EPL Talk » Kevin Keegan

EPL: Clubs Quick To Drop Managers

Ethan Armstrong — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:00:02 +0000

Paul Ince sacked by Blackburn. Kevin Keegan pushed out of Newcastle. Roy Keane frustrated by Sunderland. Ince was an outright firing after Blackburn only registered 3 wins in 17 matches. Keegan technically resigned, but has made allegations that the club forced him out. Roy Keane left Sunderland after failing to agree on contract negotiations.

Poor form dogged each of these sides as club and manager parted ways. Newcastle sit within the relegation zone. Blackburn and Sunderland are fighting to remain clear of it. Are clubs too quick to part ways with the men who steer them?

We enter each season knowing the drop of the ax is inevitable. The sack is so entrenched in football culture, predictions are made and odds are given. We make a game of it: who will go first? Along with Ince, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Tony Adams, Juande Ramos and Alan Curbishly all got the sack this season. More than a third of the Premier League’s managers parted ways with their clubs. (Harry Redknapp also left Portsmouth for Spurs, but seemed to be for the lure of big money.)

The lack of tenacity in club/manager relations shows many boards are unwilling to give managers the time to work through a bad period. True, Ince’s record was beyond poor, but he’d never managed a top flight club before. Six months is a short amount of time to garner enough experience to excel. And Blackburn are still in the danger zone despite his departure.

Keane saved Sunderland from dropping down to League One and then delivered them back to the Premier League. I don’t know what Keane’s contract demands were or how much his famous temper factored into it, but it seems like Sunderland would have done well to fight harder to keep him in place. Keane’s leadership combined with the savy he showed in going after players did wonders for not only bringing Sunderland back to the top flight, but keeping them above the drop last year.

Before Newcastle parted ways with Keegan, Sam Allardyce had been sacked after 24 matches. Keegan managed the Magpies for eight months. Now, Alan Shearer takes over for Joe Kinnear (whose heart surgery put him out for the remainder of the season). At 31 points with only four matches left, finally coaxing in Shearer (many Newcastle supporters have long hoped he’d take charge) may be too late, and Newcastles unwillingness in recent times to give any one manager a long-term chance to lift the club will probably mean they are going down. And if they continue their long tradition of spending most of their money on attackers and very little of it on defenders, it will be quite a task for them to come back up.

While some managerial replacements prove to be positive (Spurs have clearly been playing better under Redknapp and West Ham have improved under Zola), the struggles of Blackburn, Sunderland and especially Newcastle show that the desparate shift in management provide no guarantee that a club’s fortune will reverse. The fates of these clubs might not hang in doubt if the managers had been encouraged to stay on and work through the club’s problems. Sir Alex Ferguson had his struggles in his first few years of managing United before he started winning titles. He was allowed the time to develop the club into a winning side. An endeavor that takes longer than six months.

Newcastle Call For Venables? Things Can’t Get Any Worse

Paul Bestall — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:37:09 +0000

Well, can things get any worse for Newcastle United than they currently are? One win in the league in 3 months, the manager still recovering from his triple heart bypass operation, crowds are falling, the caretakers pointing out, in case you’ve missed it, that Newcastle find themselves in a relegation battle and then today the English papers are full of a certain ex-England manager riding to the rescue of the Geordie nation.

Ah, the return of Terry Venables to the Premiership once again. Could he be the man to save Newcastle United from returning to the Championship, 16 years after they left it? A man who has given me some of my favourite footballing memories during his spells at Barcelona, Tottenham and England but has seen his stock fall rapidly with disastrous spells at Crystal Palace, Portsmouth and Leeds United during the beginning of the implosion for the Elland Road club.

