Kevin Keegan new Newcastle boss

Can't help thinking it would have been better for Keegan if Newcastle had gone out tonight. Picking up the team with zero expectations would have suited him. All the Newcastle fans will now be secretly hoping for the FA Cup this season, Keegan's honeymoon could have lasted til August but now it will end at the Emirates.

I like Keegan and leather jacket aside I think he's the right man for Newcastle. It's not important who the media wanted or what the pundits think, all that matters is the fans and I think they'll be happy.

James Lawton on Keegan appointment. Harsh, but true.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/news-and-comment/article3345116.ece

James Lawton: Keegan's return testament to terminal madness of St James'
Published: 17 January 2008

After all the years of broken football romance, all the failures to mature into a knowing, fighting organisation able to live in the hard world inhabited by serial winners like Manchester United and Arsenal, what do Newcastle do?

They fire their wobbly old cupid's arrow at Kevin Keegan, who ever so briefly set all their hearts aflutter. They are, yesterday's evidence insisted, terminally mad.

They wouldn't know a professional reflex if it was projected in neon from the statue of the Angel of the North, which is such a welcoming symbol on the A1 for the followers of serious football teams who head to St James' Park with sure-fire hopes of fresh plundering.

Let's not be too dismissive of some of the fine qualities of Keegan. He was a wonderful player. He made himself into one with a dedication and a spirit that still shame so many of the most gifted members of today's generation of performers and for the first phase of his five-year reign as Newcastle manager he produced a stirring cocktail of football that reminded the fans of his warrior impact in the black-and-white stripes. But that was more than a decade ago – and it was promise not fulfilment, it was foreplay not coitus, it was a dream not reality.

Why, so many years on and after the trauma of his departures from Tyneside, England and Manchester City, would Keegan again commend himself to the Newcastle directors at the age of 56? Because the men who run the club continue to fight one long, losing battle with the demand to look around them and learn a few basic lessons about how you make a winning football club.

You don't do as the fabulously wealthy businessman Mike Ashley has done with his call to the past.

You don't deck yourself out as a fan and feed on their fantasies. You talk to a few men who know the business, who could have explained to him why – after Keegan's emotional meltdown and decision to leave the job in which he had promised so much but failed to meet some fundamental challenges of organisation and discipline – football men of the quality of Ruud Gullit, Kenny Dalglish, Sir Bobby Robson and Graeme Souness were all obliged to leave with the brand of loser.

They weren't losers. In one way they were like the fans. They were victims of a corporate incompetence.

What Keegan did achieve – and no amount of sneering here can obscure it – was a thrilling vision of what could happen if Newcastle were truly set alight. Of course there were flames enough when Keegan reigned. But they burnt out so quickly even a 12-point lead in the Premiership was allowed to splutter away. It was like watching a beautiful painting ripped apart in front of your eyes. The trouble was Keegan couldn't protect his work. He had the heart for the job but not the head. In his eagerness to sign the brilliant Faustino Asprilla, a leggy marvel of intricate skill, he omitted to work out what he would do when the Colombian arrived at St James' Park as thelast brushstroke in a masterpiece.

Keegan compromised. He lost the balance of attack which had been provided by two wide players giving the team tremendous width and poise. Newcastle became cluttered in attack – and remained painfully porous in defence.

Do Newcastle now expect Keegan to come back with a harder head and a surer sense of what he wants to do, his wildest hopes tempered by the pain of failure with England and Manchester City? Or do they hope to underpin his appeal with the appointment of an old pro "assistant". It cannot be so if they are even now contemplating a second tier of fan appeal with another great hero of the terraces, Alan Shearer, who has strongly hinted that he is ready to claim what many in the North-east have always seen as his destiny to play a part in the management of the club of his native soil and the one he chose in preference to Manchester United? It is a scenario of nonsense.

With the departure of Sam Allardyce, it seemed that Ashley knew what he wanted and had quickly discarded his inheritance from the former chairman Freddy Shepherd. There was a suspicion that while playing to the gallery of the fans, and laddishly supping his pints, he might just have been taking wiser counsel.

