Llambias vs. Keegan – Is Keegan a hypocrite?
Posted on March 6th, 2011 | 82 Comments |
He was responding to comments from Keegan in which he suggested that current manager, Alan Pardew, wouldn’t see any of the £30-£35 million raised by the club from the sale of striker, Andy Carroll, to Liverpool.
Speaking in an intererview with the BBC’s “Radio Five Live”, Keegan remarked:
“I saw an interview with Alan Pardew where he said he hoped to get some of the £35m and I thought ‘Alan, you ain’t going to get any of that’.”
In the interview Keegan was referring to, Pardew said:
“The one thing I said to Mike yesterday was, ‘Look, if this boy [Carroll] is going to go, this money has to be reinvested in the team, all of it’, and he has assured me of that.
“For the Newcastle fan, that is the most important message I can give today, that all that money will be used.”
Getting back to Keegan though, on the logic of the Carroll sale, he then added:
“I think £35m for Andy Carroll – if I’d been manager, I’d have taken it.
“But how can you spend it on the last day of the transfer window? My big argument was that we were selling James Milner for a lot of money – probably above the value we put on him – and I said, ‘Please don’t sell him before we get someone in’.”
Keegan’s remarks also came after some other less than complimentary comments he made about Llambias, and Newcastle United owner, Mike Ashley, where he said:
“You can’t work with these people. You can’t trust them. They tell you one thing and mean another… Mike Ashley doesn’t know anything about football and Derek Llambias knows even less than him. So you’ve got two people running the club who know nothing.”
Llambias has responded to Keegan’s comments in a similarly acerbic fashion, strongly hinting that he saw Keegan as something of a hypocrite for “displaying concern about the club’s finances” after launching a lawsuit against the club in which he claimed over £25 million. This was for £8.6m loss of earnings and benefits which he would have made if he saw out his contract at the club. However the bulk of the claim were for what were referred to as “stigma damages”, meaning that Keegan felt that he would have difficulty finding another lucrative football management position because his name had been tarnished by the affair. These supposed lost earnings were estimated by the Keegan camp to be somewhere in the region of £16.5 million if Keegan had worked in management until the age of 65, though in fact, Keegan had been out of management for several years and running a “Soccer Circus” before returning to management.
In settlement of the claim, the three man Premier League tribunal who heard the case found in favour of Keegan, but awarded him only £2 million in settlement of the claim. On this, Llambias commented:
“How can Kevin Keegan talk about having any concern for this club’s finances when he took action against Newcastle United that could have finished us?”
“He was claiming close to £26m from Newcastle when he took his dispute over his departure to a tribunal.
“In the end he was awarded the minimum amount – just £2 million.
“If he had been awarded what he was claiming, the club would not be here today. His remarks are astonishing.
“The very reason we got as much as £35m [for Andy Carroll] is because we concluded the deal on deadline day. Liverpool wanted him but we wanted our price and they had to pay it.
“As for his comment about not selling James Milner before replacing him, the club had signed Fabricio Coloccini, Danny Guthrie and Jonas Gutierrez in the weeks before he was sold.”
But what do you think?
Is Keegan right to express his cynicism about Mike Ashley’s spending plans in the public domain? Is Pardew a fool to think that he will ever see any of the Carroll money to spend on new players for the club? Are Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias as clueless about football as Keegan claims? Is Llambias right to claim that Keegan is a hypocrite to express concern over the club’s spending plans when he himself attempted to sue the club for £25.1 million? Or are they both just bairns having a hissy fit?
Let us know your thoughts.
Poll
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
Worky – As you appear to online, and sue to your lack of a suitable answer and from people asking ME what is happening with YOUR site, I just thought that I would ask again?
toonsy says:
March 4, 2011 at 8:32 pm
“How are the donations going by the way? Did they pay for the free server change?”
You know, the switch Hugh? That one…..
It’s just people are wondering where their money went after you begged and pleaded and played the sob story, that’s all :)
Also, I’d like clarification on just how I’ve copied you, and just how similar our respective sites are now please :)