STEVE BRUCE remains hopeful that Matty Longstaff will turn down alternative offers and agree to sign a new long-term contract at Newcastle United.

The younger of the two Longstaff brothers is due to become a free agent at the end of the month and has rejected what Bruce describes as “an extremely attractive offer” on a number of occasions.

Italian side Udinese have held talks with Longstaff and his representatives, and are understood to have offered amore lucrative deal that the one currently on the table on Tyneside.

However, with Longstaff set to agree to stay on Newcastle’s books for the remainder of the season, Bruce remains hopeful the 20-year-old Tynesider will sign up to a new long-term contract with his hometown club.

The Newcastle boss said: “There’s been a lot of talk about Matty, and we hope we can resolve something. There’s still dialogue between the respective parties, and we at the football side of the club certainly want him to stay.

“The club want him to stay. We’ve made him a really good offer, the kid, and let’s hope we can get it over the line.

“I’ve had a couple of conversations since we’ve come back, and purely from a football point of view, we all want him to stay. He’s a young lad, a Newcastle fan who lives in North Shields. He’s had a remarkable rise very quickly, and we’ve offered him a fantastic deal in my opinion. We hope that he accepts it, and we’ll carry on that way over the next few weeks and see where that takes us.”

Longstaff has verbally agreed to extend his stay to the end of the current campaign, and despite being out of contract at the end of this month, Andy Carroll and Javier Manquillo have also verbally agreed to see out the season under the terms of their existing deal.

Deals are also in place to extend the loan deals of Danny Rose, Valentino Lazaro and Nabil Bentaleb, enabling them to finish the current campaign.

Bruce said: “There’s been a lot of dialogue with the Premier League and what we’re going to do with out-of-contract players, and what they decided to do was grant an extension to the end of the season.

“All our lads, including the loan players and out-of-contract players, have verbally agreed to stay on and play to the end of the season, which is obviously a good thing. With the out-of-contract players, the club are in discussion with them at the moment.”

Both Longstaff brothers have picked up knocks since returning to full training earlier this month, and neither will be considered for Sunday’s game against Sheffield United.

Bruce also has injury doubts over Matt Ritchie and Dwight Gayle, although neither player has sustained a long-term issue.

He said: “We’ve got a couple of niggles, which you would expect. The two Longstaffs are there or thereabouts, and we hope they can be involved after the weekend.

“There’s a slight doubt about Matt Ritchie and Dwight Gayle has picked up a knock on his knee. There’s one or two niggles.”