Harry Redknapp might not have been a dream appointment, but he did promise a knack for producing football which pleased the eye and which, with the right financial support, might even have begun to produce consistent results. But Ashley made a mess of that; he forgot the classic rule of cross-examination, the one that insists you never ask a question if you don't know the answer. Redknapp gave the wrong answer and where did that leave Ashley? It should have left him fighting to repair the disaster and making offers to such as Mark Hughes and David Moyes, tough men of a new generation who have already proved that they know how to lick under-performing clubs into shape.

It was really the least you might have expected of the tough businessman who made his fortune by following his instincts and not the kind of palsied received wisdom that for so long left his acquisition Newcastle United in chains.

Almost unbelievably, he has not done that. He has submitted instead to the curse of St James' Park. He has turned his face to yesterday and we all know, in the case of Newcastle United, what you get there. It is empty and, let's be honest, increasingly pathetic dreams.

There's going to be plenty of people lining up to criticise this decision, because on paper it's ridiculous. We could all speculate about Keegan walking out after 6 games but at the same time he could be a success. Football has changed since Keegan was last involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean he wont cope.

Glenn Hysén wrote: There's going to be plenty of people lining up to criticise this decision,

I'll start then

Glenn Hysén wrote: because on paper it's ridiculous.

Not just on paper - in real life too.

Glenn Hysén wrote: We could all speculate about Keegan walking out after 6 games but at the same time he could be a success.

and pigs might fly.

Glenn Hysén wrote: Football has changed since Keegan was last involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean he wont cope.

but given 2 public meltdowns under pressure there's reasonable evidence he won't.

Uh-huh, but as I already said, it's not really anyone's business but Newcastle's - the only responsibility is to the fans and the fans are happy.

chins

Its a load of rubbish by James Lawton. Its pretentious to start with, and everything he says is based on received wisdom rather than any knowledge, any true recollection, any understanding. He is wrong and vague when he suggests that Keegan compromised during our title challenge. Hes vague to the point that, if he implies anything, he implies that Keegan is somewhat to blame for the failures of all the managers that have followed him - which is of course nonsense. And what does it mean to say that Keegans time was dream rather than reality? It means absolutely nothing. Keegan wasnt in the job only briefly, he was with us for five years, but the guy talks as if we had the one season of success that couldnt be sustained. In Keegans time we romped away with a first Division that we would have been relegated from if not for him. We finished third, sixth and second in the Premier league, and in that time we played the best football in the league - and Keegan is being damned more than anything for this style of football, because its easy to play the sensible, knowledgeable realist and to say that this sort of attacking play is flawed, isnt solid, whereas defensive teams are given more respect as if theyre playing inside the rules of the game. But nobody wins things without scoring goals, and this defensive style of play which prevails in the league is more flawed than the football Keegan had us playing.

In a word, Keegan had a reasonably long period of tremendous success at Newcastle. We failed to win the title in our first real season challenging for it, but plenty of clubs have come undone on their first go, lacking the experience needed for the title, whilst in our case we suffered from certain players going off form, from a dreadful run of luck. If we are going to be serious about things we should send Mark Hughes and David Moyes and Harry Redknapp and their like to the devil, because their records do not compare in the slightest to Keegans, they havent proven half as much.

What does it mean to say that after two public meltdowns, Keegan probably wont cope? When will he stop coping? What will he be struggling to cope with? The fact that he had two public meltdowns shows that he has, in the past, succumbed too much to pressure and to outside influences. But its not as though Keegan has ever, at least at club level, found himself out of his depth when it comes to the job of managing - on the contrary, he has always excelled at club level. At Newcastle the supposed meltdown came after over four seasons in charge, during which time, like I say, he transformed our team, taking us into the Premiership and then to third, sixth and second placed finishes. If he does this again - and the fact he has done this once suggests his potential to do so - and then has another meltdown, will he have failed? Will this then, in retrospect, have been a bad appointment? Of course it wont have been. His appointment offers us realistic hope for the future which we wouldnt have had under any of the other names - Hughes, Redknapp, even Jol - that were being mentioned for the job.

