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Keegan refused to accept Ashley’s Strategy and paid the price by John Ingram

As news leaks out from behind the scenes of what has been going on during the summer transfer window it is clear that Keegan did not agree with owner Mike Ashley’s strategy for the club and has gone the same route as Jose Mourinho went at Chelsea. Discuss on our fans forum.

Mike Ashley laid down the transfer policy as his right to do and that was always clear whether you agreed with it or not. The club would be purchasing young players who would increase in value.

This was actually in sharp contrast to events of the past under Freddie Shepherd where we purchased established and waning stars only to see their value plummet once they joined the club. Many of these players, Emre, Luque etc not only came at a high price but also contributed very little to the team whilst here.

If we were being honest with ourselves then most sensible Geordie supporters of Newcastle United would agree that Mike Ashley’s strategy was an improvement on what we had. We have had a lot of correspondence on this site saying what a good strategy it was and looking forward to the arrival of exciting young players.

Should any of these young players bomb and not live up to their potential then it would not cost a lot of money to move them on. Alternatively, should any of these players be a great success then they will have substantially increased in value which is good for all supporters and the club owner.

It is becoming clear that one person who did not agree with this strategy was First Team Manager Kevin Keegan. Whilst the recruitment office was following the owners strategy and recommending exciting emerging young players in Derdiyok, Skjelberg, Arda, Gomis, Veloso, Inler etc it is apparent that Keegan was refusing to look at these players and was wanting to sign older experienced Premier League players as in Woodgate, Dunne, Crouch etc. Keegan played a game of Russian roulette with Ashley holding out till the last few days of the transfer market hoping to get his way.

However as Jose Mourinho found out at Chelsea, you play a high risk game taking on Multi millionaire owners of Premier League football clubs. Keegan realised he couldn’t get his way with Ashley and walked away. As is the right of the owner of anything, Ashley decided he wanted the club structured the way it is and he wanted a transfer policy of recruiting young players.

I do find it quite irritating that the press talk of the old fashioned manager in the style of Keegan. This is utter rubbish of course, what we actually have is different management models at clubs, in all cases the management model is decided by the Owner in conjunction with the Board.

In Keegan we had a manager in the mould of Ferguson, Benitez and Wenger i.e. a manager who wants full control of team affairs. The management model applied by Man United, Liverpool and Arsenal is in line with the way these clubs operate. What you have at Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham is a model where a Technical Director has a lot of control over football matters.

The Technical Director model relies upon a close relationship between the first team manager and the Technical Director. As has been the case with Jose Mourinho, Martin Jol, Alan Curbishley and Kevin Keegan is that this model fails in rather painful and spectacular fashion when the relationship between Technical Director and First Team Manager breaks down.

Moving on now to appoint the new team manager, Mike Ashley has stated, as is his right as owner, that Newcastle are sticking with the Technical Director model hence we really need the new manager this time to accept how it is going to work and to be capable of having a close relationship with Dennis Wise.

For me there are 2 strong candidates for the vacant managers post. One being Didier Deschamps and the other being Gus Poyet. Deschamps is by far the stronger candidate with a so far impressive track record having taken Monaco to the Champions League Final and Juventus to the Serie B title in Italy.

However there are two things going against Deschamps at the moment. One being that he walked out on both Monaco and Juventus following internal disputes, a truly Keegan trait then. The other problem being that he is in with a good chance of landing the French National Team managers job and may want to hang on to see if he gets that.

Poyet is well respected in the game after his spells with Swindon, Leeds and now Tottenham and is a very level headed, sensible individual. He also has close relationships already with Dennis Wise and Tony Jimenez hence the close relationship between recruitment office and first team manager is virtually guaranteed. The drawback with Poyet being his lack of management experience, hence there is a risk it will not work out.

It seems clear the Newcastle Board favour Gus Poyet because of the existing relationships but whether they can persuade him to take on the job and risk serious damage to his reputation is another matter.

Either way, it is time to close the book on another sorry chapter of failure at Newcastle United. Keegan’s second coming sadly is over and it was a failure. He was as we all suspected, probably the wrong choice of manager to follow Sam Allardyce.

Mike Ashley has handled the whole situation very badly, rather than shaking hands and agreeing it did not work, we have spiralled into an acrimonious split with court cases and writs to follow and generally made us a laughing stock in the national press once more.

No one benefits from the in fighting not least the fans who have to endure more instability and lack of success on the pitch.

But it is now time to move on, Ashley is our owner and is prepared to invest in the club but only in his own strategy which is fair enough. We the fans need to get behind the club as we always do, support the new manager when he arrives, and get back to trying to win football matches.

It’s 53 years since we won a major trophy, We need to all pull together to bring this to an end. So come on the Geordie nation, after expressing our anger at the Hull game, lets get back to basics and support our great football club regardless of who the current owner is.

Discuss in our fans forum.