Posts Tagged ‘Joe Kinnear’

Ameobi papers over Newcastle’s cracks

Appearances can be hugely deceptive. Superficially all certainly seemed well on Tyneside, with a healthy crowd cheering Newcastle United to the rafters as Shola Ameobi’s hat-trick consigned Reading to a comprehensive 3-0 Championship defeat.

Scrape a fraction beneath the surface, though, and you will find a club in such turmoil that local dramatists are pinching their increasingly far-fetched, ultra soapy, plotlines. Earlier this summer You Really Couldn’t Make it Up – a play detailing Newcastle’s recent travails – drew full houses at the city’s Live Theatre.

Since its run ended, the tragi-comic farce at St James’ Park has taken a few more bizarre twists, but, at long last, a denouement appears in sight. Unfortunately it could involve a return to ’square one’ and, alarmingly, Joe Kinnear might yet be part of it.

After a close season spent forlornly endeavouring to offload Newcastle to assorted Omanis, Malaysians, Emiratis, Singaporeans and Americans, Mike Ashley, the club’s ever-unpredictable, increasingly eccentric, ultra-contrary owner and multi-millionaire sports retail magnate, seems poised to perform one of his now trademark U-turns.

Should Barry Moat, a local property developer and major corporate client at St James’, fail to persuade Barclays Bank to lend him the money needed to meet Ashley’s £100m asking price, the latter will duly haul down the ‘for sale’ signs. Small wonder that the rousing applause in celebration of the late Sir Bobby Robson’s life had barely faded away before press-box regulars started swivelling their necks to study the body language of the directors box’ occupants.

Inside its cloistered confines, Moat sat sandwiched between Ashley and Derek Llambias, Newcastle’s managing director, suggesting that the trio’s lunch-table chat at a pre-match charity function had proved amicable. They were certainly all smiles and back-pats as Ameobi struck.

A decision on any takeover is expected soon. If, and it seems a big if, Moat receives the green light, Alan Shearer will immediately be installed as manager. Despite winning just one of his eight games in charge at the end of last season while failing to prevent Newcastle’s Premier League demise, the former England captain would be a hugely popular choice.

Tellingly, chants of “Shearer, Shearer” regularly segued into “Walking in a Robson Wonderland” to provide last night’s emotionally charged soundtrack. Perhaps surprisingly, the relatively tame chants of “Stand up if you hate Ashley’ were merely sporadic.

Even so, the owner’s popularity might dip if, as anticipated, Moat’s deal collapses and, hoping to secure a better price next year, Ashley – already actively seeking a new manager of his choice – announces he will stay on for another season.

Although negotiations with David O’Leary and his hardball-playing representative, the lawyer Michael Kennedy, broke down last week, O’Leary knows the Newcastle job could prove his redemption story, offering him a last shot at rebuilding a once-glittering but now badly tarnished managerial career. It is still conceivable that the former Leeds United and Aston Villa manager might end a three-year exile from the game by compromising on personal terms and taking charge before the weekend.

While O’Leary would hardly be a populist appointment, he is generally regarded as infinitely preferable to Ashley’s back-stop option, namely Kinnear. The former Wimbledon manager’s stint in charge last season before an enforced departure for open heart surgery was undistinguished to say the least and both Shearer and Newcastle’s players subsequently delighted in deconstructing his regime.

Kinnear – who apparently believes he is on his way back to Tyneside – recently further blackened his reputation north of Scotch Corner by suggesting that Newcastle fans had a low tolerance threshold towards southerners and were overly fixated on those two sacred cows, Shearer and Kevin Keegan. While it would be an exaggeration to say he’s about as popular in Geordieland as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tel Aviv, there remains a real possibility that the Toon Army would turn militant were Kinnear reinstated. Indeed, it might be best all around if the doctors who have already advised against his returning to work until December intervene.

Whoever eventually takes charge – Alan Curbishley is an outsider – will inherit a much depleted squad. Eight players have left since May and Damien Duff appears Fulham bound.

