Newcastle Sunday Gossip

[Scottish Mag 3]

ZO PLACE LIKE HOME

 

EXCLUSIVE Zola will work from Italy Friends reunited as Wise lures Franco to Toon

 

Dennis Wise wants to hand Gianfranco Zola a job at Newcastle - despite concerns from manager Kevin Keegan about Wise's role at the club.

 

Toon's new executive director will offer his former Chelsea team-mate Zola a position in the North East club's scouting and recruitment network.

 

It is believed that Zola will be offered a post based in Italy and could combine it with his current job as assistant coach of his nation's Under-21 side.

 

But Keegan is concerned about Wise's powerbase at the club and his insistence that the former Leeds boss will report to him has been privately rubbished by Wise.

 

Wise has told pals that he left Elland Road for Newcastle because he was tired of commuting from his Buckinghamshire home to Leeds and that he would now be spending most of his time working from the London offices of his friend Tony Jimenez.

 

Jimenez, a property magnate who now revels in his image as a footballing Mr Fixit, was this week appointed a vice-president of Newcastle with responsibility for player recruitment.

 

Newcastle claim that Wise primarily will be based in an office at St James' Park.

 

Chelsea fan Jimenez, who started building up his footballing contacts as a prominent Stamford Bridge season-ticket holder, is also a friend of Zola.

 

Former Real Madrid scout Jeff Vetere has joined the Toon staff and his brief is to scour Europe for top talent to boost Newcastle's youth academy.

 

Vetere, who worked for Real for four months, has already compiled a detailed report on the top under-17 players in England, France, Italy, Holland and Germany.

 

Toon back for Barnes

 

Newcastle will sign Giles Barnes in the summer transfer window, writes MARTIN HARDY.

 

They had a £2million offer rejected for the 19 year old last month.

 

That was £2m short of Derby boss Paul Jewell's valuation.

 

But Kevin Keegan will go back for the midfielder with an improved offer of about £3m and relegation with the Rams will see Barnes look to leave.

 

He will be offered a five-year deal as Newcastle continue their new policy of signing the best youngsters from around Europe.

 

TROUBLE UNLESS WE ALL WISE UP

 

Kevin Keegan last night fired a warning to Dennis Wise and his Newcastle transfer middlemen, insisting: Mess me around and you'll be in serious bother.

 

Keegan held a high-powered meeting with director of football Dennis Wise, Tony Jiminez and Jeff Vetere - appointed last week by owner Mike Ashley and chairman Chris Mort - on Thursday to thrash out a way of making the system work.

 

The Toon boss did not know Wise was set to be appointed director of football when he returned to the club and is privately unsure about the new structure - with Wise, Jiminez and Vetere taking over player recruitment - can work.

 

But Keegan was given assurances at a summit meeting at St James Park that he would not be undermined.

 

But the man who quit FOUR TIMES when he was last in charge at Newcastle has ominously told the three not to dare bringing in players without his approval.

 

He insisted: "What I won't allow at this football club is for anybody to buy players.

 

"I tell them the players I want and I admit, I don't mind them going out and doing the deal - that happens at most clubs now.

 

"The worst thing for someone is if people are fetched in who you've got no say on. You have to get the combination right.

 

"The manager must get a player in a room and ask him why he wants to come.

 

"If I do think there will be a problem because of too many opinions, I will say.

 

"If everyone does what they said they are going to do, it will work fantastically."

 

Keegan has yet to inspire a turn around in Newcastle's disintegrating season but he hit back at suggestions he failed to prepare his team properly at Arsenal for last week's FA Cup defeat.

 

He said: "This is not an amateur football club. It's a lie the team-talk consisted of one sentence."

[smoggeordie 0]

The Times:

 

THE BOARD of Newcastle United must have been watching that old comedy film, Airplane. There’s a scene where the stricken plane, flown by a troubled novice, is approaching the airport and in the control tower they are debating how best to help him land it. “Let’s turn the lights on the runway,” one advises, and the boss says darkly: “No, that’s just what he’ll be expecting us to do.”

