Woe is Newcastle
By Sith Lord
December 21 2004
Sith Lord gives his views on current affairs at Newcastle.
Bobby Robson was a world renowned manager with a proven track record of
suceeding at every club he managed. He transformed Newcastle from a bottom 5
team to a top five team in the premiership. People were complaining that he
hadn't won anything with the club, however, the starting position of NUFC when
he took over we were never going to win anything. Within 4-5 years of his reign
Newcastle had a squad many clubs were envious of and we had finished 4th, 3rd
and 5th - with 5th missing out on 4th place and champions league football by one
point and greatly down to key injuries at vital moments of the season.
To add to Robsons amazing track record, he loved this club. He would'nt
ever jeapordise the clubs name for his own personal benefit or to protect
himself, the club always came first. He rarely critisised (if ever) individual
players and kept goings on behind closed doors as much as he could.
Our
Chairman, who has called geordie women dogs, boasted about how much money he has
taken off replica shirts, sold our best defender, constantly lied to supporters
and consistently embarrasses us willingly swapped Robson, a great ambassador for
the game, for Graeme Souness.
Graeme Souness was a firery player, a great
player, but his management record leaves a lot to desire. Every club he has
managed he has eventually left under a cloud, had public bust ups with players
and only ever achieved mediocracy at best.
It was a CHOICE of the
chairman to replace Robson with Souness. One I find hard to believe.
I
don't blame Souness for the situation Newcastle are in at the moment. He wants
to Succeed, he wants to win, he just doesn't have the abilty to. He lacks the
intelligence to compete with the top managers and from past clubs we can see he
lacks man management skills.
People may argue that it was time for Robson
to go. I disagree. People were getting carried away with the small scale issues
and not considering the bigger picture.
The summer of rumour after
rumour, amplified by the press and added to by the players was generally down to
poor top level management at the offset and links back to one mans comments at
the beginning of the transfer market - Freddy Shepherd. "This will be Robsons
last season". From his stupidity the papers focused in on Newcastle, the players
lost respect for the manager, fickle fans started shouting for Robsons
head.
With the club unstable, Shepherd then sells our best defender
(admittedly looking like a good peice of business at present) and does not
replace him, yet embarrasses the club by bidding for Rooney - linking to more
unrest at the club.
The start of the season was always going to be
difficult following a summer like that, yet one man, Bobby Robson was trying to
hold it all together. Players refusing to play and key defenders missing, we had
a poor start to the season - helped by poor refereeing decisions. Inevitably,
this gave Shepherd and Hall the chance I feel they had been looking for to shift
the blame to someone- Robson was that man.
The club is even more in
turmoil, players are injured, results are diabolical, people want the manager
sacked players are dropped, played out of position, critisised and Eurpoean
qualification looks a long shot off.
People are complaining about the
defencive players, yet we have the same players available that had an excellent
defesive record last season as Woodgate didn't figure much. Obviously the way
the team plays is different, less attacking yet also more of a leaky defence.
This is due to the management of Souness with the type of players he has at his
disposal.
As things stand, I feel we will not qualify for Europe this
season and we'll finish mid-table. Kluivert wont stay after this season, Shearer
will retire. Dyer will be sold in January along with Robert. Bernard will leave
for free in the summer and even Bellamy or Given could leave. I think the
captaincy could hold on to Jenas for a few seasons and I think we will get two
centre backs in January.
We will therefore have a poor squad and a team
not in Europe, with a mediocre/poor manager attracting mediocre/poor players. We
will then be destined for mid-table obscurity.
In no way can I see us
finishing in the top four in the next 3 years - the hard work put in by Robson
to drag us from the depths will be undone.
The similarities are
glearingly obvious between the Keegan - Daglish era to the Robson - Souness era.
It worries me.
The one man to blame is Freddy Shepherd. His decisions,
his lies ad his stupidity are what cause Newcastle to fail at the last stage and
until he leaves, we always will.
Expect at least another 8-9 years before
we are in the Champions league again if Shepherd is still the Chariman.