Newcastle United; Is Keegan Correct?
Never one to shirk away from making a headline or two, Newcastle United manager and all around Messiah Kevin Keegan has been at it again this week. The sports pages have been full of reaction to Keegan’s apparent ‘outburst’ at the end of his side’s 2-0 defeat at home to Chelsea on Monday (May 5). Keegan chose to deflect any potential criticism by arguing that his hands are somewhat tied when it comes to building a side capable of competing with Chelsea and the Premier League’s other Champions League regulars. The former England manager suggested that he would not be handed the resources to build a squad capable of a top four finish next term, and added that even if he were to lay his hands on an Andy Reid-sized transfer budget he would find it difficult to persuade the game’s top stars to join him at St.James’ Park. All of which, Keegan concludes, leaves his side scrapping it out with 15 others to finish fifth, thus winning the league inside a league which press hacks are so fond of warbling on about. But does Keegan have a point? Not if you look at the record of someone like Arsene Wenger at Arsenal or David Moyes at Everton, for example. The Gunners boss has presided over umpteen trophy successes in north London without ever feeling the need to spend huge amounts of money on the kind of squad padding so favoured by the Chelseas and Liverpools of this world. Instead the Arsenal boss relies on his hawk-like eye for a player, and has routinely recruited no-names who went on to become superstars. Men like Patrick Vieira, Kolo Toure, Cesc Fabregas, Emmanuel Adebayor and the recently departed Mathieu Flamini owe their MTV-style cribs to the Frenchman, who prizes the ability to improve the technical ability of his players way above the ability to go shopping. Similarly David Moyes at Everton has cracked the code. Everton’s record signing remains the £12million spent on bringing Aiyegbeni Yakubu in from Middlesbrough last year but for the most part the canny Scot has had to develop the talent available within his club’s modest budget. Financially dwarfed by Liverpool, Moyes still managed to engineer a top-four finish for the Goodison club in 2004/05, and has gone pretty close again this time around. Critics have routinely cited the depth of his squad as the reason why this season’s bid for Champions League qualification ultimately failed, but any club which suffered injuries to key men might struggle to achieve their objectives. Moyes has been without Tim Cahill, Andy Johnson, Mikel Arteta and Leon Osman at various times of the season and often for long periods, but has refrained from bleating about how much money there is for quick-fix replacements, Back to Keegan, who admittedly took over a Newcastle side in complete disarray under Sam Allardyce. Keegan has managed to improve the side significantly since then, steering them well clear of the threat of relegation after an unsettled start. Yet with men like Michael Owen, Joey Barton, Mark Viduka, Shay Given, Steven Taylor, Alan Smith and Obafemi Martins at his disposal Keegan can hardly complain about the talent at the club. Rather than blowing all the family silver for a second time around (think Faustino Asprilla and David Batty) surely Keegan should be concentrating on building steadily on the foundations which are already in place. Clouding the issue further is the presence of Dennis Wise in a mysterious ‘upstairs’ role. The former Chelsea and England man is thought by many to have a significant say in the comings and goings at St.James, indicating that he could well be in line to take over from Keegan when he inevitably throws his arms up in the air and delivers the ‘I’ve taken it as far as I can’ speech. It must be difficult for Keegan to work within this structure and so his comments were perhaps a drastic measure to force owner Mike Ashley into what the press boys might call ‘showdown talks’. Yet with the power lying with the financially obese Ashley, Keegan is likely to get short shrift from a man who - typically of Newcastle fans (or is it Spurs he supports? similar mentality in any case) - believes that his side can win the league next season regardless of current results, statistics and the willingness of the average superstar footballer to up sticks from their Milan mansion and move to nippy Newcastle. Keegan might be right when he protests that the Premier League is not the same as it was when he left Newcastle first time around in 1997, yet it seems likely to yield an identical end to the managerial tenure of the former Liverpool star on Tyneside. By Stephen Orford 9 May 2008
