Joe Kinnear – Underrated at Newcastle?

Posted on February 16th, 2013 | 37 Comments |

Joe Kinnear at St James' Park.
Uncle Joe.
In Joe Kinnear’s “Talk Sport” interview just over a week ago with Richard Keys and Andy Gray, besides being touched as Kinnear recalled the awful series of events which befell him after his reign at Newcastle, not just the heart episode which forced him into retirement but also the loss of his only son Elliott to multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow), and then Kinnear himself contracting Septicaemia (blood poisoning), it also reminded me of the complete and utter of contempt shown to Kinnear by the media and many of Newcastle United’s fans when he was manager, a contempt which still remains seemingly after seeing some of the responses to it. So in this piece, I thought I would examine his record at the club, and attempt to explore some aspects of why this might be.

Getting to the interview itself, which is still available in full on the Talk Sport website, Keys remarked at the beginning of the interview on Kinnear’s time at St James’ Park:

“You slipped away so quietly after that time at Newcastle as a result of illness. we never really got the opportunity, I’m sure all Geordie fans would like to say ‘well done.’ You didn’t get quite the credit you deserve for laying the foundation stones to sorting that mess out. It was quite a period, wasn’t it?”

To which Kinnear responded:

“It was, yes. The point was, as you rightly say, if it wasn’t for ill health I honestly believe I’d still be there to this day. But I went in at a difficult time. We were lying third from bottom, and of course, after I sorted alot of the problems out, Mike Ashley who was owner at the time was in the process of selling it, or trying to sell it. So the problem was, as soon as I was there I realised that we could do with extra players coming in, as they have done today. But I never got the opportunity to do that so therefore I had to work with what I had, even though it was a half decent side, and I thought I was doing exceptionally well. We got up to twelfth place, and of course, we were playing West Brom away and I had my second heart attack and was taken into hospital in Birmingham. I think I was only there less than six months. My contract was a year, with a possibility of another three providing I kept the team up, and I was really really disappointed that never occurred.”

Taking a look at Kinnear’s record at Newcastle, he was very slightly incorrect. Newcastle were actually one place lower (19th) when he took over as manager, and they were 13th (not 12th) after defeating West Brom 3-2 on that fateful day for Kinnear when his Newcastle United career ended. Nonetheless, it is indeed correct that he did manage to raise the club by six places under the most difficult and turbulent circumstances. To put this into context, this was at a time of chaos in the boardroom, uncertainty in the dressing room, being second bottom of the Premiership after four successive defeats and finally, the club also suffered very badly with injuries during much of Kinnear’s time too, far more than the injuries which have been blamed many times for the club’s current 16th place. At one stage the club had a whole team out (11 first team players were unavailable), so many that Kinnear had to cancel training at the club’s Benton training ground. As he rightly pointed out at one point in the interview, there was no huge influx of French talent to shore things up either as there has been in Alan Pardew’s current crisis. Whilst he did make three first team signings in his six months at the club (Peter Lovenkrands, Kevin Nolan and Ryan Taylor), he also lost two of Newcastle’s most important players of the time (Shay Given and Charles N’Zogbia).

Despite all this though, he managed to stop the run of defeats in his first games in charge. Even before that Kinnear seemed to have some kind of effect. After initially taking a watching brief for Newcastle United’s sixth Premiership game against Blackburn, he saw a very poor first half performance, where a broken spirited Toon found themselves two goals down at the break. On that he insisted on making the half time team talk and though they still lost, Newcastle were a far better team in second half, pulling one goal back and generally looking like a team who might have even won if they’d played the whole game as they played that final 45 minutes. He then started his account with a 2-2 draw against Everton, following it up with the same result against Manchester City. By the time he left, his Premiership record record was Played 19, Won 5, Drawn 8 and Lost 6, winning a total of 23 points. If these results were extrapolated to cover a whole Premiership season of 38 games (or simply doubled in other words), the club would have won 46 points that season and wouldn’t have even been close to being relegated.