 

I assume a similar conversation took place at St James’ Park as the board considered the best way to undermine their new manager. Who should we bring in that would really screw him up? they thought. Suddenly, as one, they all said: Dennis Wise! “Perfect. But let’s not tell Keegan we’re appointing him until after the deed’s done. And then insist to him – this is genius – that he has to pretend to the press that he did know about it and is really, delighted. That’ll make him look even more of a dick. And have the players confused and dismayed just as they start their relegation battle against Middlesbrough.”

 

The Tyne-Tees derby is an interesting affair, in a sort of state-of-the-game ironic sense. If Middlesbrough were Newcastle, Gareth Southgate would have been sacked in September and the team would be on their fifth manager of the season by now, and no better off for it. But Middlesbrough are not Newcastle; their fans, board and chairman are more rational, accustomed to being regarded as the third-string side of the northeast – despite regularly outperforming their hubris-stricken neighbours.

 

For Boro, and their likeable manager and selfless chairman, Steve Gibson, avoiding relegation while playing attractive football with the best crop of youngsters in the Premier League would be a great achievement. And much though I thought it unlikely at the beginning of the season, an achievement that is beginning to look as if it might be realised. Newcastle, meanwhile, burdened with delusions, with intimations of greatness unfulfilled, expected a place close to the Champions League, as they always do. And, again as they always do, they’ve failed. Relegation would be a disaster, unthinkable, because they’re Newcastle. But they might pull it off. It’s happened before.

 

Newcastle United wanted a manager who fitted with the image they have of themselves. If they’d wanted a manager who fitted in with the image the rest of us have of them they’d have swooped for Henry Conway, the homosexual fantasist son of the Tory MP Derek Conway, as soon as the story broke. Fur coat and no knickers. But their image of themselves is of latent magnificence, of Wor Jackie and Bobby Moncur and Supermac.

 

Frankly, nobody is good enough for Newcastle United; if they’d appointed Jesus Christ as manager they’d have whined about him playing with a flat back four and quickly brought in Judas Iscariot to act as a “director of football”. A rational perusal of the long list of those they have employed to drag their team towards the heights of the Premier League would suggest Glenn Roeder has been by far the most successful in recent years, and against all the odds, too. But quiet, likeable, decent Roeder didn’t fit in with that image they had in their heads.

 

It’s not so long ago I reported here that the disaffected Geordie fans were chanting “Roeder out, Roeder out!” – and on cue, there were anguished missives to this paper from the eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall. But within four weeks, Roeder was out. What, exactly, did he do wrong? He did better for you than you could have expected, at the time.

 

Or better than any sane, rational, human being could have expected, which maybe isn’t quite the same thing. Bizarre though it might seem, the players seem to have a better grip on reality at St James’ Park than the fans or the board. None are interested in going there, as the January transfer window amply demonstrated. Those who do go there do so at the point of a gun, like poor Michael Owen. The long-serving, such as Shay Given, know they are in for a relegation battle. The rest do their damndest to get the hell out.

 

Football’s thoroughly agreeable personalities are rare but, you have to say, Kevin Keegan is one of them. His return to Newcastle, I reckon, was motivated by a laudable romanticism. Every neutral supporter would wish him well, while musing that things don’t look too promising. Three games played, one goalless draw, at home to Bolton, and two heavy defeats. No goals scored, six against. I daresay a home defeat to Boro will end with the Keegan Out! chants ringing around the ground, Wisey smirking in the stand.

 

Meanwhile Boro will continue with the admirable Southgate; the smallest of those three great towns of northeast football and likely, once again, to finish top of the pile. Come on, Boro.

 

 

Tosser.

[luckyluke 1]

No-one likes us, we don't care.

 

[@yourservice 67]

No more glum and Wise

 

THE most staggering story of the week was not Fabio Capello's logical axing of David Beckham but Newcastle's utterly illogical appointment of Dennis Wise.

