Blame Ashley

[ohhh_yeah 2991]

Mike Ashley has only himself to blame for managerial revolving door at Newcastle

 

I wonder what happened to Mike Ashley’s “King Kev” shirt. You remember the one.

 

By Jim White

 

 

The Newcastle owner wore it earlier this year when he soaked up the adulation of 50,000 Geordies, grateful that he had replaced the hugely unpopular Sam Allardyce as manager with the man they consider to be the Tyneside messiah, Kevin Keegan.

 

Maybe Ashley has now got “Demon Den” ironed on to his black and white stripes, ready for the next anointing. Though if he has, he would be wise not to wear it anywhere near St James’ Park.

 

The end of Keegan at Newcastle – and, whatever the club’s statements might imply, it seems only a matter of time before we have the T-crossing, I-dotting and cheque signing – is not one of football’s biggest shocks. Manchester City buying Robinho: that’s a shock. Keegan parting company with his club? You could have put your sub-prime on it.

 

Except, for once, this time Keegan’s eggshell ego is not the principal cause of his latest crisis. This is not about toys being ejected from a pram; it is about a manager being tested in a manner which might have tried the patience of Mother Teresa. And the engine driving the St James’ Park sitcom has been Ashley.

 

What happened at Newcastle is what generally happens when a very rich man takes over a football club. Sure, as a mere billionaire, Ashley may wilt in the shadow cast by the wallet City’s new boys wield. But he has more than enough to attract a coterie of apparatchiks, busily buzzing around his endowment.

 

Just as Roman Abramovich has done at Chelsea, Ashley has bloated the club administration with superfluous layers of management, all second-guessing his wishes while jockeying to justify their position. At Chelsea, there were so many directors briefing and advising and whispering that Jose Mourinho was destabilised to the point he could not continue. At Newcastle, Ashley is surrounded by comedy yes men, such as the spokesman who released the statement on Tuesday night claiming: “The club wants to keep progressing with its long-term strategy and would like to stress that Kevin is extremely important, both now and in the future.”

 

Newcastle fans might wonder which long-term strategy that is. Because the current plan looks horribly like the short-term panic which expunged Graeme Souness, Bobby Robson and Allardyce, each before a season had got properly under way.

 

But never mind the laughable spin. It was the moment Ashley appointed Dennis Wise and Tony Jiminez as London-based directors of football that Keegan was finished. How could he build a team as he wished when those with the owner’s ear were operating off a different purchasing agenda?

 

All summer the manager had been highlighting his need for a left-back. Unable to put in a bid himself because of the new demarcation of responsibilities, Keegan raised the subject at every contact with the board. But instead of a left-back, Wise and Jiminez presented him with Ignacio Gonzalez, a Uruguay midfield player, and Xisco, a Spanish striker.

 

Keegan had seen neither play. And if he had, he would have soon appreciated that neither offers him anything that James Milner did not. The young Englishman, though, had been sold against the manager’s wishes, to Aston Villa.

 

Even as this was going on, Keegan’s assistant Arthur Cox, the sounding board he has worked with throughout his career, left the club in acrimony a month ago. There was no statement from Ashley’s people as to why he went. But Keegan knows.

 

It is for the same reason he himself is now onthe brink: Cox recognised where the power lay at St James’. And it wasn’t in the dugout.

 

What happens post-Keegan we could safely predict: Wise as temporary manager until a new, expensive foreign coach can be brought in, an appointment which will last at the outside two seasons before the whole pitiful procedure cranks up once more.

 

Newcastle fans, meanwhile, can but put their heads in their hands and weep.

 

As for Manchester City followers: be warned, that new ownership of yours ought to come with a public wealth warning.

 

 

telegraph

[JonGoodwyn 1]

What a load of bollocks.

[Fop 1]

In all honesty who knows what is true and what is not at the moment (which makes it a media wet dream ).

Edited September 4, 2008 by Fop

[Park Life 71]

What a load of bollocks.

 

Why?

[Park Life 71]

In all honesty who knows what is true and what is not at the moment (which makes it a media wet dream ).

 

Keegan has been undermined by a team of muppets. Let's start there.

[Fop 1]

In all honesty who knows what is true and what is not at the moment (which makes it a media wet dream ).

 

Keegan has been undermined by a team of muppets. Let's start there.

 

Yeah it's fairly safe to assume Keegan has at best been mislead and at worst lied to have wilfully kept out of the loop.