Scottish Mag

Cheerio Ashley. You won't last fucking long now...

According to SSN, no.

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/tf/features.ns...A1?OpenDocument

Class...

Thats just it. I cannot see any way KK can continue as manager. But if that happens I cannot see Ashley staying around much longer what with the backlash he will get... Its a fucking shambles..

Ashley trying to penny pinch? Surely not...

Kevin Keegan was talking to his lawyers last night as he considered launching a claim for constructive dismissal against Newcastle United After a day of drama in which owner Mike Ashley insisted Keegan had not been sacked as manager, the ex-England boss was in a Manchester hotel with his legal advisers. Newcastle do not want to pay the compensation on his contract, believed to be £8million. The 57-year-old believes his position at St James' Park has become untenable after a day of boardroom posturing. Although players and staff are expecting Keegan to take training this morning, his family and friends believe his time is over. His contract obliges him to pay more than £1million in compensation if he walks out and Keegan is exploring how to resolve the situation without actually resigning. The club have admitted Keegan and Ashley, along with members of the board, held two heated meetings, as exclusively revealed by Sportsmail yesterday. Transfer policy, the failure to tie Michael Owen to a new contract, the role of football director Dennis Wise and the aborted sale of Joey Barton, which fell through on transfer deadline day, were discussed. The Newcastle board were convinced Keegan had walked out following a ferocious row. He accused them of 'false promises' and they told him he knew he would be working within a budget when he returned to the club. 'We are not Chelsea or Manchester City,' one senior member of staff is said to have told the manager during the blazing row. Keegan left the second meeting yesterday morning believing he had been sacked but Newcastle put out a statement seven hours later claiming he had not been dismissed but remained an integral part of the club's future. This came a f t e r thousands of fans gathered outside the ground calling for Ashley's head. The billionaire sportswear tycoon is understood to have been unsettled by the adverse reaction of fans to Keegan's departure and the prospect of Wise taking over the reins with his former Leeds assistant and Chelsea team-mate Gus Poyet. The current regime is already reeling from the lowest attendance at St James' for more than a decade for the opening home fixture with Bolton, with an unheard of 4,500 empty seats. Huge pro-Keegan demonstrations are expected at their next game against Hull City on September 13. Keegan and Ashley clashed in a heated exchange over a number of issues which have been coming to a head for several weeks, with Keegan unable any longer to suppress his anger and frustration. He was upset that the entire squad was put up for sale on Monday as the transfer window closed and that two more players, Xisco and Nacho Gonzalez, were signed without his knowledge. Keegan was also disturbed by the plan to sell Joey Barton behind his back. Like summer additions Danny Guthrie, Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez, the latest signings have been scouted and hired by Wise and his fellow director Tony Jimenez, with Keegan having little say in the process. Keegan, who resigned as Newcastle manager in 1997 over the club's Stock Market sale, was fully aware of Wise's pending arrival when he took over but has not been comfortable with the reality of being a manager in name only. Former Ireland and Newcastle defender John Anderson, who played alongside Keegan on Tyneside in the early Eighties, said: 'It's no surprise. I think the way he has been treated has been shabby to say the least. From the outside it looks like he's been let down.' John Beresford, who played under Keegan during his first spell as manager from 1992-97, said: 'I can't tell you how bad this will be for the club. This could be devastating for Newcastle. Kevin Keegan had put the club back on track again - the fans were starting to feel pride in the club again.' http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sport/footba...mpensation.html

Elma (who is meant to be ITK) earlier in the day over on Skunkers posted this - "Haven't heard he's definitely gone....huge row yesterday afternoon when Ashley threatened to sell the lot of them. Can't see how KK can stay to be honest and wouldn't blame him."

