Keegan to walk (watch this space)

charlie mchugh wrote: »

Hopefully. I think when Kev was in those meetings, he was outnumbered, but the backash of the last few hours has told Ashley otherwise, and hopefully he'll tell Dennis to jog the fuck on now!

Want to hear from Wor Kev though before I have a celebratory ****.

smog wrote: »

This means he wasn't sacked.
But he has walked, or is looking for a way to walk.
The club statement is just the boys sitting back waiting for what Kev has obviously threatened. There is also supposed to be a clause in his contract fining him if he walks.

herbieflowers wrote: »

funny that Ashley had KK 1 on the back of his Toon shirt the other day

mike65 wrote: »

Well back in the early 80s they had a home gate of what 15,000-20,000? They couldn't sustain that sort of box-office now.

Mike

THERE was a ceasefire at Newcastle United last night after a tense day of negotiations halted Kevin Keegan’s dramatic exit following a bitter row with managing director Derek Llambias.

The relationship between Llambias and Keegan has deteriorated badly during the club’s less-than-satisfactory summer transfer business and erupted on deadline day when the manager expressed his anger at the failure to sign the number of players he had requested.

That drew an indignant response from former casino manager Llambias and it initially looked as though the dispute would lead to Keegan’s premature departure until owner Mike Ashley intervened yesterday morning in a bid to restore harmony among the key players at St James’s Park.

Nevertheless, although Ashley has assured the man he appointed just eight months ago that he does not want to sack him – something confirmed in an official club statement last night – it remains uncertain whether Keegan will stay after suggesting his position has become untenable as a result of boardroom interference in transfer policy.




The statement said: “Newcastle United can confirm that meetings between members of the board and manager Kevin Keegan were held both yesterday and today. Kevin has raised a number of issues and those have been discussed with him.

“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 United values the effort and commitment shown by Kevin since his return to St James’ Park and wants him to continue to play an instrumental role as manager of the club. For the avoidance of doubt the club has not sacked Kevin Keegan as manager.” Whether that statement means Keegan will stay is open to debate as it could merely have been designed in a bid to prevent the former United skipper from claiming compensation.

If Keegan is sacked he is entitled to have the rest of his three-year-contract paid up, but if he quits, he will not be entitled to that money.

Newcastle supporters, though, will hope it does not come to that following Ashley’s attempt to persuade his disgruntled manager he should remain at St James’s Park. Keegan did clash with Ashley on Monday over Joey Barton’s future

at the club following tentative interest from Portsmouth over the weekend, but the two men have generally got on during their time together.

Instead, Keegan’s frustration is directed at the board Ashley has appointed to run the club in his absence, with the specialist recruitment team of Dennis Wise and Tony Jimenez, as well as Llambias, struggling to recruit the quality players he demanded.

The situation remains combustible and could ignite again today when Keegan is expected to return to work, although there is no question that the club’s supporters have sided with their manager following a furious reaction across Tyneside to the rumours surrounding Keegan’s departure.

Keegan has never been one to bite his lip and, having asked the fans last week to judge the club’s transfer policy after the deadline following the controversial sale of James Milner to Aston Villa, he felt personally let down by the lack of new arrivals on Monday.

Although the Spanish Under-21 striker Xisco arrived from Deportivo La Coruña for £5.8m and Uruguay international midfielder Ignacio Gonzalez has joined on a season’s loan from Valencia, there were no new defenders to bolster a threadbare back line.

Ultimately, while Keegan has not had the control on transfer policy he is used to, he knows it will be his job on the line if results do not go well this season – something he was quick to point out at yesterday’s meeting.

As well as a disagreement about what to do with Barton, The Journal also understands there was a difference of opinion on whether to let Alan Smith join Everton, while the future of Michael Owen has also been thrown into fresh doubt as a result of rumours he was offered to another Premier League club by a member of the United board.

With a week and a half until Newcastle’s next game against newly-promoted Hull City, the warring factions have some vital breathing space in which to bring the dispute to an end.

However, it is far from certain Keegan has not already decided he has had enough of what should have been his dream job.

Des wrote: »

If Wise gets the job and does a good one, either a cup or top 7 finish, the fans will bleedin' love him, and Kevin Keegan will be conveniently forgot about.

Football fans all over the world are the very same, tbh.

charlie mchugh wrote: »

Anyone see John Beresford on SSN? For a someone who always seemed a bit of a soft sod when he was a footballer, the bloke talks a hell of a lot of sense.

The meetings that will determine Kevin Keegan’s future at Newcastle should be used to resolve the issues that have festered for months, argues Mark Douglas

AFTER the ferocious whirl of claim and counter-claim that battered Tyneside on Tuesday, relative calm descended on St James’s Park yesterday.