Essentially, if five years, promotion, third, sixth and second, being the most entertaining team in the league, then having a meltdown can be classed, overall, as a failure to cope, then Im happy to go with this failure again over a string of mediocre managers who have never succeeded so far as to be under real pressure to start with. Its wrong to let a supposed meltdown cloud what were five great years at Newcastle. At the same time, it would be nice if Keegan was able to distance himself a bit more, on occasion, from the pressure of the game - and with the extra experience he has this time around, with another period away from the game to recharge his batteries and reflect, then we will just have to see if he is able to do so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/n/newcastle_united/7193340.stm

'"I know what the fans want," Keegan told the club's official website.

"As long as they are realistic and patient, we can try to help them have dreams and possibly win something." '

Well clearly he's never met most of the fans as realism and patience are 2 things in short supply.

As for Shearer's behaviour:

'Keegan, who will be officially unveiled at a press conference on Friday, also has to make a decision about the make-up of his backroom team, with Newcastle legend Alan Shearer touted as a possible assistant.

Shearer told BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday: "I don't know whether, one, he wants a number two, or two, I would like to be one. If he were to call then obviously I would be foolish not to speak to him." '

What an arrogant pr!ck. 'I don't know whether I want to be a number 2' - well as you have absolutely no coaching experience whatsoever, getting any coaching role at a premiership club should make you grateful.

If he felt that strongly about the club he would offer himself in whatever capacity Keegan wanted - and he certainly wouldn't be manouevring like this in the press.

He seems more and more to be a political, wily b***tard.

Yep, we've had non-stop criticism from the press for aslong as i can remember, "don't sign this player, don't sack that manager etc etc". Instead of blaming Souness, Roeder, and Sam for the things they did wrong they decided to print article after article having a go at the fans. It's very boring and you just know that these people know f@ck all about football, i bet they would've been fine if we appointed a dull mediocre stable manager like Redknapp, Moyes, or Hughes. But let me tell you that wouldn't have excited the fans and it wouldn't have excited the players.

Football has changed since 96 but not THAT much. I see Jols Tottenham and Robsons Newcastle as a similar sides to the ones Keegan made, they were both very attacking and tactically naive. Just because there isn't a successful team doing it at the moment it doesn't mean it can't work.

I'm sure the style of play can be made to work, with the right players.

What I would question is the long-term stability Keegan will bring. This is a guy who is on record in summer 2007 saying that he will never manage in football again and has not seen a game of football live for over a year.

Now all of a sudden he's back and committed to Newcastle 100%.

The guy is mercurial and if he ups and leaves suddenly you shouldn't be surprised.

Kimbo wrote:Yep, we've had non-stop criticism from the press for aslong as i can remember, "don't sign this player, don't sack that manager etc etc". Instead of blaming Souness, Roeder, and Sam for the things they did wrong they decided to print article after article having a go at the fans. It's very boring and you just know that these people know f@ck all about football, i bet they would've been fine if we appointed a dull mediocre stable manager like Redknapp, Moyes, or Hughes. But let me tell you that wouldn't have excited the fans and it wouldn't have excited the players.

Football has changed since 96 but not THAT much. I see Jols Tottenham and Robsons Newcastle as a similar sides to the ones Keegan made, they were both very attacking and tactically naive. Just because there isn't a successful team doing it at the moment it doesn't mean it can't work.

Here is what a London paper made of it.

Kevin Keegan breezed back into Newcastle yesterday. You couldn't help thinking the misty-eyed folk on Tyneside never seem to learn.
They've not learned that getting their tattooed bellies out in freezing weather impresses nobody, it gets you on TV but you look like a fudging twit.
They've never learned that Jimmy Nail's spender isn't the hight of the entertainment. That it would be funnier to refer to Ant and Dec by their pop names PJ and Duncan and that a nightclub disco boat pilled up in the city centre is a bit naff.
And they've never learned that changing your manager every two seconds is about as silly asking Alan Shearer to be a witty pundit on Match of the Day.
It will be entertaining having Keegan back in the premiership fold. I love his enthusiasm but i'd love it. Just love it. If Arsenal hammer his new old team in the next round of the FA Cup.

As you can tell an Arsenal fan

Yes, cliched nonsense. There's a million articles like that out there. Even from supposedly good papers like the Guardian and the Times. They all hate this appointment, we should've gone safe, boring, and most importantly non-threatening. These people are scared of what will happen if this works.

