Why risk everything at Newcastle for Joe Kinnear?

The fallout from Joe Kinnear's appointment as director of football continues. Just 24 hours after the club agreed a three-year deal with their ex-caretaker boss, managing director Derek Llambias quit St. James' Park.

Kevin Hatchard of Sportsmedia believes there's no method to this madness at all.

If Joe Kinnear is the answer, many horrified Newcastle United fans are wondering what on earth the question could have been. 

Four years after leaving the Magpies’ managerial hot-seat because of a heart problem, 66-year-old Kinnear has bumbled his way back into St. James’ Park with all the grace and verbal dexterity of Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

Kinnear revealed on Sunday that he had been offered the role of Director of Football, but it took until Tuesday for the Magpies to sheepishly confirm the appointment. Kinnear’s initial statement dripped with bravado – he announced his intention to make Newcastle “far better than they are now”, and lauded himself as a “good tactician and a very good judge of a player.” He also suggested he would have the final say on transfers and would get rid of players who aren’t good enough.

Kinnear gave an extraordinarily bone-headed interview to talkSPORT on Monday night, claiming to have signed Tim Krul when in fact the Dutch keeper was already at the club when he arrived. There was some solace to be taken from that part of the interview - Krul was just about the only player who Kinnear named correctly in the entire quarter-of-an-hour. Kinnear also claimed he has won the Manager of the Year award three times (he has won it once), and that he played over 400 games for Spurs (he hasn’t).

As amusing as all of this is to the neutral observer, there are serious misgivings amongst the Newcastle support about a man who has spent less than six months of the last nine years in the dugout. No-one can take away Kinnear’s successes as a manager at Wimbledon or as a player at Tottenham, but those glories have long faded. It seems inconceivable that Kinnear would have landed such a high-profile position had it not been for his friendship with Magpies’ chairman Mike Ashley.

Kinnear has already lambasted the club’s 16^th-placed finish in the Premier League, but there were mitigating factors. A catastrophic set of injuries made life difficult for boss Alan Pardew, and his squad was further stretched by the club’s outstanding run to the quarter-finals of the Europa League. Pardew has conceded he gave too much responsibility to some of the club’s youngsters in the early part of the campaign, and as a result mistakes were made and Premier League points went begging. However, this was an error that Pardew had already admitted to and rectified with an intelligent January transfer spree. Kinnear is bringing the Polyfilla and the trowel when the repair work’s already been done.

Newcastle’s transfer policy has been prudent and thoughtful in the past couple of years, and if I was a Magpies fan I would be concerned by potential damage to an efficient system. Chief scout Graham Carr has overseen the arrival of some excellent players. Yohan Cabaye and Cheik Tiote are fine midfielders (although Tiote’s form has dipped), Papiss Cisse made an instant impact on his arrival from unheralded Bundesliga club Freiburg (the departure of Demba Ba did him no favours), Mathieu Debuchy will be an excellent right-back for Newcastle when he adjusts to the pace of the Premier League, and I think both midfielder Moussa Sissoko and defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa are shrewd acquisitions.

This Pardew-Carr axis has worked pretty well, and Ashley has now thrown a Kinnear-shaped grenade into the mix. Kinnear’s input and contacts may well enhance Newcastle’s transfer policy, but the point is that we just don’t know what impact he’ll have, and his arrival is therefore a huge risk. Kinnear has had verbal diarrhoea since Sunday, and one wonders if he can resist commenting on the team’s displays throughout the season. He insists he has a good relationship with Pardew, but will that remain the case when the Magpies hit their first rough patch of the season? Will Kinnear loom over Pardew’s shoulder when the pressure’s really on? Will Kinnear irritate star players, like he did when he referred to Charles N’Zogbia as “Insomnia”, causing a talented winger to quit the club?

Only time will provide the answers to these questions, but the last time Kinnear was directly involved with a Newcastle campaign, the Magpies were relegated at the end of the season. The club’s fans will desperately hope lightning doesn’t strike twice at St James’ Park.

Pardew's new contract is too long

Alan Pardew and his backroom staff at Newcastle United have been given massive new eight-year contracts.

