Football, by and large

Many changes have been wrought in the world of football since I stopped blogging, none perhaps quite as dramatic as at, where else, Newcastle United. Kevin Keegan came in, eventually stopped the club’s slide towards relegation (Sam Allardyce may have been sacked with the club in 11th place, but the last twelve games had been dire, the dressing room clearly lost). After a rocky start, a win over Fulham kick-started Newcastle’s surge to safety. This was followed by a 4-1 thrashing handed out to Tottenham in their own backyard, making a double league double over Spurs and a five-match league winning streak over the Cockerels in total. After the derby victory and with safety secured, the Toon’s season tailed off and a joint-record low points total was recorded.
Still, the new season at least promised a chance to avoid a relegation scrap for once. A draw at Old Trafford and a home win was followed by defeat to Arsenal, but four points from the first three games which included away matches at Man United and the Emirates was respectable. Then Keegan resigned. In reality, he was forced into it, by the incompetent administration that Mike Ashley’s Spurs buddies persuaded him to foist on Newcastle - stripping the manager of choice of players in the transfer market. The lack of transfer activity in the summer should have been a sign. The contempt that the upstart director of football, Dennis Wise and his team had for Keegan was disgusting, for a system supposed to let the manager focus on training his players. The DoF should procure players that the manager asks for, but instead Keegan was told to watch players he had never heard of who suddenly appeared in his team on YouTube. Not only that, but apparently the entire squad was put up for sale in the last 24 hours of the transfer market, most notably Michael Owen, the only one consistently scoring goals at Newcastle. If this scheme had worked, who was Keegan supposed to work with? The squad was slim by Premier League standards anyway.
Mike Ashley claimed that he was trying to turn Newcastle into a continental club with cheap players from abroad, raised to good quality and eventually become like Arsenal, instead of buying tied and tested players. But this just showed what a complete novice Ashley was, making, unthinkably, Freddy Shepherd look like an astute chairman. Arsene Wenger didn’t junk his established team in a season for hordes of good bargain foreigners - it took him a decade to transform Arsenal into what it is now. Moreover, his eye was far more keen in spotting talent than any of Ashley’s administration - Dennis Wise and Tony Jimenez, a former Chelsea steward, are frankly bizarre people for such an important position. Selling James Milner for £12 million pounds could be seen as a smart deal if that money was re-invested in comparable talent, but it wasn’t, giving the appearance of Ashley and his cohorts asset-stripping. Now Allardyce has come out and said that he was allowed to spend almost money at all in the winter transfer market (most of his buys had come under the Shepherd regime), further re-inforcing the image that Ashley was getting as much value out of the club before selling it on.
Simply, all this meant that Ashley had to go. He may have had good intentions for Newcastle or maybe he didn’t, but he has so bolloxed it up and then sided with the wrong people over Keegan ensured he couldn’t save his skin. The administration set-up he had put in place was seen as so toxic by all and sundry that he offered Terry Venables the job with total control over player transfers. Venables declined because Ashley couldn’t promise him a long-term role, so Joe Kinnear came in as interim manager - an unenviable job because why would players respond to you if you’re not going to be around for long. But if Joe can build a siege mentality as he did at Wimbledon and his funny foul-mouthed tirade at journalists (who certainly don’t like shit being dished back at them, even if Bobby Robson, man of a few choice words himself, didn't like it) is part of that. The key to the Magpie’s survival could reside in goal-scoring. Even during a miserable fiver game (league and cup) losing streak, United always managed to score a goal. A thrilling 2-2 draw at Everton points that way. All the same Newcastle are in danger.
But if Newcastle are having serious problems, it can be pleaded that they have effectively no manager and no owner. Spurs have both and yet are at the foot of the table, having spent £72m on incoming players, but still with fewer points than Derby County had at this stage of the season last year. After the botched job in replacing Martin Jol, the management will want to avoid sacking Juande Ramos, at least this side of 2009, but while Jol rides high with Hamburg in the Bundesliga, Ramos’s league record is worse than the much-mocked Christian Gross. Okay, so the Bundesliga doesn’t quite have the same quality as the Premier League, but to be top of it is certainly equivalent to fifth place if not higher. Jol would have been the natural replacement at St. James Park before the shock return of Keegan, but Ashley’s associations with Tottenham put the kybosh on that. Ironically, if Jol had resigned a la Keegan, the public outpouring of anger would have been far more muted, since reappointing Keegan reawakened the cult of personality that surrounded the Yorkshireman and guaranteed the furore when Keegan left.
This is the worst start to a season for Spurs since the Titanic sank and allusions are being drawn about a team that was expected to challenge for Champions League qualification. Back in 1912-13, Spurs managed to scrape themselves up from the bottom and finish seventeenth. Spurs of 2008-09 haven’t won so far, but one of their two points came surprisingly against Chelsea. The predicament of Tottenham though means that a glimmer of optimism for Newcastle United is that they aren’t propping up the table.
I think Spurs are too good to go down and once they get a victory they should go on a run with the confidence back, but it’s another season they have to write off. The director of football system has failed here as well, with Damien Comolli bringing in lightweight players who can’t adapt to the pattern Ramos wants them to play in. If any one deserves to get the boot out of White Hart Lane it’s Comolli Chairman Daniel Levy has also revealed again his buffoonish nature, holding back Dimitar Berbatov for so long that not only did the player produce a negative dressing room atmosphere, but when he finally was sold, there was no time to bring in a replacement like Andrei Archiving (who looks far more solid than his countryman Roman Pavyluchenko, who has orientation troubles when living in different places at new clubs - he clearly shows duff navigation on the pitch). Ramos is also hamstrung that his best player and defensive rock, Ledley King has turned into a latter-day Darren Anderton. It’s the reason why Wenger hasn’t signed him like he did with Arsenal legend Sol Campbell. But perhaps most importantly, Ramos arrived at White Hart Lane with a mission to get Spurs out of the mire. Along the way he won the Carling Cup, which is probably the only reason he’s still in a job, but having taken Spurs out of relegation perils fairly early on, their season drifted with noting left to play for, losing many games they wouldn‘t expect to lose, since the players had no motivation - the highest they could aim for was 10th. That complacent, lacklustre attitude carried over into this season and Ramos has found it impossible to shake that torpor. If they are to escape, he’ll need to. Still, Spurs fans should get too het up about being in 20th position. After all, 20th place doesn’t relegate you in the Championship.
With regard to the national team, the Fabio Capello administration has got off to a flier in competitive matches, with thrilling away victories in Belarus and hitherto unbeaten at home Croatia. The Balkan nation was taken apart 4-1, with a Theo Walcott hat-trick powering England on, showing that he has come of age for the senior squad. The match was preceded by sluggish performances against Andorra and the Czech Republic, the latter a friendly ended up a draw, reflecting the 2000-01 qualifying campaign for the World Cup, when defeat in a friendly to the Netherlands was followed up by destroying Germany 5-1 in Munich where the Germans had never been beaten in a competitive match, like the Croatians at their Maksimir Stadium. The feel good factor has been brought back to England.