Actually, I would loooove it if it does. Seriously. If Keegan can get Toon playing good football and winning I'll be delighted - particularly if they can knock Everton out of a UEFA Cup place.

But I don't think anyone is scared at the moment. Except maybe Sunderland.

Kimbo wrote:Yes, cliched nonsense. There's a million articles like that out there. Even from supposedly good papers like the Guardian and the Times. They all hate this appointment, we should've gone safe, boring, and most importantly non-threatening. These people are scared of what will happen if this works.

Why scrared?

Both papers I've looked at today the Sun and the Express had articles by two different journos take on the appointment, one for, one against.

Steven Taylor should be made Captain ASAP.

Parks lives wrote:

Kimbo wrote:Yes, cliched nonsense. There's a million articles like that out there. Even from supposedly good papers like the Guardian and the Times. They all hate this appointment, we should've gone safe, boring, and most importantly non-threatening. These people are scared of what will happen if this works.

Why scrared?

Both papers I've looked at today the Sun and the Express had articles by two different journos take on the appointment, one for, one against.

Most articles are against. It seems they're recoiling in horror tbh. Keegan CAN create a very good side, we all know that, whereas if we'd appointed someone like Hughes or Redknapp then it would be fine because they are safe boring and will never really compete. That appointment would've pleased every non-Newcastle fan.

Everyone is against you....

BashfulAlan raises some good points. There is really no evidence that this is the same Kevin Keegan, for all we know it could be some kind of android or some hi-tec hologram or fleshy projection. If Kevin is stuck in a loveless marriage it will have inevitable repercussions on his state of mind and ability to do what he does best. I'm going to reserve judgement until I've seen indisputable proof one way or the other.

Parks lives wrote:Everyone is against you....

Only the southern press Spanky. Over the past week the likes of Martin Samuel and Louise Taylor(among others) have been spewing out vicious bile.

I certainly don't think it's out of fear.... Would have no problem with Hughes being next man u manager, think it's stupid to discredit taking a shite blackburn side into a top 8 and improving prem side. So many great singings for low cost along the way. Redknapp does well wherever he goes, you aint gonna break the cl places with pompey or blackburn, so what more can you expect? There is just no appeal for top top players with these clubs

Keegan is just laughable for me, it could turn out great, very unlikely however..... i think you will be in a relegation battle by next month

L r d wrote:Would have no problem with Hughes being next man u manager

Well, then you're an idiot, but we already knew that.

I'm looking forward to Newcastle playing attacking attractive football. What people have missed is it is a win win win situation for the fans, owners, and Keegan. This is what football is all about first and foremost everyone is a winner right now.
If Keegan plays 50-50 footy from here to the end of the season and shows a consistent improving edge and even then he walks away the club owners know what the fans want and will have to seek another top attacking coach.
Boring defensive football is dead and always will be in Newcastle. Only defensive football purist like Otto and Puro can not understand what the Toon army really want. Some attractive attacking football with a chance of winning something.

Happy for the Newcastle fans

Definitely played the best football in the 90s, and if he gets them playing like that again it will be good to watch.

aye its a good thing for newcastle. the fans are all lifted . its nice to see they see a light at the end of the tunnel now.

keegan is their god. simple

StevieG wrote:keegan is their god. simple

Give it a year before is turns into was

What I am most interested in is how he builts his team , what player will he choose , what kind of players will be look for what he will bring in , will he go English , European , South American (he has bring in many different type of players in and I think transfer market is one of his strengths).
Also will be interesting is what players he currently have will be long term options etc , it will be interesting to see it all , will he start building this window or will he take his time with it , how much will he have.

Dark Savante wrote:What I am most interested in is how he builts his team , what player will he choose , what kind of players will be look for what he will bring in , will he go English , European , South American (he has bring in many different type of players in and I think transfer market is one of his strengths).

I'm not so sure whether the transfer market is still one of his strengths. He said in a relatively recent interview that he hadn't watched a game live since his last Man City match. Now, he's a football fanatic, so I can only assume he's watched numerous games on the TV, but there's only so much that you can learn from that.