The fear for Newcastle United supporters is that it is merely the eye of the storm, and the winds of change will return to sweep Kevin Keegan away from the club forever.

First, the bare facts communicated by a sparse club statement on Wednesday morning. Away from the febrile atmosphere in Newcastle the important business is taking place as Keegan, along with representatives from the League Managers’ Association, thrashes out his future with a delegation from the club thought to include chairman Derek Llambias and executive director (football) Dennis Wise.

Keegan is still manager and has neither resigned nor been sacked, but it remains to be seen whether a couple of days of talks can hammer out a solution to problems that have been smoldering for almost six months. The very fact that meetings between Keegan and the board have taken place offers a glimmer of light that Newcastle’s iconic manager may yet resume his day-to-day duties.

But it remains improbable that all of the key power brokers at St James’s Park will survive the week, and even less likely that Keegan will stay at the club if he is asked to work in the same structure, and with the same responsibilities, that he currently holds.

Negotiating a new way forward that satisfies all parties would be a masterstroke of diplomacy for the meeting’s mediators, and it requires issues that have been allowed to linger for too long to be finally tackled head on.

The top agenda item to be resolved is the working relationship between chairman Derek Llambias and the Newcastle manager, which has deteriorated to the point where Keegan walked away from the club on Monday morning. There are doubts about whether the two can repair a relationship that is one of the most crucial in the set-up devised by owner Mike Ashley to run the club.

Keegan feels as if he was sidelined in the days leading up to Monday’s disappointing deadline day, and his advice was ignored on the crucial issue of the sale of James Milner to Aston Villa.

While his relationship with Llambias has become fractious, Keegan gets on well with Ashley and speaks highly of the owner both in public and in private.

There have been disagreements between the two men but there is a mutual respect that was evident when Ashley personally intervened to bring the manager back from the brink on Tuesday afternoon.

It may be the owner who holds the key to repairing the relationship between Keegan and former casino boss Llambias, who took over from chairman Chris Mort in July under the title managing director.

Keegan’s next priority is to gain more influence on transfers, an area in which his authority has been severely eroded in the past six months.

He will argue that, after the club’s under-whelming performance in the transfer market, he deserves a more prominent role if he is to see the club through the January window. To divorce him from the recruitment process appears a shameful waste of Keegan’s powers of persuasion. He was, after all, the man who convinced Alan Shearer to snub Manchester United and join his hometown club, and even if some of the fire in his eyes has dimmed lately he remains, on his day, a truly inspirational orator.

An interesting insight was recently offered by a third party close to Milner, who revealed the extent of the division between Wise and the manager. There are, he confirmed, two distinct camps at Newcastle United and disagreement between the two paved the way for Milner’s eventual departure.

Keegan had told the England Under-21 forward that he would support his case for a new deal, only for Wise to turn down two approaches by the Milner camp to discuss one.

The arrival of Spain Under-21 international Xisco from Deportivo La Coruña and Uruguay midfielder Ignacio Gonzalez from Valencia on transfer deadline day also had the fingerprints of Wise and head of recruitment Tony Jimenez.

Keegan’s distance from transfer dealings is a situation that can not be allowed to go on.

It is not Wise, after all, who will have to front up to the media and supporters if Xisco turns out to be the next Albert Luque and Newcastle flounder without the graft of Milner.

The Newcastle manager must cast an envious glance towards Wearside, where his Sunderland counterpart Roy Keane speaks in glowing terms of the backing he has received in the transfer market this summer.

Although chief executive Peter Walker and chairman Niall Quinn are in place to negotiate the deals, it is the Black Cats manager who wields the majority of the power.

He pulled the plug on a deal for Romanian defender Dorin Goian because he believed his club were asking too much money, and it is his gut feeling when meeting a player that influences a decision on whether to proceed with the transfer.

Looking at the summer dealings of the two clubs, it is the Sunderland model that appears to have proved more successful.

So Keegan has concrete evidence to back up the demands he has made of the Newcastle board. It may not be enough to broker a longer-lasting peace treaty from the uneasy truce that was reached on Tuesday, however.

Because whatever the minutiae of the meeting it really all boils down to how much – if at all – the board value the judgement of their manager.

If Ashley – and it is his club and not Llambias’ or Wise’s – believes that Keegan can advance United’s cause, he must hand him increased powers with immediate effect. The manager should have a final veto over comings and goings, and it must be his counsel that is sought over the burning issue of new contracts for Michael Owen and Steve Harper.

If not, the only way forward is for the two parties to find an amicable way of parting company.

A compromise that ignores or fails to resolve any of the big issues that hang heavily over St James’s Park this morning would merely be delaying the inevitable.

Helix wrote: »

hvae to say i was amazed when he got/took the job second time round. it was always going to end in tears imo, im only surprised it took so long. i had him to walk before the end of last season