October 2009 Archives

It is bad news, upsetting and depressing, but it is not unexpected. If Mike Ashley is staying at Newcastle United then he is staying and there is precious little we can do about it other than hope the club gets promoted in May and a football mad billionaire with money to burn fancies buying the club in the summer.

Actually, we've already had a football mad billionaire haven't we, only he doesn't have money to burn and has presided over more than two years of blunders and short sighted decisions which have led United into the Championship.

They may have received the odd kind deflection off helpfully placed beach balls along the way, but Sunderland have been the Premier League's surprise package and hats off to Steve Bruce for that.

Any team which takes four points from two games against Manchester United and Liverpool has to be doing more than just something right and it is difficult not to start thinking about European football at the Stadium of Light next season.

Football is all about timing and Newcastle United have predictably managed to get it all wrong. Chris Hughton is in line to become the club's permanent manager just as the first major cracks in his management structure begin to appear.

Whether a run of four games without a win will change Mike Ashley's mind about appointing Hughton on a full time basis remains to be seen. But I doubt it. That ship looks like it's sailed and Alan Shearer wasn't given a boarding pass.

It is too early for everyone to start rushing for the emergency exits, but you should probably at least have a quick look round to check where they all are because if Newcastle get into trouble they will crash quicker than a stock market which has just been told a meteorite is on a collision course with central London.

We have always wondered why Mike Ashley doesn't like to speak to the media and now we know why. When he opens his mouth he says something stupid, winds everybody up and does far more harm than good.

I do not dispute that Ashley has invested a lot of money in Newcastle United over the last couple of years - firstly to repair the damage done by Freddie Shepherd and then to bail out his own mistakes - but perhaps he should simply put it where his mouth is - literally.

His latest pearl of wisdom, hot on the heels of describing the appointment of Alan Shearer as "the best thing he had ever done" and that Joe Kinnear did a "fantastic" job, we get the I put more money in than all the fans put together so I can pretty much do what I want - and he has done just that by offering Chris Hughton the manager's job permanently

As much as it might appeal to television bosses looking to give their audience figures a boost in a recession I have no desire whatsoever to see Celtic and Rangers tottering over the border to play in our Premier League.

Nope, it's not going to happen so take your kilts and your comedy Ginger wigs and keep on preparing for those trips to Inverness and Aberdeen because, while you might want to make a bit of extra money out of television deals and so on, we don't want you.

Some of you will have read it over the weekend and some of you will have heard about it since. Some of the more sensible among you will have lived your weekend blissfully unaware of yet another long-winded series of excuses by Joey Barton.

First things first. I've met Barton a handful of times and, like the journalists who enjoyed a "fishing and shooting" day with him last week I also found him to be surprisingly articulate, engaging, funny and interesting. In short, he is good company and a good talker to boot

I don't have anything against him on a personal level, although I would quickly add he has generally been a disappointment when he has been fit/available to play for Newcastle United.

I suppose it's time to start thinking about it because you can bet we're going to hear plenty of other people have their say over the coming months. Can England win the World Cup in South Africa?

Well, of course they can. They've qualified and you've got to be in it to win it, as it were. Then again, theoretically speaking, you can also win the National Lottery every time you buy a ticket, but I'm still waiting for the millions to come rolling in.

However, without getting caught up in the usual Tsunami of hysteria which greets England's participation in a major football tournament, I've got a good feeling about this one!

So Kevin Keegan has won his case for constructive dismissal with Newcastle United. He was forced out as manager because players were signed without his consent and no matter how many ways the Mike Ashley regime spun things, they could not escape from that fundamental truth.

Yet, as a winner, Keegan also looks like a loser. As the wronged party he has himself been guilty of so much wrong. In his pursuit of damages, Keegan appears to have been blinded by cold hard cash.

In his determination to maximise the reward from a compensation claim, Keegan can be accused of greed, arrogance and, worst of all, a willingness to damage the club he supposedly loves for personal financial gain.

One win so dominant it made the Championship look easy has been followed by a fortunate point in a game they could so easily have lost. Newcastle United would do well to remember promotion is never a forgone conclusion.

Despite the setback against QPR, however, I think we can all agree United are in far better health this season than we ever envisaged in the summer. Back then, Newcastle United looked capable of keeling over at any minute, a club dying on its feet after relegation..

There is still plenty of reasons to worry about the future under Mike Ashley and his blundering regime, but in terms of the here and now on the pitch, a three point lead at the top of the Championship and a five point cushion back to third is a good place to be after ten games.