However, getting back to Keys’ question, even after all this time, the response to Kinnear’s rather interview was still more derision than “well done.” One rather egregious example was this piece, written by someone calling herself “Jackie Smithfield” for fan website “The Mag,” had no sympathy whatsoever for Kinnear, pompously proclaiming that he felt was his “public duty” to paint Kinnear as some kind of delusional madman.

But to get to the main point of this piece, what exactly is behind all the steaming ordure that he has received from some fans? Personally, I can think of several possibilities:

1. The “Cockney Mafia” factor.

The one usually put forward by Kinnear himself was the fallacy that Joe Kinnear is a “Cockney,” despite the fact that he was born in Dublin. Keys raised this one fairly early in the interview, remarking “But they don’t like a Cockney spiv up there, do they,” to which Kinnear responded:

“No. That is the problem. That was always my contention when I saw alot of the media headlines. I wondered what I did actually to upset them. That was prior to me going there, the ‘Cockney Spiv’ takes over. Now we’ve got two Cockney Spivs. We’ve got the owner and now the manager.”

I think that this is one area where Kinnear’s contention might just be a little wide of the mark, or not, it’s hard to say. He also hasn’t done himself any favours with Newcastle United fans by prosecuting his case as strongly as he has in the way he has, as it can seem as if he has tarred all fans with the same brush. It’s a strange one as like Kinnear, Mike Ashley isn’t a “Cockney” either (he was born in Walsall and raised on the Herts / Bucks borders where he still lives). However, it is beyond doubt that Ashley was indeed referred to as a Cockney Spiv / Barrow boy / whatever on many occaisions by many fans. Actually, the closest thing to a “Cockney Spiv” at the club in those days was Chris Hughton from Stratford in the East End of London. Prejudice is a strange animal though and strangely, Hughton was one of the few who avoided the “Cockney Spiv” tag from fans back in those days.

2. Media ambush.

As suggested just above, Kinnear is not exactly an emollient silver tongued charmer when there’s a mic in front of him. A manager for the media age he most certainly wasn’t. His very first TV interview as Newcastle United manager on “Football Focus” gave a clue of what was to come when he used the word “s**t” on the daytime family show. Soon after came Simon Bird (the Mirror’s North East football correspondent) and “****gate” of course, when Kinnear went into a potty mouthed tirade at the media, starting with Bird and the “c” word. It was tabloid gold at the time. However, Kinnear isn’t the only manager to have done this by any means. Alex Ferguson has made similar tirades against journalists off the record at Old Trafford, and even modest, mild mannered Jose Mourinho recently told one Spanish journalist:

“In the world of football, me and my staff are ‘top’ and in the world of journalism, you are a s**t!”

If Kinnear was correct about Bird, then perhaps even he wasn’t quite as big a **** as his fellow piece of sociopathic hack trash from the Mirror, Brian McNally, who later wrote a story proudly bragging about the part he claims to have played in Kinnear’s second heart attack. Alas, Newcastle United aren’t Manchester United or Real Madrid, and the naive Kinnear walked straight into a media ambush. In hindsight, discretion might well have been the better part of valour for Kinnear on that occaision as it certainly didn’t help. Even in the talk sport interview I have been referencing above, Kinnear didn’t do himself any favours in some parts. Describing the pressure of managing Newcastle United, he said at one point:

“It is an area, and it’s equally vibrant daily, so it’s consistent pressure. What we have up there is you can’t walk out in Newcastle without seeing somebody with a Newcastle shirt. It’s like about 200,000 penguins walking around the city, even the women! They go to work with black and white shirts on.”

He meant it as a testament to the region’s passion for football, something which he has expressed far more eloquently in am interview last year when he said of Newcastle United fans:

“I loved every minute of it. I loved the supporters, they were fantastic. The away suporters, I don’t think I’ve had better away supporters in my whole career. Wherever we went, nine times out of ten they were noisier than the home supporters.”