He's got some money to spend, I think that's clear. I think that it could turn out to be a very good appointment, or it could go horribly wrong and then they'll appoint Shearer to replace him. It's certainly given the fans a lift, if last night is anything to go by. That may well carry the team through until the summer. The Premiership is too competitive for them to expect too much this year, so I imagine he'll be given a grace period.

L r d wrote:
Give it a year before is turns into was

Yo LRD homeboy! Looks like we agree on the Keegan appointment. However, the romantic side of me hopes Keegan can make Newcastle very competitive again, BUT like I said in my first post, he's up against superior opponents both players and coaches. No more league full of talentless hoofers, well there are still quite a few, but no way near the amount of the past.

I don't think Keegan will beat the coaches I mentioned earlier in the final tables. He may beat Curbishley for tenth place or so. The game in the EPL has changed so much for the better, more and more teams want and NEED to play football nowadays in order to be successful.

The competition is tough especially from the big four. Heck even your man Ferguson can't hack it on his own like he used to in the 90's. I KNOW Queiroz is taking care of the X's and O's on the drawing board while Ferguson does the rah rah stuff. Ferguson is a smart man, and he realized this when Queiroz left for Real Madrid Your Mancs dropped in the standings the following season when Queiroz left AFTER winning the title in '02-'03. In the past, Ferguson would've done back to back titles without breaking a sweat, but the Scott knows what time it is nowadays. Fergie can't do it alone anymore, it's Queiroz doing the tactics mainly I'm convinced.

In essence, that's why Keegan and Newcastle will continue to suffer in mediocrity. It'll be exciting for the Toon you bet, the feel good factor will be there, the exciting, the attacking football, but mid table finishes at best. This appointment may be disastrous, but I'm rooting for Newcastle and Keegan, but like I said in the first post, the competition from coaches and players is much much superior this time.

Puro wrote:
The competition is tough especially from the big four. Heck even your man Ferguson can't hack it on his own like he used to in the 90's. I KNOW Queiroz is taking care of the X's and O's on the drawing board while Ferguson does the rah rah stuff. Ferguson is a smart man, and he realized this when Queiroz left for Real Madrid Your Mancs dropped in the standings the following season when Queiroz left AFTER winning the title in '02-'03. In the past, Ferguson would've done back to back titles without breaking a sweat, but the Scott knows what time it is nowadays. Fergie can't do it alone anymore, it's Queiroz doing the tactics mainly I'm convinced.

I wouldn't have thought there was any doubt about this - Fergie basically said as much when Queiroz came back to the club, that his tactical and technical coaching was needed in this era of football. Fergie's smart in that he knows his own limitations, but on the other hand it was Fergie who ultimately made the decision to sign Park Ji Sung, Rooney, Ronaldo, Anderson - the more technical players capable of a more Latin style of play. No doubt Queiroz had a hand in them getting Ronaldo, Anderson and Nani, but Fergie was smart enough to realise that these sorts of players were what was required in building a new team.

This all goes back to, as had been discussed on the Man U thread several times, the Real Madrid tie in the Champions League, after which Fergie openly stated that the main difference between the teams was Madrid's superior dribbling/running ability. Having watched both the games myself, I can say he was probably right.

Dark Savante wrote:What I am most interested in is how he builts his team , what player will he choose , what kind of players will be look for what he will bring in , will he go English , European , South American (he has bring in many different type of players in and I think transfer market is one of his strengths).
Also will be interesting is what players he currently have will be long term options etc , it will be interesting to see it all , will he start building this window or will he take his time with it , how much will he have.

He won't have much time during this window. 2 signings at the most, and even then they probably won't be big money. Keegan is good in the market, this is one of the things he has over other british managers, they seem scared to bring in foreigners alot of the time, whereas Kevin will go and buy mental south americans that don't speak a word of English. There's talk of him bringing in Coleman as his number 2, that would be a good move i reckon with him managing on the continent recently, he'll know more about what's going on than Shearer or Pearson.

@ Puro

I don't get your point about him struggling because teams WANT to play football. Surely that would suit a team with his style? Physical teams that sit deep and keep it tight are the ones we're more likely to struggle with. Also going by your logic surely Robsons Newcastle should've failed, and Jols Tottenham? I can't really make any sense of what you're saying tbh.