Coaches John Carver, Steve Stone and Andy Woodman join the boss in levels of unprecedented job security.

It's reward for the Toon finishing in fifth-place in the Premier League last season.



Pardew, Llambias and ... Wonga!

Together with chief scout Graham Carr, who's credited with sniffing out undiscovered gems across Europe and will be 75 when his deal ends, Pardew's assembled a squad of all-talents. He's successfully fended off the attentions of Champions League clubs for their best players in the last transfer window.

And though that's no mean achievement after the ignominy of relegation under Joe Kinnear and Alan Shearer, there's no need to secure a manager so long-term.

Managing Director Derek Llambias said: "If you look at clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have shown that stability gives you the best platform to achieve success, and that is the model we wish to emulate here.

'We're looking to build on the success we had last season and these new contracts are aimed at keeping the club progressing on and off the pitch, as we have done since returning to the Premier League in 2010.

'Alan has done a fantastic job over the last couple of years and has proved what a great Premier League manager he is.

'I have total respect for him in all football matters and have an excellent relationship with him which I think benefits the club enormously.

A player awarded an eight-year deal post-Bosman is understandable. But a boss?

It'd be logical if upward progress was as predictable as it's been fast for Newcastle in the last two seasons.

But football isn't like that.

When things come undone, they come undone big time, especially at a volatile club like Newcastle where the gap between expectation and trophy haul is as big a gulf as probably any club in the world.

Trouble is there's a thin line between stability and complacency - and you wouldn't begrudge Pardew - or some older members of his management team putting a big cigar on when secured under a huge contract.

Pardew signed a five-and-a-half year deal from the get-go at St. James' Park - before he'd earned any lengthy loyalty.

It's made still more confusing by the treatment Mike Ashley and the board dished out to previous boss, Chris Hughton who immediately returned Newcastle to the big time at the first time of asking - then stabilised them back in the top flight.

He was sacked midway through a season to be replaced by Pardew.

No one's arguing with how the former West Ham and Charlton boss has succeeded. The manager of the year's continuing to progress the club.

But if and when it goes wrong, it'll be a Titanic and costly turn to a new plan.

And in the world of football, particularly Newcastle United, you'd say with near certainty Pardew won't be there in 2020 - either Manchester United and their like will come calling and Ashley will get huge compensation.

Or on the balance of probabilities when Pardew's luck runs out, he'll get a disproportionate payoff instead.

Ashley's a retail visionary and one wonders whether he's applying unprecedented commercial acumen to the job of running a big club.

But football's like no other business. I think he's busking this. A four-year extension for his management team would've served the club better.

Pardew hits jackpot thanks to Mad Mike Ashley

Every neutral's favourite Pardew moment!

Not content with one cock-eyed decision, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley's scored a rather unique double!

Not even Deadly Doug Ellis could've boasted that with his managerial swingdoor at Villa Park.

Because in sacking Chris Hughton after leading Newcastle to the Championship at the first time of asking, Mad Mike's brought in Alan Pardew - on a five-and-a-half year contract!

Ashley declared Newcastle needed a coach of greater experience and pedigree: Martin Jol's instantaneous departure from Ajax suddenly seemed less than co-incidental and Martin O'Neill, though expensive, would've made Hughton's sacking look brutal, rather than stupid.

Instead, the silver-haired, silver-tongued Pardew got the nod after meeting Toon Chief Executive Derek Llambias in a casino which he manages!

Pardew's been a canny lad here, bartering a long-term contract in exchange for a comparatively small salary. £450,000 a year is much, much less than other Premier League bosses get.


Ashley takes advice from the bottom of a beer glass.



But all it does is incentivise Pardew to fail inside three seasons. The lawyer at the League Managers Association should diarise his appointments calendar for sometime in 2013.

As an outside observer of Newcastle since the heady days of Kevin Keegan, it appeared that in Chris Hughton, Mad Mike had finally landed the right guy.



A decent, well-liked man, with a lower-than-average profile and no ego.

Newcastle United were always the fall guy to a false Messiah or Big Name drafted in from a smaller, more successful club, whose reputation promised to end the silverware drought.