The departures of Michael Owen and Obafemi Martins were inevitable, but those of key defenders Sébastien Bassong and Habib Beye to Tottenham and Aston Villa threaten to derail a promotion challenge. Especially as Manchester United loanee Danny Simpson remains caretaker boss Chris Hughton’s solitary summer signing. With the transfer window’s closure looming, time is running out to recruit replacements.

After Ameobi’s exploits, Ashley might believe none is necessary. He might think Hughton is the managerial answer. Newcastle fans must pray he is not misled by appearances.

Curbishley, Kinnear and Strachan – season predictions

Three former Premier League managers give their predictions on how the new season will pan out

David Hytner How do you think the Premier League will be different this season? Where do you see the fresh dynamic coming from?

Alan Curbishley When you consider the summer months, there’s no doubt the big story has been Manchester City. The so-called Big Four have been in a comfort zone. Every year they get into the Champions League, which provides them with revenue streams that no one else gets; they get more prize money and they also get more money from the TV than anyone else. But now someone has come along to upset them. Everyone is going to be looking at Man City. Can they break into the top four?

Joe Kinnear There’s going to be a lot of pressure on Mark Hughes. You find that when the rest of the Premier League play the top four, they always raise their game and they’ll do the same now against City. With all the players that City have, they will be a big scalp to get.

DH Does Hughes have the dream job?

JK I think he does. It’s better to be in a position where you can get who you want. You’ve obviously got to back yourself and your own judgement.

AC Mark will be feeling that he’s earned the right to be in this position after doing four seasons at Blackburn Rovers, when his team punched massively above their weight. A lot of managers are a little bit envious of Mark.

Gordon Strachan Mark will be relaxed as well because the new signings look as though they are his signings. That makes a heck of a difference. He can go in with a clear conscience when he starts the season.

AC Mark has settled on established Premier League players. Even if they are foreign, they have already been here, they are acclimatised. It’s nice to go for the likes of Kaká but until City are in the Champions League, I don’t think you can get those sort of players. This season, when Mark goes to Bolton and Blackburn, he’s going to need players that know what is going to go on.

GS I remember back in 1997, Chelsea had made some glamorous signings and they turned up at Coventry City for the first game of the season, not knowing the league, and we beat them. Dion Dublin scored a hat-trick for us. I just told the players to be physical, no kicking anybody but be a physical presence all day. Any chance we had to make them defend physically, take it. The difference between that team and Manchester City is that everyone has played in this league. Even Robinho has had a shot at it now for a year.

JK For Man City to prove themselves, they have to break into the Champions League. If they don’t do that, then they’re not successful. That is the minimum requirement, for sure.

AC I agree.

GS Me too, because a Europa League spot is not a return for the kind of investment we have seen.

DH City do seem to have got under Sir Alex Ferguson’s skin.

GS I heard about his reaction to the Carlos Tevez ‘Welcome to Manchester’ poster. Fergie was on tour in Asia at the time, wasn’t he? It depends on what day you get a manager. Most days, you feel diplomatic but some days you go ‘Right, let’s go. I’ll have a bit of this. Here you go’.

DH What did you make of Martin O’Neill’s comment that Manchester City ought to be considered as title favourites?

GS Managers are all playing games just now. They are playing games.

JK He said that to put them under pressure.

GS Just games. It’s good fun. At this level, managers are going to divert anything away from themselves. That’s what we do. Everybody understands. Nobody takes offence about it. If you said to Martin, if you’re that confident about Manchester City, stick your year’s wages on them … I don’t think he would.

DH Alan, you know Ferguson well, what’s his thinking about the season?

AC He obviously knew Cristiano Ronaldo was going and that there was the possibility Tevez might go, too. It wouldn’t have been a surprise that he has lost those two but what he has done is put faith in another bunch of players coming through. He has a great opinion of Danny Welbeck, he fancies him to come through this year, and there is Federico Macheda, who came on last season. He’s going to have Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney; he’s going to have Antonio Valencia, who is a good signing, Real Madrid wanted him; he’s still got Ryan Giggs, Anderson and Nani. They are not that much weaker.

