players.
“We signed two players really late in the window so their opportunity was still there until the last embers of the window
“It was disappointing for them.”
Aarons may be most disappointed about not getting his chance to impress in Newcastle’s squad.
The winger had a solid pre-season, and Bruce is known to be a fan of the attacker, after taking him on loan at Sheffield Wednesday last season.
Aarons also enjoys a good relationship with Bruce.
“He is very encouraging and he is a good man-manager,” he said to the Chronicle just last month.
“He is a top manager. He has been about, he knows what needs to be done and I think he will be good for us.”
It now remains to be seen whether Newcastle will offload Colback, Lazaar and Aarons before the European transfer deadline, which comes at the end of the month.
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