In the more recent instance though he could perhaps have put it a little better, though I must confess that I’ve even had the same thought myself when I’ve been back in Newcastle in recent years, and I was born in Gosforth. Judging by some of the reactions to that part, it did seem to inspire the umbrage of quite a few fans. However I also think it had as much to do with who said it as what he actually said. I wonder if those same fans would have been as angry if Yohan Cabaye or Hatem Ben Arfa said it? Indeed, some of the recent imports to St James’ Park have said similar things and they received a entirely different response.

3. His abilty was underestimated and his tactics were misunderstood.

When Kinnear was named as manager, many younger fans, as well as those who just don’t really know a great deal about football didn’t seem to understand how good a manager Joe Kinnear actually was, or what his tactical approach to the game actually was either. Like Pardew, he was a winner of the LMA “Manager of the Year” award during his 7 1/2 year spell spell with the tiny Premiership club. It was an amazing feat to keep them in the Premiership for so long, never mind as a regular top ten side, and the club were relegated the season after his departure. However, because Wimbledon were also associated with Dave “route one” Bassett and the FA Cup winning Bobby “long balls” Gould, both of whom managed Wimbledon before Kinnear, his association the South London club was actually seen as a negative in the eyes of some Newcastle fans. This was because they mistakenly lumped Kinnear into the same basket as a “route one” manager. Indeed, one of the most common pieces of verbal ordure hurled at Kinnear when he was Newcastle manager was that he was a “long ball dinosaur,” which said more about their woeful ignorance of football than it did about Kinnear himself as actually, nothing could have been further from the truth. Kinnear’s grounding in coaching came from his time as a Tottenham player under Bill “push and run” Nicholson, the greatest of all Tottenham managers, a manager who was known for his innovative passing football. It was actually Kinnear who took Wimbledon away from their previous route one style and taught them how to play the game in a far more elegant fashion. I remember watching Kinnear’s Wimbledon playing Tottenham many years ago and they completely passed them off the park, winning 3-1. Hence, all that “long ball dinosaur” stuff was just plain wrong.

4. The martyrdom of St.Kevin and the assumption of St.Alan.

Kinnear was the manager who was appointed by Mike Ashley directly after Kevin Keegan walked out, That was a crime on it’s own for the hardcore militant fundamentalists of the K.K. Martyrs Brigades, but the similarly fundamentalist Al Sheera faction were also gagging for that other messiah in the wings to take over. Of course, he would be the man who would finally lead Newcastle United into the abyss after FIVE managerial changes in one season. It was double trouble.

Personally, I think that it is probably a combination of more than one of the above, all of which coalesced into a perfect storm for the hapless Kinnear. His rather blunt and ill considered way of putting things at times certainly did him no favours, but I really don’t think he deserved the open hostility he received for that alone. His wobbler with the media apart, his words were occaisionally clumsy, not spiteful or malicious like some of the comments which have been aimed at him. Though his record was hardly earth shattering, it must be seen in the context of that terrible and unstable chapter in the club’s history and if his health hadn’t have failed him, I genuinely believe that the club wouldn’t have been relegeted in 2009.

One thing I am sure of though is that his abilties were underestimated and he wasn’t treated with the respect he deserved.

Poll

NUFCBlog Author: workyticket workyticket has written 1095 articles on this blog.

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37 Responses

  1. Personally I thought he did well. Came in at a very inopportune time when everything was a mess, sorted it out and even got us to play decent football at times. Granted with the players we had, to play like Arsenal would be suicide, and I know he made the best of what he had. Just a shame that most people couldn’t see past the whole KK debacle, and I believe even if Keegan v2 was brought in at that point he would be hounded out due to a cockney spiv association.

    Eventhough I know he won’t read this, but thanks for everything Joe and the facts are if the points you gathered for us were extrapolated over the whole season we wouldn’t have been relegated. All the best in the future and please take care of that heart!

  2. Joe says:
    February 16, 2013 at 9:04 am

    “Eventhough I know he won’t read this”

    Not many other people have either Joe. I spent hours writing this one, yet it’s had the fewest readers of any piece on this site for a while so far because it was censored by Newsnow for some reason. It was still worth it though as I needed to get it out of my system. Some of the things that have been written about him were just so vicious and uncalled for.

