Keegan: “I don’t think thats on”. Dirty Den: Mike will “hold on”.
Posted on October 5th, 2009 | 195 Comments |
When asked by ‘Stubbsy’, “would you ever consider returning to a club you love so much?” Keegan replied:
“I don’t think it’s on to return back there now, I think the fans have had enough of that but you never know in football.
Meanwhile, over on rival, Sky Sports News, old sparring partner, ex NUFC DOF, and Geordie Pantomime villain, Dennis Wise, gave his own thoughts on Mike Ashley’s plans for the future of Toon. More on that story after the Keegan show.
What follows is a full transcript of the Kevin Keegan interview.
Stubbsy: Kevin, a Premier League arbitration panel ruled in your favour in regard to the situation at Newcastle United. I’m sure you’re relieved it’s all over. What was the main purpose of your claim?
Special K: Well, really to clear everything up. It wasn’t a great situation. I don’t think there are really any winners in it but we’ve got to move on now. The club have got to move on and I’ve got to move on. It’s out in the open. An independent arbitration panel have made a judgement. People can read it, it’s out there for everyone to read so there’s nothing been hidden.
Stubbsy: “Was it important to you that the truth came out?”
Special K: “Very much so, that’s what it was all about. It’s out there now, everybody knows what happened and people will decide what was right and what was wrong and that’s the way it should be.”
Stubbsy: “As far as the main purpose of your claim is concerned, as far as reputation was concerned and the way that things have been done was that absolutely key to what you wanted?”
Special K: “What I wanted was really my job. The thing I’ve lost is managing the club that I love so that’s why I say there have been no winners. But life goes on, things happen, you meet people sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t in football. And this didn’t work.”
Stubbsy: “Do you have a feeling of unfinished business? Would you ever consider returning to a club you love so much?”
Special K: “I don’t think it’s on to return back there now, I think the fans have had enough of that but you never know in football. I’d like to think there’s still something left in me in football but we’ll wait and see.”
Stubbsy: “But the enthusiasm remains and the fire remains?”
Special K: “Yeah, very much so.”
Stubbsy: “Do you think this sends out any signals as far as meddling chairman, directors and structures that a manager has to be able to get on with the job? Do you think it sends out any sort of signals?”
Special K: “Every case is different. What happened to me was wrong because I was promised something and it wasn’t delivered and that’s why we ended up winning the case. But every club is different. They know on the continent they’re not going to have the power to sign players and sell players but that’s not really the case in England and I think that’s where it fell down. It certainly didn’t work for me because you can’t have a player forced on you for a lot of reasons. If a player is forced on you, and he’s there for the wrong reasons, he’s coming thinking he’s going to play. He’s not happy to be in the reserves and not play. That’s a lot of fundamental issues that are very important from a football point of view. Forget business and commercial deals.”
Stubbsy: “I bet you fought your corner? I bet there were a few confrontations?”
Special K: “The panel were very fair, they made a judgement. It would have been better if it never happened, I was still at Newcastle and we were still in the Premiership. And I think we would have been.”
Wise spills on Sky.
As mentioned earlier, over at SSN, Dennis Wise speculated, possibly with the benefit of inside information, that Mike Ashley may keep the club until next summer, hoping for promotion in the meantime so he can recoup more of his losses. Mystic Den said:
“In my opinion I think they will go up this season. I think Chris Hughton has done a fantastic job. I really hope they get up and I mean that.
“I think he will hold on to it at least until they get promoted. I don’t know what they will do after that. Mike Ashley is one of those people who takes things on the chin and gets on with it. He does things he thinks are right and that’s it. He went public and told everybody he wanted to sell it.
“He told everybody his feelings. He has the best interests of Newcastle United Football Club. If he feels somebody can come in and give them what they want then he will do that.”
Nacho kerfuffle.
On the Ignacio ‘Nacho Gonzalez / agent kerfuffle which was supposedly the straw that broke the camel’s back for the special one, Wise said:
“The long term idea of the relationship was we would get first option on the best young South American kids and that was important to the club.
“Mike was fine about it. He knew all about it, he is the owner of the football club and it is his money. It was all done the right way. It isn’t always how it is portrayed, it was all done properly.
“It was a difficult situation at Newcastle with Kevin, these things happen. People have disagreements and don’t see eye to eye.
“It’s sad, I was doing the job to do the best I could for Newcastle, but in the end it all turned out wrong. It’s difficult to talk about it.
“If Kevin had won £26m in compensation, what effect would that have had on the football club? Mike was worried about it, you’d expect someone to panic a bit a bit about paying out that much money.”
More on the Nacho/Wise/Keegan/Brazilian agent kerfuffle here >>
Hughton closing in on permanent hot seat?
Recently, it has also been rumoured that Chris Hughton will be given the manager’s position at Newcastle full time, instead of as a temporary caretaker until the club is purchased. While this could still be guff, if there was some truth in it, this would also indicate that Mike Ashley is preparing for another year as owner, as the team at last starts to get some form of consistent leadership under the London manager.
Are these all parts of a jigsaw? Is Ashley consolidating for a long stretch? Or is Moat’s boat still afloat? Time will tell…
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
See you’ve got Kev stripped Worky…..you fancy him then?