ROBSON: We Will Do It MY Way

By Matthew Jones
September 3 2003

Sir Bobby Robson has vowed to "do it his way", as he attempts to bring glory to St James' Park this season. Newcastle have had a miserable start to the season, and have since been knocked out of the Champions League.

He said: "I have never asked any player for his opinion on team selection.

"I want no part of that. It's simply not on my agenda.

"I get paid for managing Newcastle United and that's what I do to the best of my ability.

"Sometimes I bounce ideas off my staff, like the coaches John Carver and Dave Geddis, but at the end of the day, I always make my own mind up.

"It would not be fair of me to burden my coaches with things like team selection - and I live and stand by my decisions, as I always have done."

It is not the first time Robson has found himself the subject of such suggestions, although he insists that charges levelled against him after England's faltering start to their 1990 World Cup finals campaign were also untrue.

"It all revolved around Mark Wright being moved to sweeper as we switched from a back four," he added.

"There were suggestions in the papers that the players had been responsible for all that, but it wasn't true and I was spitting blood.

"As as far as the Newcastle United players are concerned, they are too professional to get involved with anything like that."

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