 

Not to diminish the promise Wise has shown as a football MANAGER at Millwall, Swindon and Leeds but what the hell does executive director (football) mean?

 

What else was he going to be executive director of? Have Newcastle got a lucrative sideline in launderettes or wet fish stalls at St James' Park? I think we should be told.

 

Instead, Wise along with two other member of Newcastle's exclusive brackets club, will be responsible for the development of the club and involved in the recruitment of players.

 

Surely that's part of Kevin Keegan's job as the club's football MANAGER.

 

Unless, of course, Mike Ashley doesn't really trust Keegan's judgement in the transfer market or even his tactics.

 

 

Keegan may well need help, but alongside him in the boot room, not a clique meddling above him in the boardroom.

 

Trouble is, so many of those buying their way into the game want to re-invent the wheel.

 

They equate money with knowledge...just ask Liverpool fans.

 

But look around the Premier League. Clubs run the ‘old school' way seem to be flourishing. and see that so-called ‘old school bosses' who have influence from top to bottom at their clubs have teams that do rather well.

 

Message

 

I'm thinking here in particular of Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, David Moyes, Martin O'Neill and Harry Redknapp, who are all allowed to be football MANAGERS, not managed by their boards.

 

And Juande Ramos has quickly sent out a message to sporting director, Damien Camolli, just who ought to be running Spurs.

 

In Newcastle's case you can't help thinking there are already too many cooks. I doubt it will be long before Keegan and Wise clash and King Kev either abdicates or is deposed.

Rob Shepherd

[Kid Dynamite 6137]

He was brought in to scout out young talent across Europe. We signed 2 such players last week. Their just upset it appears to be working already.

[Ketsbaia 0]

I've said time and time again, this management restructuring lark is probably the most professional move we've made in years. Any other club did it and it'd not be mentioned.

[ewerk 27044]

I've said time and time again, this management restructuring lark is probably the most professional move we've made in years. Any other club did it and it'd not be mentioned.

 

I agree, it's just the individuals in the structure that I'm apprehensive about, all of them seem to have on thing that links them: Kelmsley.

[tinofbeans 91]

as long as the scouts are aware of what we are after.

 

wingers that can beat players and cross

central midfielders that can tackle and pass.

defenders that are fast enough for the prem and aren't bottlers.

forwards that want to play for the team and are able to score goals regardless of the service.

 

not much to ask for is it?

[Howay 12496]

They're proving they know nowt yet again ffs why would Ashley and Mort bring someone in with the intention to undermine a manager who they just brought in I say this because I'm not longer sure if these windowlickers are trying to state fact or making yet another hilarious satirical view of our club.

As far as I can tell Wise can't bring in senior players, that's Keegans department, his job is simply to bring in youth players and that tripe about Wise 'privately rejecting claims that he'll answer to Keegan' what a load of shit I should think Wise is more intelligent than to start a new job thinking he's above the manager and on top of that take on a club favorite, he isn't going to be beating Keegan in any popularity contest is he. Also what would Wise get out of undermining Keegan? if he is apparently saying he quit Leeds because he was sick of commuting he's hardly going to be desperate to become our manager.

edit/ I noticed that at the end of the article @yourservice posted the writer mentions that Arsenal is ran "the old-school way" strange that because Giles Grimandi seems to be the one buying all the quality youth players that Arsenal pick up it's just Wenger gets all the credit off writers like him.

Edited February 3, 2008 by Barton7

[acrossthepond 739]

Can we rename this thread to "Obsessed (part 3)"?

 

Nobody likes us - we don't care!

[Bombadil 0]

I know all you can do about these articles is ignore them, but the crap in today's Sunday papers is worse than anything I've ever read about any club, and that's not me being paranoid. It's hilarious to see they are still angry about Keegan's theatre comments, but you have to say that if we don't win a game of football soon, the pressure will really be on for Keegan and what with happened this week re: Wise, I'm not sure that's a good thing.