But not only had Hughton galvanised the Toon out of the total chaos of relegation, Alan Shearer and all, but also restored the Premier League to St James' Park in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Newcastle are now mid-table, providing England with their centre-forward, enjoying wins at Everton and Arsenal and thumping home victories over Aston Villa and local rivals, Sunderland.

Now Pardew, sitting on the contract of his life is set up, while the team around him are instantly unsettled by events. The tension is completely the wrong way around!

How not to run a successful Football Club.

Well, at least Ashley's wasting his own cash and no-one else's. But you can't play games with people's passions forever. And once again for no reason at all, the Toon Army have been ignored and made fools of.

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EXCLUSIVE: Cock-up Charlton's Curbishley replacement was under their noses!

The day Alan Curbishley bowed out of Charlton Athletic after fifteen years, was the day the club went into a downward spiral in which they're still spinning out of control. But it could've been so very different.

There's been a succession of awful managerial appointments at The Valley and next season, there's the real prospect of another relegation - to the third tier of English football.

But the answer to their future was literally right under the Charlton board's noses!

I can exclusively reveal I sat next to Roy Hodgson in the Director's Box at The Valley, that very day.

Two-and-a-half-years later, as Charlton stare up at the rest, four-points adrift at the foot of the Championship, letting Curbs slip out "the front door" was a cock-up enough - but watching Hodgson take his chance with Fulham so comprehensively, makes Charlton's mistake dimensional!

Their visionless board didn't know what they had - how far they'd come - and what to do next. 

Hodgson was the perfect replacement for Curbishley.

Curbs, together with Steve Gritt entered the stage as something of a comedy duo. They were the first joint managers in the English game. He and Gritt had zero experience in management. The club had no money and, worse, no ground.

Slowly, painfully, they put a side together and the first signs that something was stirring came at Ewood Park in February 1994, when Jack Walker's millionaire Blackburn, who won the Premiership the following year, were beaten by the penniless Addicks.

Curbishley, on his own after Gritt was sacked in 1995, then dragged Charlton away from all the dreary years of post-War mediocrity.

I'd been telling anyone who'd listen that to kick-on from years of patient, excellent progress, Charlton needed to appoint a manager for the bigger stage. Hodgson, a Londoner, with his Inter and Swiss credentials would've been perfect. He was clearly looking for a Premier League job in London. He got one.

The progress of Fulham couldn't be in more stark contrast to Charlton. 

The board, without a clue what should follow Curbs were keen on a man with no Premier League experience. Billy Davies was a strange Plan A to pursue - but when he wouldn't come to The Valley, Plan B (for Backfoot) was Iain Dowie, acrimoniously hired from relegated rivals Crystal Palace. When that didn't work out, Plan C (for well, make your own jokes here) was Les Reed. 

Appalling.

Charlton's board are so clueless, they must be going through the phone book looking for coaches now: Pardew? Parkinson? it's Pearce next!

They had it all in 2006: an excellent manager: okay, as a team they'd gone back a little over eighteen months, but only from higher to lower mid-table. The stadium was playing to full houses and had been developed very nicely over the years. They were ferrying fans in for a fiver from further afield, fuelling a fanbase.

And it's no exaggeration to describe their part of London as the country's region of opportunity. The City and The Olympics on their doorstep. So much opportunity! Where do you start?

With Spurs struggling at the time, they had a genuine chance to grow the club in the south-east and Kent, behind Chelsea and Arsenal as the region's third biggest club.

THEY'VE FAILED BADLY.

At New Year, Charlton are hurtling towards the third tier; Hodgson's Fulham who negotiated a miracle escape from relegation last season, are in the Premier League's top-half.

"Most managers leave by the back door, I'm getting clapped out of the front door which is how I would have wanted to go", a moved Curbishley croaked at the time. Players from both sides formed a guard of honour as the stadium rose as one in appreciation. They didn't know it at the time, but the poor fans were saying goodbye to the Big Time.

Charlton's board can't apologise enough to the supporters for how badly they've mismanaged the Addicks ever since. They've run their Premier League club more like a Provincial Golf Club. Now they're handicapped, four-under-par the field. They're going to miss the cut.

This looks like damage which could take a decade or more to rectify.

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