GS The champions are the team to beat because they are the champions. They have lost the best player in the world but they still have the best manager in the world so if you’ve got that, you’ve got a chance. He’s proved time and time again that he can reshape a team. He’ll have to reshape it because Ronaldo is a special player and they gave him special dispensation to wander. There may be a more rigid shape to them this season.

JK Man United are in a privileged position as well. There is no other club in that league for whom every great player wants to play. They don’t have to bust their bollocks to go and beg someone to go there. If Man United do fall on hard times, I’m sure that Alex has got a hit list who are just a phone call away.

DH Joe, you worked with Michael Owen at Newcastle last season. Is he a good signing for Ferguson and United?

JK Michael will be a much better player alongside the type of players Man United have got. He struggled in our team because we didn’t create enough opportunities. I spoke to Alex about Michael prior to him going there and I think the move will inspire him.

GS The opinions of the press about Owen don’t count. Do you go with Joe and Alex Ferguson or somebody with a keyboard writing something down, a 23-year-old who has just come into the press saying that Owen is finished? It depends on who you are being written off by.

JK Michael is only 29, people forget that. And he looks after himself. He is the first one in for training, he always comes in an hour before anyone else and he works extremely hard for that hour. He brings his own private fitness coach and then he comes into the squad training.

DH Ferguson was quoted as saying that the title race was between United and Chelsea, that Liverpool would not be in the reckoning.

JK I wouldn’t forget Liverpool, no way at all. They’re in with a decent shout but, at the same time, Alex is not far wrong. Those would be the three. I think fourth spot would be the best for Arsenal.

AC Liverpool had their best start for years and years last season and then Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard got injured and it all fell apart. Liverpool need those two to stay fit if they are going to mount a challenge.

JK Torres and Gerrard are the best two players in the league.

AC I can’t dismiss Chelsea. They played last season without Michael Essien, Ricardo Carvalho and Joe Cole, three big hits, and [Luiz Felipe] Scolari had a problem with how to play Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka together. I think that Carlo Ancelotti will have the same problem but if he gets the other three back in, Chelsea could be the team that challenges.

GS Chelsea’s is a real man’s team. They look after themselves, more than anything else. There’s not much you can teach guys who are over 30. Michael Ballack, Frank Lampard, John Terry, they know the game. As for Ancelotti, I think it’s more the Champions League that they’re thinking about with him. With most managers, Chelsea have a chance of the Premier League but the Champions League is what they want and Ancelotti’s record in it as both a player and a manager is first class.

DH It doesn’t get any easier for Arsenal.

AC Their problem is that they haven’t won anything for four years and I really feel that Arsène Wenger may have to abandon the way he attacks the cups. When Fergie hadn’t won anything for a couple of years, he went and won the League Cup; José Mourinho came in at Chelsea and the first thing he did was to win the League Cup. It’s there to be won by the top four if you attack it properly. It may not be the title but if Arsène can put some silverware on the table, it would ease a little bit of pressure.

GS He’s a fantastic manager and it’s a great way to run a club but I’m afraid, no matter what you say about any fans in the world, they won’t say, ‘Just give me some good football to watch’. That’s cobblers. They want to win. Trust me. What they want to see is winning football.

JK Wenger is a very patient man. He’ll think, ‘If I finish in the top four this year, I’ll have qualified for the Champions League, is it good enough?’ And as that team progresses, they have a lot of fantastic young players … but nobody knows what’s going to happen in two or three years, whether they really do develop or not.

GS All top players want to win trophies and they always want to be competing. As long as Arsenal are competing, they will keep players. The moment they don’t look like they’re doing that, the good players will want to move on.

DH Which club might surprise us this season?