  3. great read Worky.
    only thing you didnt mention was when Joe was out ov work before he took over from KK,he wasnt sitting on his arse doing nowt..he was going into arsenal n helping Wenger out in training.just a shame he didnt get to finish the job he started wiv us.
    great read tho Worky.

  4. Thanks Jack.

    Aye, I know but I didn’t want it to be even longer than than it is already, so I just concentrated on Newcastle and his other time as a Premiership manager at Wimbledon, with a bit about his time playing under Bill Nicholson to make the point that he wasn’t actually the long ball dinosaur that some people claimed.

    Last time I heard (which was a while back), Wenger and Kinnear were both living in Totteridge near Barnet. I know their local, “The Orange Tree.” It’s very nice up there, though you’d hardly expect Wenger to live in a dump!

  5. Good article, Worky. I don’t really understand why he should remain an object of contempt to some fans either.

    Obviously, he suffered greatly from being the bloke who the regime brought in to replace KK. I was pretty enraged at what they’d done to KK at the time, and their choice of a replacement just seemed like a provocation – at the time.

    He might have made an indifferent start (and I thought “***gate” was mostly funny). But he got to grips with things and did pretty well. And he left us Chris Hughton.

    I hope Joe’s enjoying his retirement.

  6. What an idiot (Kinnear and the blogger). Sorry but I just couldn’t be arsed to read this shit! Kinnear was the worst manager in NUFCs history and I’m glad the stupid old farts gone and taken his shit hoofball with him. Shame about his heart attack but it was all for the good of the club now Pardew and Carr has got us back where we belong.

  7. James

    What would you have done then? Played open attractive football with our team which lets face it was cr*p back then and get beat every week? Stats don’t lie mate. Hoofball, longball, or sh*te ball we still would have stayed up if we continued with him. Idiot.

  8. James says:
    February 16, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    “Shame about his heart attack but it was all for the good of the club”

    Classy James, really classy.

    “now Pardew and Carr has got us back where we belong.”

    16th? But that’s lower than we were when Kinnear left the club years ago, and everyone’s cracking one off over the fancy French players Pardew has at his disposal though they were full of bile about many of the ones Kinnear had.

    But perhaps the strangest of all is how you can say that my piece is “shit” when you write yourself that you haven’t even read it? :lol:

  9. DarthBroon says:
    February 16, 2013 at 1:31 pm

    “Good article, Worky.”

    Cheers Darth.

    “I hope Joe’s enjoying his retirement.”

    He said he was playing Cricket for charity with Bunbury Cricket Club amongst other things. I think he would make a very good chief scout personally, though he would probably have another turn if he had the stress of being a manager again.

  10. Interesting read Worky, must admit I wasn’t aware of all of the facts that you have mentioned.

    My reaction at the time of his appointment was that Ashley had gone for the cheapest possible option he could find at short notice. Also it was the rabbit out of the hat-trick, of suddenly producing Joe from relative obscurity to be our manager that left me and probably most of us a little gobsmacked.

    I think most of us were highly skeptical of the appointment and even as you rightly point out, he was actually getting the team into a better position, consequent events conspired against him.

    We can’t know if he would have been a good manager for us or not as he didn’t get the chance to really show us what he might have been able to acheive.

    It’s probably fairer to say most of the Toon fans were pretty neutral in their opinions fo him with a few praising him and a few damning him.

    I wouldn’t have said that the job was reponsible for his illness, heart attacks usually have some kind of prior lifestyle or medical history, although the stress may have been the final trigger.

    Little chance of him coming back to us as we apparently have Pardew for the next 25 years so no 2nd chances for Joe.

    I am sure we all wish him well for the future whatever he does whether we be praiser or detractor.

    Best of luck Joe.

  11. From day one, Joe never stood a chance.
    To replace a Newcastle hero such as KK, was next to impossible.
    Especially the ill feeling that was generated by the episode.
    Ashley was despised during that era, with booing and bedsheets.
    Anyone he brought in to replace Keegan, fell into that same catagory.
    If Joe had won the league and FA cup both, he still would’nt have been accepted.
    Too bad, he was a decent guy, who did a decent job.

