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.
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 16th-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.