AC Tottenham have got the squad. They’ve got goals, with Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Aaron Lennon and Luka Modric and if they can keep their centre-halves fit, then they could be the team that does it.

JK I’d go along with that, or possibly Everton. Spurs have got a good enough squad to do well.

AC We’re talking a lot about Man City; then there’s Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton, so we’re talking about eight teams, a top eight, so I think just getting into the top 10 for the 12 other teams is going to be a feat. It’s going to be a really tough season for a lot of clubs.

JK The newly promoted teams will struggle. They say they’re going to enjoy it but let’s have a look after half a dozen games. It’s not easy for those teams to come up and travel to Anfield, Stamford Bridge and so on. You predict that they’re going to get stuffed immediately. How many games would you say that those teams will actually win?

AC History suggests one or two will go straight back down but I worry about Portsmouth. The three of us here know how difficult it is to get players in, they are letting players go and they’ve not got long before that transfer window closes. If they don’t sort themselves out, they could be in trouble, and I think Hull City as well. You can go 10-12 games without winning in the Premier League and they found that out last season. It’s going to be fascinating to watch.

Newcastle will consider short-term boss

• David O’Leary may see ‘vacancy’ as a way back
• Alan Shearer ‘disappointed’ but still ‘interested’

Mike Ashley’s failure to find a buyer for Newcastle United has forced the Championship club’s owner to give serious consideration to appointing a manager on a short-term contract. The respective candidatures of David O’Leary, Alan Curbishley, Gordon Strachan and Steve Coppell have been discussed at boardroom level.

Newcastle are under the caretaker charge of the first-team coach Chris Hughton and although Ashley is understood to be tempted to see how he does over the first few games of the season before replacing him, Derek Llambias, the club’s managing director, is making contingency plans for a new appointment.

Alan Shearer still wants the job but Ashley is unlikely to commit to implementing the former captain’s long-term plans at St James’ Park. Joe Kinnear, meanwhile, has claimed todaythat he has been offered a two-year deal by the club.

While Shearer – who is disappointed at having “been kept in the dark” by Ashley – is scheduled to start the season in his role as a BBC football pundit, O’Leary, Curbishley, Strachan and Coppell are all available. Whether any of them would want to work for the Ashley regime on a short-term basis is a moot point, although a return to the shop window might just appeal to the north Yorkshire-based O’Leary.

With sources insisting Ashley will not place Newcastle in administration, two consortiums interested in buying him out stalling on a deal and clubs rarely changing hands between transfer windows, the sports retail magnate could conceivably remain in control until January and possibly longer.

Jonathan Brill, Ashley’s spokesman, said yesterday: “Mike is still hopeful something will happen but if it doesn’t happen, then Mike will remain here. You have to look at it and say, if it isn’t sold, what other choice does he have?”

Keith Harris, the executive chairman of Seymour Pierce, the London investment bank, and the man charged with attempting to broker a sale remains cautiously optimistic of a takeover by September.

“Newcastle is clearly not going to be sold before Saturday,” said Harris. “But I’m hopeful something might be done by the end of the month.” He admitted that while there had been “no lack of interest” potential purchasers were deterred by the alarming wage bill and overdraft.

“The shock to Newcastle’s revenue lines after relegation is very severe,” said Harris, who encouraged Ashley to start selling players such as Obafemi Martins, the striker who joined Wolfsburg for £9m last week.

“It was important to see players were capable of being sold,” he added. “I would expect a few more to leave in the coming weeks and one or two more to come in.”

Newcastle make high-earners available

• Obafemi Martins and Fabricio Coloccini amonn players offered
• Joe Kinnear declares interest in returning as manager

Newcastle United are set to step up efforts to reduce their wage bill this week as they attempt to make the relegated club more attractive to purchasers. The details of 10 players, most notably Obafemi Martins and Fabricio Coloccini, have been circulated to agents worldwide.