  12. Grumpy

    Yeah i still dont know how Ashley decided on Joe.
    Was he reccomended by someone, did they know each other? what was it that made him decide on a guy who had been on the sidelines of the game, since his days at Wimbledon?

    And as i stated above, he was never gonna be accepted.
    I know there was’nt a lot of abuse directed at him, and most were ambivelent about him on a personal level.

    I dont recall anyone praising his football,either tactically or when we had bit of success, the feeling was allways, he was here on a temporary basis, till we get a real manager.

    The same feeling remained with Hughtons appointment.

    The biggest dissapointment from a personal viewpoint was Pardew, apparently brought here on the advive of Llambias FFS.

    Nothing temporary about an eight year deal, though i would be willing to bet it’s not gonna happen.
    So we live in hope.

  13. Grumpy Old-Toon says:
    February 16, 2013 at 7:44 pm

    “It’s probably fairer to say most of the Toon fans were pretty neutral in their opinions fo him with a few praising him and a few damning him.”

    Grumpy, I honestly don’t remember one person actually praising him, and when I did, I was called all kinds of things. People said some absolutely vile things about him, so much so that it made me ashamed to be a Newcastle United supporter.

  14. Chuck says:
    February 16, 2013 at 8:07 pm

    “Yeah i still dont know how Ashley decided on Joe.
    Was he reccomended by someone, did they know each other? what was it that made him decide on a guy who had been on the sidelines of the game, since his days at Wimbledon?”

    Chuck, just a wild stab in the dark but though Kinnear didn’t become the manager of Wimbledon until after Dennis Wise had left for Chelsea, Kinnear was reserve team manager when Wise was there and they were connected. If there was anything in that, it would be another thing to add to Kinnear’s litany of crimes in the eyes of some fans.

    As for him being “on the sidelines of the game” don’t you recall that Ashley had already employed Keegan who hadn’t even on the sidelines of the game, he wasn’t even in the stands! (he admitted that he hadn’t even been to a game for years).

  15. Chuck says:
    February 16, 2013 at 7:48 pm

    “To replace a Newcastle hero such as KK, was next to impossible.”

    Chuck, if Ashley had brought in some big fancy name like say, van Gaal or Hiddink, you could’ve bet your house that Keegan would have been forgotten about in seconds.

  16. Ah! so thats the connection, Wise, Joe, Ashley.

    Hiddink Or Van Gaal, sure, except that was never gonna happen.

    I think a Pardew is about as much as we can expect here.
    Pardew and a top ten spot, something similar to where Moyes has kept Everton during the last eight or so years.
    Of course it could all turn brown, as it has up to now this season, we are still not in a secure spot.

    Yeah a top ten will keep those big tv checks arriving, but is there any ambition to win something ?
    Not if it costs too much, or threatens our PL stay, so dont expect too much.
    He’s spent big this year from panic, but if we go up the table, you can forget those talked about summer signings.

  17. Chuck says:
    February 17, 2013 at 2:21 am

    “Ah! so thats the connection, Wise, Joe, Ashley.”

    I’m not sure Chuck. Maybe it was that, maybe it was something else.

  18. looking back now, i think kinnear was a better manager, than the twat we have atm.
    i wasn’t too fussed about him being brought in, because of the situation the club was in.
    the only thing that i was worried about was his health, and ashley should have never exposed a man with known heart problems, to that kind of pressure.
    i know you probably couldn’t have stopped a stubborn old school manager like joe taking the job, but ashley was stupid.

    i dont think many people in football were willing to give him a go, after his health problems, which with hindsight, was the right thing, after what occurred.

    he did organise the side, and we tightened up in defence, and he made us hard to beat.
    the club were starting to get a few results, notably the 0-0 draw at chelsea.

    the media backlash and basic p***take out of him by bird and co, actually done him a favour, and he sort of became a bit of a cult figure, with the moniker J.F.K.

    where he fell down for me, was he started to come out with pro ashley rhetoric, and bizarre statements about the sale of the club, and future contracts for himself.
    is it any coincidence that we have that knacker pardew doing the same thing a few years later?
    is that the prerequisite of being the manager of newcastle these days?