Now El Tel has several contacts in the media and his name often crops up whenever high profile vacancies or situations are in the media, so it’s no real surprise to see this latest connection being made today but honestly, can Venables really save Newcastle United? I’m not so sure he’s got the clout to pull it off at all anymore. At Leeds United, his term there was dreadful and the club were in real danger of going down, despite having a much stronger squad than Peter Reid inherited, ultimately keeping them up.That was nearly six years ago now and Newcastle are in more trouble than Leeds United were when he took over. Venables has always been Teflon coated in the eyes of some media outlets in the UK, who conveniantly forget the Palace/Pompey/Leeds situations. In fact, for a glimpse of Newcastle potential future, they only have to cast eyes down the A1 towards West Yorkshire.

The report uses the usual British media tactic of ” a club insider told us” to give credence to the story,but ultimately, Venables has been so out of form managerially recently I can’t see there being any substance to it. As much I loved the memories of the 80’s and 90’s under Venables at White Hart Lane, I can’t seeing him being able to do anything to save Newcastle United. Yet, it wouldn’t surprise me under the current regime if he did reappear at St James’ Park as interim manager until the end of the season such is the lack of football knowledge in the boardroom in Newcastle.

The Geordie fans may be thinking just what they’ve done to deserve this but ever since Bobby Robson was sacked after 4 games of the 2004/2005 season, Newcastle have fallen further and further down the table, seeing 5 managers and 3 caretakers try and fill his boots. What they would give for Robson to be anywhere near healthy to come in and save them but his battle with terminal cancer is catching up with him sadly. Mike Ashley’s made plenty of mistakes, hell, he’s hardly made any right decisions since coming in, but getting Venables in would compound them all.

Newcastle are facing relegation in the face, with trips to Liverpool, Tottenham, Stoke and Aston Villa to come and the only bonus being that they’ve got to play Middlesbrough at home. To stay up, they need all the luck in the world to fall for them but with every passing defeat safety becomes a more distant prospect and the realisation that next season could see them playing at Barnsley, Peterborough and QPR will reduce the staunchest Geordie to tears. If Mike Ashley is serious of transforming Newcastles fortunes, he needs to prepare for relegation under Kinnear, wait until the end of the season and then ask SV Hamburg to name their price for Martin Jol and allow him to rebuild them in the Championship.

Poems And Drawings From a 10-Year-Old Soccer Obsessed Boy

The Gaffer — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:30:52 +0000

Going through some old boxes last week, I found a handmade poetry book I created in primary school when I was living in Wales. I thought it’d be interesting to share the poems and my pictures no matter how crude and silly they are to help paint a picture of what a ten-year old soccer obsessed boy was thinking in 1980.

Here are the soccer-related poems and drawings (click the images, when open, to zoom in):

“Soccer” (The Poem)

“Famous Footballers”

Kevin Keegan Drawing

“I Have A Dream”

“Wales 4-1 England”

Old Footballer Drawing.

Some of the things that I found interesting about the collection were the names of different companies featured on the advertising boards such as Talbot (cars), Esso (gasoline/petrol), V.G. and Spar (grocery stores), my adoration for my boyhood hero Kevin Keegan, the amount of belief I had in the Welsh national team at that time (thanks to their 4-1 against England), and – even at that age – the level of detail I drew into the football kits of Wales (Adidas) and England (Admiral).

Marlon King Further Dampens Day As Newcasle United Fans Protest

Johnathan Starling — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:11:26 +0000

Before I write, I want to thank everyone for the turnout this weekend for the EPL Talk Chat. You honestly have no idea how happy it made me. Anyways enough of the gushing, back to the meat of this post.

Marlon King’s double was enough to see off Newcastle United 2-1.

I have to admit, I’m torn about what direction to take this particular article. Really this should be about how Hull City was able to take advantage of a club in crisis and get a win at St. James’ Park. Instead, I’m more focused on what happened in the stands to start the second half.

