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The National press would love Newcastle to get relegated and Keegan to walk out, it’s such a great story and would sell many newspapers. We rake over the negative press coverage and suggest what the club should be doing about it.
Discuss in our fans zone.
From the moment Mike Ashley bought the club the press have suggested that he knows nothing about football and he just picked Newcastle from a menu of clubs available.
When he appointed Keegan they said he didn’t know what he was doing and Keegan would walk.
Since Keegan has arrived the press first of all dragged up comments Michael Owen had made in his book criticising Keegan and attempted to make out their was trouble between the two. Keegan however responded by making Owen captain of the team.
Then Dennis Wise arrived and they said Keegan was unaware of the appointment, what was his role and really he was there to take over from Keegan if he failed or if he walked out.
Then we recruited Jeff Vetere and Tony Jimenez and they complained that it was a ridiculous structure and everyone at Newcastle had to have brackets after their job title to explain their role.
Enter Chris Hughton who it’s claimed was appointed as Keegan’s assistant manager without Keegan’s approval. A matter Chris Mort subsequently corrected by saying it was actually Keegan who asked to have Hughton.
Back on the pitch Viduka was seen training alone on the Friday before the Man United game then was not in the squad, this was interpreted that he was desperate to play but there had been a fall out with Keegan and he was not picked. Subsequently refuted by both Keegan and Viduka.
There has been constant criticism of Dennis Wise attending first team matches and posing a threat to Keegan when he should be out watching other players. In the build up to the Birmingham match it was then reported as an exclusive that Dennis Wise had taken his family to the theatre in London to watch Lion King instead of being at Anfield watching the Liverpool defeat. What was not reported was that Wise then flew out to Dallas the day after the theatre trip to take in the Dallas Youth Cup tournament.
Martin’s reaction to being substituted at Birmingham then led to speculation there had been a fall out between him and Keegan which Martins subsequently denied.
Chris Mort himself in his recent Radio 5 interview said he thought 95% of what the press write is conjecture. However Mort’s own credibility has been damaged by the events of the Allardyce sacking, making a statement the week before sacking Allardyce saying it was laughable that Sam Allardyce’s position was under threat. This he explained afterwards by the fact that he was trying to show public support for Allardyce.
There has not proved to be much truth in what the press have so far speculated but one wonders how this affects the players and could be partly responsible for their total collapse whenever they go a goal down i.e. why should we bother at this shambolic club when the management don’t know what they are doing.
You can see from Liverpool’s results early in the New Year that Boardroom unrest and negative press can have a very damaging effect on the player’s performance. It must affect their pride in the club.
It’s time Newcastle took a note of how Manchester United handle the press. One would imagine Alex Ferguson would go ballistic about any rumours of unrest amongst his team and the club would robustly defend any criticism of its management structure as they do with the Glazier ownership issue.
We have won a game now and are on a roll, the Newcastle story is becoming less newsworthy, it’s time Mort and Keegan stopped being so pleasant with the press and went on the attack as often as it takes to get this rubbish out of the headlines of the daily sports pages.
In the end it can only benefit the performances on the pitch.
Discuss in our fans zone.