  19. I’ve been measuring the long balls of Newcastle United managers and I’ve just come up with a very interesting result.

    However I really do need to get out more!

  20. Joe Hawkins

    It’s called job security Joe.
    And face it Pardew was about to possibly dissapear from the football scene, following a career of accomplishing nothing of any significance, which continues, unless of course you want to consider a fifth place finish, as success.
    When SBR got fired for falling that far down the league.

    Actually it’s IMO a bit more than that.
    I believe Ashley to be somewhat of a control freak, who refuses to hire anyone who may contradicts his judgement.

    We should all be aware that both Llambias and Pardew, will never disagree with him.

    One Llambias is a footballing ignoramus and remains at the whim of our owner, only because he is loyal and does what he’s told.

    All of the nonsense about building the NUFC brand, is just that, Ashley only uses him when a signature is required.

    Building a wordwide brand, thats a joke, what does he know about that..
    Hey sometimes he gets a bit cocky and begins to believe his own bullshit.

    Pardew, the couple of times he gave out uncensored bits to the press, he was quickly reminded who he was and where he was and why.
    For instance, his “we need some reinforcements”, during the summer, was quickly replaced by, “we were lucky not to have lost any of our star players”, “thanks to our owner”.

    We all know he’s not much of a manager, but to bring in someone who is and have a chance of some success (and god knows its been a long enough wait) would mean ceeding some control and decision making by Ashley.

    If you dont believe any of this, just look what happened during the last window, where he hit the panic button, took charge of the dealmaking, bypassing Llambias, Pardew and the other boardroom yes men and got the deals done in no time.

    Hell you think he’s gonna lose out on the biggest bonanza in the history of the EPL.

    I believe he still intends to get out of the business, just awaiting the right price and it can’t come soon enough for me.
    Until then, we will have to be patient.

    Actually we have the makings of a competitive side right now, the only problem may have to do with management and possibly coaching.
    As our set pieces are not exactly having much success and we have an unusual number of offside calls against us.

    Though we are starting to play a better style of football, actually keeping the ball on the ground and played almost no hoofball against “Metallica”
    They should use one of Mettalica’s tunes to introduce them selves, as the come out of the tunnel, certainly get the fans attention.

  21. chuck, he’s defo a control freak, and he’s never going to give the job to a manager, who wants to do it his way.
    the references to metallica are apt, in this case, because ashley is…
    the master of puppets,
    when they do anything, its.
    damage inc,
    and in the end, it will still be,
    whom the bell tolls, for pardew.

  22. Well Kinnear was definitely better than Shearer who was as bad as any interim manager we’ve ever had.
    I didn’t particularly like the guy but you can’t argue that he was doing okay points wise and that we probably wouldn’t have been relegated had he not had the heart attack and stayed… all irrelevant now of course

  23. stevep says:
    February 18, 2013 at 11:37 am

    “Well Kinnear was definitely better than Shearer who was as bad as any interim manager we’ve ever had.”

    Steve, the Shearer thing was really quite bizarre (if there is such a thing as “bizarre” at Newcastle United?). I looked into Iain Dowie’s history, tactics, tales from training and so on at the time, and it seemed that “Quasimodo” was the real head coach there, with Shearer just serving as some kind of figurehead for fans.

  24. I believe Shearah, got a rude awakening as to what it’s like to manage a side, without serving an apprenticeship.

    Unfortunate for him, he took over a side that seemed determined to get themselves relegated.

    There was talent there, but the dressing room was fractured, with guys like, N’Zogbia and Duff, clearly wanting away, others apeared to not give a damn.

    Had the right manager been hired, i believe that relegation could have been avoided.

    Ashley was a novice owner and Llambias knew less than he does now, which may be hard to believe.

    I was embarrassed for Shearer, who obviously had no clue and the fact Quasimodo was constantly in his ear, just made it so obvious.

