At what point ...

[sammynb 2929]

... do you think things started to go astray?

And why?

Looking at Shepherd's ten year reign as chairman there is no doubt that at times he has done the right thing by the club, his willingness to fund and back his managers decisions is a worthy attribute in a chairman but at the same time it is obvious that sometime over the last five years things started to change.

 

Many argue it was when the fat man undermined SBR by announcing to the world that Bobby's last year was the end and he wouldn't be offered another contract. But reading between the lines that announcement more than likely was the result of SBR's unwillingness to step down from the managerial role, so unwisely Freddy thought he could force his hand and not the first time Shepherd got his use of the media wrong.

 

A lot of people claim he has never got it right, but if we start with his first appointment, dogleash, you'd have to consider he tried to do what was best for the club by appointing the only manager beside SAF, at that time, to have won the premier league. It didn't work because of dogleash's insistence on breaking up a team that had finished runners up two years running. But it's hard to blame Shepherd for that one, maybe his one fault was his trigger finger action to sack dogleash so soon but with such dire football after the KK years it was always going to be a hard act to follow (personally I disliked KD with a passion so at the time I agreed it was the right thing to do).

 

So a little over twelve months later and the fat man is back in the market for a manger and I have to say personally when Gullit was announced I thought we'd struck gold (what a clueless idiot I am). The chairman answered the calls of the supporters and went for attractive (I can't use the term sexy) football! What a man and what a mistake. Again you can't criticise the chairman for employing a successful manager. Gullit had just taken Chelsea to 6th and 4th respectively and they didn't have the god like Shearer in their squad. Then when Gullit, like dogleash, wanted to make more squad changes, Shepherd backed him. Really what more can a supporter ask for in their chairman? It didn't work out but hey sa la vie! At least Gullit was man enough to admit he wasn’t the manager unlike clueless.

 

So two formerly successful managers from other clubs failed and whether it was good luck or a good decision on Shepherd's behalf, his next appointment as we all know turned out to be the right person at the right time. What SBR did initially with next to no funds should always be remembered and if you want to see a contemporary example of this, just look at what Martin O’Neill is doing at Villa with the average squad he inherited off O'Dreary.

But this brings me to the point where I think things started to go astray for Newcastle and shaped Shepherd into the chairman he has become.

 

Firstly SBR's initial success with no funds in the transfer market encouraged Shepherd to offer him money when it became available and for all Bobby's good, the majority of his transfer signings were money wasted. Cort, Bassedas, Gavilan and Lua Lua (more for the fall out than his potential) were almost 17m wasted. Bellamy and Robert were two he got right but if you look at the club following the summer of 2001, there were all those rumours of Paul Stretford taking up an office in SJP and Shepherd junior allegedly being involved in both Proactive Sports Ltd and NUFC's transfers. To me it is here the beginnings of our current plight began. Did Shepherd realise he could make more money from milking the cash cow that is Newcastle United than if he had to constantly invest in a top four club wanting to maintain its' position in the English league and European Competitions?

His sale of his warehouse for 175k to his brother and then the re-leasing of the exact same premises to store club merchandise, for seventeen years at 150k per annum (total 2.5m) certainly stinks of someone squeezing the blood from the stone.

We all know to maintain the highest competitive level takes money and if you look at the clubs that have been constantly successful over the last ten years and the money they have spent, yes even Arsenal has spent lots at times (Reyes, van Persie, the new stadium), it is considerable.

Or did Shepherd just look at SBR's failures and think to himself, "I can do better than that!"

Encouraging him to sign players like Viana (the alleged hottest young player in Europe at the time), Kluivert (an old toon fans favourite), Butt (one of the Man U golden boys) all players SBR has stated in print that he didn't want. Maybe when Shepherd refused to sell Shearer to Pool as SBR advised him to, the fat man clicked that the old boy had lost it and was developing into the stubborn man he became in his last twelve months at the toon.

Or does Shepherd's belief that he is a transfer market wiz date back earlier than SBR?

Big Dunc never took me as a Gullit type player if you think about it!

 

Regardless of when it exactly all started, there is no doubt that since then, Shepherd's decisions have been not in conjunction with his managers. Since the signing of Woodgate (Proactive client if I remember correctly and yes we needed a defender but would you have taken an 8m chance on a known crock) and possibly with the exception of Jenas (although he is another proactive client), the rumours of the fat man being the person who picks and choses our transfers have gotten louder and louder - to the point where Freddy openly takes the credit for the big name signings (sorry LM but there is no other explanation).

The fact that it appears the chairman makes the transfer decisions the manager is undermined.

How can any player have confidence or belief in their manager if they know regardless of how they are playing, if the big man upstairs sees the opportunity to buy a crowd pleasing bargain, put your hand down please Charlie, they will be pushed to the back of the bus?

Also how can any manager successful build a team when the players he needs/wants/asks for are ignored and another “glamour” player who plays in a position already covered is signed at great expense? Would a successful builder buy another saw, when he needs a hammer?

 

Frankly our chairman is a scrap merchant and he choses to run Newcastle United exactly the same way. Believing that if you wait until the very last moment you will get a bargain doesn’t work in the world of football. Buying that big bit of overpriced shiny gold may look good but chances are it’s only worth exactly what it’s worth and the rest of the market knows that.

And lastly a football club isn’t like a scrap yard. It needs attention, thought, development and faith, it’s not about getting every cent you can out of the junk pile in front of your face.

Edited October 24, 2006 by sammynb

[Craig 6308]

It noticably started to go wrong around the time of the CL exit at the hands of Partizan Belgrade.

 

In reality, the seeds were sown long before that IMO.

[sammynb 2929]

It noticably started to go wrong around the time of the CL exit at the hands of Partizan Belgrade.

 

In reality, the seeds were sown long before that IMO.

 

About the same time the Proactive links happened, no?

[Craig 6308]

Before that IMO.

 

I know a certain person will say I'm getting personal, but it started going wrong when SJH stepped aside. Actually in reality it was when the club was floated - if we'd remained in private hands, KK would have seen out the remainder of the 96-97 season and we'd have had 4 months to source his replacement.

 

I'm convinced Robson would have joined that summer and had he done so and inherited Keegan's squad instead of the shambles Gullit left behind, I think we'd be in a totally different situation these days.