The Return of the Messiah - Keegan Past & Present
By Martin0201
January 26 2008
At last, the entire furore seems to have died down about King Kev's return to Newcastle, so I thought it may be a good time for an entirely neutral football fan to give a becalmed report on the situation up in Newcastle.
When Kevin Keegan first took charge at Newcastle, the club were languishing in the second tier of the English league, faced seriously with the proposition of dropping down another level.
Keegan had been a hero when playing for the club, making himself a fan's favourite with his whole hearted performances and scoring 48 goals in 78 matches, by a long way the best strike rate of his career. It was the second last stop on the career that had took him from Scunthorpe to Australia via the Kop, Germany and Southampton and one continuing theme was the flair of his game, mixed with an incredible tenacity and great hard work. He is famous for making the most of the ability he had, a quality that so few footballers possess in the modern day.So, with the Magpies languishing in Division 1, Keegan ended an 8 years break from the game playing golf in Spain to take the club he loved back to the Premier League at the first attempt, aided by another local hero, Terry McDermott, who Keegan indeed paid out of his own pocket for the first year!
It was really important for Newcastle to get promoted back to the Premier League at that time, as although the Premier League was created in 1992 it was not until the mid 90s that the big money really started to flow.Keegan was undoubtedly successful during his first spell in charge at St. James Park. Aside from the promotion to the Premier League, and the 2nd place finish to Manchester United in 1996, Keegan transformed the club. When he took over they were struggling to get 15000 in to watch a game, when he left plans were afoot to extend the stadium to 55000, which they now fill every week without fail. He signed the club hero Alan Shearer, for a then world record fee of £15m. Shearer had grown up watching Newcastle, and it had always been his desire to return to the club as a player. However, Shearer was not the only inspired signing. Among others that passed through the door at St. James' there was the enigmatic flair of players such as David Ginola and Faustino Asprilla, the British guile of players such as Keith Gillespie and Rob Lee, the continental defending skills of Philippe Albert and the experience of Les Ferdinand and Peter Beardsley.
So, what was Keegan's style of management? At Newcastle especially, his great skill was getting the best out of his players, much as he had done from himself during his playing career, and making sure that they entertained the passionate Geordie crowd. They undoubtedly played a cavalier style and never before or since has a Premier League team played with such an attitude of "even if you score three, we'll score four". It was great to watch, but obviously eventually fruitless. His man management has never been in doubt (except for a minor disagreement with Michael Owen at Euro 2000); indeed he would often spend hours alone with his key players at Newcastle such as David Ginola to get the best out of him.
Is Keegan a good manager? Kevin Keegan undoubtedly has a great wealth of experience, he has had some success in club management and his skills as a man manager cannot be doubted. However, some critics think his cavalier style of management may belong in the 90s, with the Premier League being a tougher place now. This was perhaps epitomised in the goalless draw against Bolton in the first game of his second spell. Ten years ago a team like Bolton, who are never going to be one of the big teams and indeed this year are in the bottom quarter of the league would perhaps have rolled over under the pressure, or tried naïvely to attack Newcastle, and ended up losing by three or four. Now, however, they are well drilled and have players of a good enough quality to withstand pressure, and indeed have the best chance of the game. This is something Keegan is going to have to contend with.
Another problem he is going to have to contend with is the problem that Newcastle are not as big a club in terms of league position as when he was previously in charge. When he was in charge last time a team could realistically have a good season and challenge for the title. This is not the case anymore. Not only have Newcastle slipped out of the 'big four', they have now slipped out of the 'second tier' of Premier League clubs (such as Everton, Blackburn, Man City, Aston Villa and Portsmouth) and therefore have a lot of catching up to do before they can challenge for Europe, let alone challenge for the title.
Perhaps, however, the biggest challenge facing Kevin Keegan is the weight of expectation. Although he has the right sound bites about knowing about the pressure, and knowing what the fans want, you can guarantee that if they finish this season around the mid-table mark (realistically, the best they can hope for) and then start next season poorly, that sections of the crowd will start calling for his head.So, is King Kev right to take this job? Many would say that he isn't, as he has been out of the game for three years. Although this does not sound long, a lot has changed in that time, indeed the number of foreign players has almost doubled and the number of clubs that can now challenge for Europe has doubled also. Some will say that he shouldn't because he could ruin his hero status on Tyneside. Undoubtedly he is a 'messiah' in Geordie land, and indeed if he does fail then this status could decline. Opposition to this though would say that he won't fail, and he can only embellish this status.
Is it the right appointment for Newcastle? There were many candidates bandied about for job, many of whom were never serious option, such as Didier Deschamps (has no idea of the enormity of the job), Gerard Houllier (too old) or Alan Shearer (not experienced enough, despite what the Geordie fans think). There were serious candidates - Harry Redknapp, (who has never lived away from the south coast), Mark Hughes and David Moyes (who have built their own respective clubs at Blackburn and Everton) and Jose Mourinho (why would he?) but as soon as the name of Kevin Keegan started being whispered around, there was only man who was going to get the job.
So here we are, Kevin Keegan is the Newcastle manager for the second time, this time he has come back to finish what he started the first time. It is going to be fun, it is going to be good to watch, it might end in tears, but only one thing we can be sure of, come 23rd February he will 'love it' if the fixture at St. James' Park ends up in a home win!
Thanks for reading© Martin0201