Kevin Keegan might claim otherwise but he must have realised he was trading one soccer circus for another when he accepted the invitation to return to Newcastle United. He will no doubt insist he went back for all the right reasons - his passion for the club, his passion for the supporters who will forever regard him as their Messiah. 'I have unfinished business here,' he declared in January, and some of us even believed him. But it was as much because his own business in Glasgow was struggling that he suddenly answered Mike Ashley's call; that he traded serving cappuccinos to customers at his soccer circus for an opportunity he never imagined would come. He had not attended a football match in three years, so disillusioned was he with the game. But the chance to escape waiting tables and wipe out his money worries with one quick signature proved impossible to resist. Money was the main reason why he clung to his job these past few turbulent months. The old Kevin Keegan would have walked the moment he realised he had no control over the club. The moment, back in January, he realised Dennis Wise had been appointed director of football without his knowledge. After the defeat at Arsenal that followed, he did not even realise Wise was sitting with his new employer in the stand. Ironic, really, that another resounding defeat at Arsenal, only last Saturday, should prove to be his final game in the job. Keegan had appeared to be putting up something of a fight. His players and some of his staff will insist he was determined to succeed in his mission to restore some pride to a shambles of a football club, and that is to Keegan's credit. But he never quite made the stand he perhaps should have done, publicly declaring as recently as last week that it was his decision to sell James Milner when everyone, the fans included, knew very well it was not. Only a week or so earlier, he had insisted he had no desire to see the talented 22-year-old winger leave. While Keegan spent seven months enduring what amounted to a very public humiliation, Ashley has turned Newcastle into a laughing stock. The club resembles one of his chav-tastic sports stores, where everything is available at a knockdown price. It was when Keegan realised that everything was up for sale that he declared he could no longer continue. He thought they were only trying to sell Michael Owen, Joey Barton and Alan Smith behind his back, when in fact every member of his squad was available during what remained of the transfer window. First came the blazing row, now the inevitable split. Ashley is an embarrassment, living proof that money cannot buy class. Take his appearances, beer in hand, in his King Kev shirt and his attempts to ingratiate himself with supporters by waltzing into their favourite bars, all the while letting it be known that he is open to offers for their club. Keegan certainly failed to see Ashley for what he is. 'He's very unassuming and if we get this place going, we will have the best owner in this country,' said Keegan. 'I say that: the best.' That was in January. By May, his tone was rather different. 'We're a million miles away from challenging for the League but if my owner backs me, and I have no proof that he will, we want to try and finish fifth,' he said. 'But I get on great with the owner because I never speak to him.' By then Wise and Tony Jimenez, the club vice-president who is in charge of player recruitment from his office in London, had already started making changes without consulting Keegan. Chris Hughton was appointed as coach. Players, some of whom Keegan had never even heard of, started to arrive. Players Keegan had never even seen, Nacho Gonzalez and Xisco, were bought on Monday. They are not players Keegan wanted but players who had been identified by Jimenez and Wise. At the same time, much to Keegan's dismay, there was no apparent desire to retain players he wanted to keep, most notably Owen. Ashley responded to those comments from Keegan in May by calling him to a meeting in London. There, Keegan was told to put up and shut up and for a while it seems he did. In January, Keegan had spoken with such enthusiasm. 'I think I am the best qualified person to do this job,' he said. 'I know what the fans want, what they like. This is a very special club and that is something people outside this area don't really understand. No other manager they could have spoken to knows this club like I do. There are lots of questions but I already know the answers.' He will no doubt now accept that he did not know all the answers, that he never anticipated how difficult it would prove to work for a man like Ashley. But here's the truth of it. Keegan was a busted flush after quitting in ' that Wembley toilet, a broken man when he eventually walked away from Manchester City and someone we are unlikely to see in football again. He only came back for the money and was only invited back because Ashley saw it as a fast route to earning the trust of the supporters. He never has, of course, because the supporters are not fools. They know Ashley is responsible for the sorry state their club is now in, just as they know, deep down, that Keegan was anything but a saviour. http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sport/footba...ated-owner.html

Nobody said anything about Derek Llambias....

"Watcha gonna do when Keeganmania runs wild on youuuuuuuuuuu!"

sacked or walked? Sacked I think, they are about to speak to the club. They got it from a text message from a "reliable" source...

I take it the Schools are still on holidays down south then?

I sincerely hope he sells out as soon as possible, although as always I hope its to someone with good intentions for the club, that understands football. Its looking like all this long term stuff is bollocks and hes looking to sell anyway. Aye when he came in he put money towards debt but on the transfer front I think he spent around 6 million net on transfers, slashed the wage bill and looked for a whack of money from supporters up front. I wouldn't be surprised if hes just clawing back some pennies before selling up...

If you can drop NUFC just like that, you were clearly never a fan. Don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out. Exactly. Its all good and well people saying I shouldn't go to the Hull game etc but what can you do? You are a supporter, you pay your money and you support the team. I know we can get shafted along the way but its just in your blood and you can't stop supporting them... Dunno like. Empty seats would send a message. Not like anyone would really give up on the club but theres only so much piss taking they can get away with. Well if I don't go to the match there better be one hell of an all day piss up in the Trent as my trains already paid for....

If you can drop NUFC just like that, you were clearly never a fan. Don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out. Exactly. Its all good and well people saying I shouldn't go to the Hull game etc but what can you do? You are a supporter, you pay your money and you support the team. I know we can get shafted along the way but its just in your blood and you can't stop supporting them...

I know you have been told it Stevie but I honestly cannot see Wise taking over full time as I thought he wanted to spend more time with his family in London and thats why he was happy in this job as he spends most of his time there. I wouldn't be surprised to see Deschamps or Zola (or both) who will probably be more used to working in the continental style management set up....

YOU WANT ASHLEY OUT? BETTER STARTING SAVING YOUR POCKET MONEY THEN....

And to think we laugh at Hearts, we could soon end up Romanov style ourselves....

Should go and sing "1 Kevin Keegan..." for the full 90 mins...

But Tom its only rumours just like the KK news..

Surprised hes not had his pic taken with KK or that Keegan has even commented on the signing in any of those pieces...

The bastards could at least have let me nip out for my lunch first....

So fuck all work got done yesterday because of the transfer window and now this today. Fuck me I have a shitload to do but cannot get any of it done...