As the ‘Cockney Mafia Out’ banner circled the ground to start the second half, I actually got disgusted. Yes everyone in the world knows Newcastle United fans are not happy with Ashley at the helm and they sure as hell aren’t happy with how Kevin Keegan had to leave the club this time around. But to parade around with a sign is just disgraceful to those on the pitch trying their best to get a result for the club that you claim to support. To make this protest even more comical was the fact Ashley or Wise weren’t even there, and it was pretty obvious they weren’t going to be. Yes they didn’t take their venom out on the players, but if you’re focusing your time on taking it out on the board, can’t you argue fans are taking it out on the players by ignoring what they do on the field?

Look, if you want to protest to your club about what is going on there, it’s pretty simple. Don’t buy anymore merchandise. Protest outside the club, don’t show up. If you want to even sing songs of protest to the board, while I’m not thrilled with it, I can even understand that. But to draw attention to yourselves by circling the ground with a banner is about as low as it can go as far as I’m concerned.

What’s even sadder is this game was more or less a side show to the protests on offer at the ground. The game itself though wasn’t that great of a game. Newcastle United had the promising start, but couldn’t take advantage of their three best chances to score inside of half an hour. Then the penalty and I’ve gone back and forth on this one. The way I see it, Peter Halmosi came back into the tackle of Nicky Butt. From my vantage point, it shouldn’t have been a penalty, but I won’t fault Andre Marriner for awarding it. Marlon King did his job from the spot even though Given guessed correctly and Hull had their lead.

The start of the second half was pretty much more of the same for Newcastle. Create chances, but got caught out on one quality counter. Charles N’Zogbia should be taken to task for being caught so far out of position. Marlon King had plenty of space to run in and even with N’Zogbia tracking back, it was too late. King did well to keep composed on the ball and slot home far post.

Xisco I felt had a good game, and got his reward nine minutes from the ninety. It was simply clean up duty as Charles N’Zogbia found space through the traffic to go far post. Myhill dove for it and was simply not able to get up in time as Xisco did well to stay onside and finish.

The ending though has to leave a black eye on the fans who did come out. Danny Guthrie has to know better that you just can’t go in and attack the legs unprovoked. Hell he got away with one hack at Caleb Fagan’s legs, but to blatantly dive in with what appeared to me an intent to injure is a joke.

In the end, Hull City get three points and do the business in the strangest of environments. Newcastle United just have too many issues to deal with right now and while they have enough talent to stay away from true relegation hell, it’s going to be another long season of turmoil for them.

A Few Other Observations:
1) If Geremi is Newcastle United’s best crossing threat, that’s not a good thing.
2) Could Shola Ameobi have had a worse game? At the moment, he doesn’t even look league one standard, even if he is coming off an injury.
3) If Dean Windass doesn’t have a realistic chance weekly to come on, shouldn’t he be smart enough to just step aside and let those who are more able in? It their four matches this season, the only one he’s come on in was during a blowout.

I’ll be back tonight with a review of Stoke City taking on Everton.

Premier League More Entertaining Than Reality TV

The Gaffer — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 06:00:20 +0000

If reality TV executives are looking for the next smash hit, they should consider Premier League football.

Consider the real world drama that happened this week alone. There was Fergie picking up Berbatov in his Bentley under the noses of Man City’s executives. In Newcastle, there was the two-day boardroom drama involving Keegan, his lawyers and the Toon executives. At Upton Park, a real-life episode of Eastenders was being played out as Curbishley delivered his words of resignation with a cockney accent.

And then there was the cliffhanger, the point in the show where viewers were on tenterhooks with the bombshell that one of the richest families in the world had purchased the unfashionable Manchester City.Without a doubt, the Premier League has become the most entertaining soap opera there is. There are so many plotlines, characters that we love to hate and secretly admire. And the amazing is that we’ve only just finished gameweek three. We have thirty five more to go.

While the drama off the pitch has generated a sea of emotions — from anger to disbelief and everything in between — the Premier League clubs need to ensure that the focus returns to the place it truly should be, on the pitch. We’ve had three entertaining weekends thus far, but we haven’t seen a classic match that has left us speechless. Let’s hope it happens sooner rather than later.