    Actually it was a case of deja vue all over again, prior to Ashley bringing in the five recruits.

    With Pardew looking a lot like Shearer, just did’nt know what to do as we slid steadily downwards.
    Getting beat by sides below us.

    Thats why Ashley took control, he could see things going in the same direction.

    So now we will just shoot up the table, win the UEFA cup and sign at least a few top players in the summer, win the league next season, become a big worldwide brand and Pardew will as Derick said become the new Sir Alex, over the next twenty years.
    Cant argue with that !

  25. Chuck, did you ever hear the story from Dowie’s disastrous 15 game reign as Charlton manager when he brought his side to Newcastle for an away game? I was a typical example of the “boot camp” style he would later bring to St James’ Park. On the morning of a game, he had the bright idea of taking his visiting side on a “Great North Run” style trot around Tyneside.

    They all ended up getting lost somewhere in Gateshead and he eventually had to bundle them all into minicabs to get them to the game in time for the kick off!

  26. Considering the amounts of money at stake in the EPL and other leagues, literally millions risked, on the expertise of people who’s only real experience is to have themselves, played the game, to me is astonishing.
    Something that only happens rarely on this side of the pond.
    Most coaches/Managers, coming from a career spent from High school, college to pro’s.
    I’m serious those multi millionaires and Billionaires, who put both their money and trust in people you would’nt want to walk your dog is amazing.
    It took, one season for Fenway to suss Dalglish, but by then the damage had been done, set the club back years.
    Look at Leeds, still aint recovered and may never.
    Which is why, certain young guys like Clarke, Martinez, Rodgers, Prince Hamlet, well you know them, are attracting those who demand value for money.
    This is not the league of the seventies and not even the nineties, it’s the league that will pay out five billion over a three year period, among whichever clubs the EPL consist of.
    With the better teams gaining the lions share.
    Is it any wonder, so many managers, players etc. are so bent on coming to this league.
    Believe it, there’s little room for novices, or clowns, there’s just too much at stake.
    When one looks at who are doing well, Moyes, a player, but most of his time was in the lower divisions, same with those i mentioned above, with at least two who coached under Morinho.
    It’s people like Wenger, Morinho, and others all of who had long apprenticeships (but never really played the game), who have had the most success.
    “Badges ? we don have to show you no steenken badges”
    (treasure of the Sierra Madre) “we played the game”, aint gonna work anymore.
    Plus it’s about time the center of footballing excellence
    the English equivelent of France’s Clairefontaine, was eventually finished, we are only a decade behind the French.

  27. Of course we will probably hear some voices remark, about the new fair play rules about to be introduced.
    Yeah so what !
    The record club earnings in the EPL, still allows them to pay record wages.
    It’s simply based on a percentage, not fixed amounts.
    Any percentage of 5 billion, is a lotta dough.

  28. I had always been a Kinnear advocate.

    He is far superior to Pardew in all aspects of a manager. Kinnear was a thinking manager who was adaptable and able to change a game tactically.

    The fans regrettably were so upset by their Messiah departing they blinded themselves to what was actually being achieved. He made us hard to beat which is the foundation upon which any manager should begin before trying to play fancy football. No fancy players or french imports that have come in to save Pardew.

  29. @Worky

    Oh, right. Pardew is better at making excuses.
    Pitch, Youth, intensity, would not allow us to score our goals

  30. michael12 says:
    February 19, 2013 at 11:45 am

    “@Worky

    Oh, right. Pardew is better at making excuses.”

    Well he’s definitely made the injury thing stick Michael. Unlike Kinnear though, I’ve yet to see him with 11 players out.

  31. I disagree I thought he was terrible when he was here. It had nothing to do with being not from the area, Keegan wasn’t from the area, Hughton wasn’t from the area and they are both well respected. I had a lot of respect for Roeder because he showed respect in return in every interview he had. He genuinely loves the club. Now I remember Kinnear slagging off the fans on a few occasions while he was in charge and he didn’t have the record to justify that. Our Football was appalling while he was in charge. He only had a win ratio 0f 22.22% one of the worst in the entire history of the club!