Despite interest from Malaysia, the US and the UK, the club remains unsold, with the three parties concerned about the overdraft arrangements and an annual wage bill which stands at around £65m.

Seymour Pierce, the investment bank brokering the sale, had hoped Mike Ashley would have found a buyer by this week but sources suggest it could be another month. In a bid to accelerate the process Ashley has tried to move some high earning players on, but many of Newcastle’s squad are on unusually generous pay.

Martins is coveted by Wolfsburg, Sevilla and Lyon. While the Nigeria striker, currently recovering from groin surgery, does not want to move to Germany, Sevilla and Lyon could probably only offer him £40,000 a week – barely half his wages.

Coloccini, an Argentina defender, cost Newcastle £10m but after a disappointing season few, if any, clubs are likely to match his £70,000 a week. Galatasaray, though, have already made a £4m bid.

Meanwhile Newcastle’s squad travelled to Dublin for a week-long training camp culminating in their first friendly, at Shamrock Rovers. While Chris Hughton, the caretaker manager, put them through their paces, a frustrated Alan Shearer waited for news of a takeover and his potential installation as manager.

He is unlikely to have been reassured by Joe Kinnear’s first public comments since his recovery from a heart bypass in February. “Mike [Ashley] knows I’m still available,” said Kinnear. “I feel as fit as a fiddle, I love the game and I’m desperate to get back into it.” Moreover he claimed Newcastle would not have been relegated had he stayed in charge. “I’m pretty sure that the run I got the team on at the time would have seen us through,” he said.

Shearer, who was in charge for the last eight games, is wanted back at Match of the Day but, for the moment at least, the BBC is not putting any pressure on him.

Barton won’t be forced out of Newcastle, says agent

• Troubled midfielder ‘doesn’t want to leave’, according to McKay
• Shearer says £64,000-a-week player will not be selected

Joey Barton’s agent has warned Newcastle United that the troubled midfielder will not be pushed out of St James’ Park this summer. Alan Shearer has made it clear to Mike Ashley that if he is to become the relegated club’s manager full-time, Barton’s presence cannot be tolerated and there will be no place for him in his squad.

Newcastle’s owner is in full agreement and hopes Barton’s £64,000-a-week wages will shortly be removed from the payroll, but Willie McKay suggested that Barton is in no hurry to be moved on and may dig his heels in. “Joey has three years left on his contract at Newcastle,” said McKay. “He doesn’t want to leave.”

Barton spent the latter stages of the season serving an indefinite suspension from the club following a verbal attack on Shearer in the dressing room after his sending off in a defeat against Liverpool.

Ashley is believed to have taken legal advice on the possibilities of sacking a player whose Tyneside tenure has been scarred by, among other things, a stint in prison, but instead opted to quietly move the player on this summer.

Although Barton – who knows he would not be welcomed back with open arms and could be isolated were he to report for pre-season training on 1 July – would prefer to play Premier League football, he does not want to take a pay cut.

Despite his chequered past, several managers remain enamoured of his undeniable talent and Bolton’s Gary ­Megson and Blackburn’s Sam Allardyce, who brought him to Newcastle from Manchester City for £5.8m two years ago, are believed to be weighing up offers. Bolton had a £2m bid for Barton rebuffed by Joe Kinnear in January, but Newcastle would happily accept the same sum now to be rid of him and his costly remuneration.

Megson and Allardyce could, however, face competition from Harry Redknapp. It is understood Tottenham have made an inquiry about Barton. Yet, asked about his client possibly transferring to Bolton, Blackburn or Spurs, Mckay said: “No, no, no, there’s nothing doing – Joey has a three-year contract left at Newcastle.”

Meanwhile, Newcastle fans are ­becoming anxious that after four days of negotiations with Ashley, Shearer has still not signed a managerial contract. Club sources, though, remain optimistic that an announcement could be “imminent” and emphasise the legal complexities involved in drafting such agreements.

Ashley’s financial advisors have had to check that all Shearer’s demands make business sense.