Management Style

[Jackies the Lad 0]

Newcastle should be aware of Joe Kinnear's Wimbledon ways

An insight into what Newcastle United can expect under their new manager.

 

By Stewart Robson

Last Updated: 9:28PM BST 27 Sep 2008

 

Watch out: Newcastle's temporary manager Joe Kinnear was known to motivate his players at Wimbledon with a string of expletives Photo: Getty Images

I was youth coach and reserve team manager at Wimbledon in 1998, Joe Kinnear's last year at the club. During that year I had exactly three conversations with him – and none of them was football-related. He didn't watch reserve matches, rarely appeared on the training ground and never took a staff meeting. He wasn't interested in the development of young players or the structure of the club. He simply saw himself as a match-day manager.

 

When he took over from Peter Withe at Wimbledon in 1992, he was appointed alongside Terry Burton as joint manager. Burton, a brilliant coach, was the technical brain, while Kinnear enjoyed the role of motivator and figurehead. For the first couple of years it was the ideal combination, but when Burton became disillusioned with the partnership and decided to oversee the academy, any structure and vision of how the team would develop evaporated.

 

Kinnear's strengths were on a match day. He would devise a basic game plan, pick the relevant team to carry out his instructions and motivate his players with a string of expletives. He was also adept at pressurising the referee and getting the fans on his side. His half-time team talks were more threatening than informative, but to the type of player that Wimbledon had at the time, it seemed to work.

 

So his appointment as Newcastle's interim manager will suit him perfectly. He will thrive on the attention, not have to worry about the club's future and will be able to concentrate solely on managing the team on match day. However, I can't see his style of man-management going down too well with the players or the coaching team, who will get so little guidance from him. It will be another interesting month on Tyneside.

 

This is surely going to be entertaining, Seen it somewhere before!

[ewerk 26178]

Well they're exactly the strengths that we need from a man who is banned for the next 2 games.