Left back - a football blog

Kevin Keegan is back as manager, there’s still no sign of a number 2 but you get the feeling Keegan would do well to get a serious tactician on board. If there were a 2000s version of Don Howe then that’s exactly what they need.

But then Dennis Wise has come in as an ‘executive director’ with some, as yet unspecified, responsibility for transfers and the development of the youth system, Tony Jimenez as vice-president of player recruitment and Jeff Vetere from Real Madrid as technical co-ordinator.

Then you have Chris Mort as Chairman and Mike Ashley who seems to be a very hands-on owner and it looks like there are too many chiefs and not enough indians at Newcastle. With so many people all having to sing from the same hymn-sheet to be successful it just takes differences between one or two for things to start to unravel.

There’s no question Newcastle need some long-term planning and fixing, perhaps this is it, but I’m not convinced that having the ‘power’ spread so widely is a good thing. Maybe it’s a management structure thing, should one person leave then it won’t have such a massive impact on the club but I’m doubtful. The best clubs in England have always had one man in charge. Too much delegation and interference causes problems.

Can you imagine Arsene Wenger or Alex Ferguson working under such a structure? We saw what happened to Martin Jol at Spurs when faced with the same situation. Jose Mourinho, Chelsea’s most successful manager ever, had his differences with the ‘management team’ and look what happened to him.

I suppose we’ll just wait and see but Keegan is flighty, it won’t take much for him to jack it all in again, and as a guy who, above anything, loves to be loved, it’ll be interesting to see if he’s not feeling it from some of his colleagues.

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Speaking about Liverpool’s failure to perform against Villa last night, scrambling a 2-2 draw in the end, the Liverpool captain seemed eager to point the finger of blame at the two American owners, saying:

It’s not just this week, it’s been going on for some time and it’s certainly not helping the players. I’ve got to be careful what I say, but it’s certainly not helping the team.

It’s certainly a point of view that will curry favour with the fans who view the Yanks as meddling devils, but is he just trying to take the easy way out. From 11 home games this season Liverpool have only won 4, drawing 6 and losing 1. Despite some early, early season promise they’ve been steadily slipping out of the title race for some time and while it’s easy to blame the owners doesn’t it deflect from the failings of the manager.

He can certainly not complain he wasn’t given enough money to spend in the summer. A club record £25m on Fernando Torres, £10m on Ryan Babel plus fees for Benayoun and others. Simply put some of the players Benitez has bought aren’t good enough.

Kuyt and Voronin are the kind of players you’d expect to find at teams like Bolton or Middlesboro, not a team that expects to challenge for the Premier League. And that he plays them ahead of Peter Crouch, who scored a lot of goals last season and seems to score enough this season considering how little time he gets on the pitch, smacks of complete mismanagement.

There’s no doubt the off field situation isn’t helping Benitez but I don’t believe the players really care that much about things like that. Their focus should be on the football, not the petty squabbles. So as much as Liverpool fans want to blame Hicks and Gillette, and they’re right to back their manager because of how he’s been treated (which has been shabby), they shouldn’t lose fact that it’s not the Americans picking the team, buying the players and choosing the tactics week in, week out.

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In a scene that is highly reminiscent of the one in Dangerous Liaisons when John Malcovich reminds Michelle Pfeiffer that what has happened is ‘Beyond my control’, Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez faced the press yesterday. Check out the question and answer session with the journalist.

How much will you have to spend in January?

“As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.”

Are there assurances you’ll have what you want?

“As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.”

So what is the long-term plan?

“My plan is training and coaching the team.”

Is there anything upsetting you?

“As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.”

Do you have anything to say?

“As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.”

Even off the record?

“No.”

It’s clear something is up.

“You have my answer.”

You’re very different from normal.

“You have my answer.”

You said after the Bayern story you were happy to stay here a long time. Is that still the case?

“As always I am focused on training and coaching my team.”

Weird. Apparently Benitez feels he’s not getting the full backing of the new owners and wants more money to spend in January. They seem reluctant to provide that money.

There’s definitely something going on here behind the scenes and you wonder, if it was a case that Benitez was to leave or be sacked, just what kind of expertise the new owners would bring to the table when making a new appointment.

Bruce Arena for Liverpool!

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Third in the Sack Race this season is Chris Hutchings; but any team that voluntarily buys Titus Bramble is going to be onto a loser from the start (although that said, Newcastle seem to have done just as badly recently without him). There is talent at Wigan, Sibierski and Koumas for example, but there are too many middle of the road journeymen like Michael Brown and Heskey.

Hutchings also replaced Jewell at Bradford City and only won one of twelve games there; his Wigan record was two wins, two draws and eight losses – worth noting that these losses include games against Liverpool, Chelsea, Man United and Portsmouth, all teams who will be top six at least. This is something that I think is overlooked. They did beat Sunderland and Boro, who are likely to be in the same part of the League come May. All managers and chairmen must realise that unless there is some sort of freak result, or superhuman performance, it is unlikely that three points (although maybe a draw is not out of the question) will be garnered from this level of opposition. It’s a sad fact, and it highlights the gulf between the top six or so teams and the rest of the Premiership – never mind the other divisions.

Speaking of Boro, Southgate must be getting the paper on a Wednesday just in case he gets the “vote of confidence”. Personally, I don’t think he’s got long in the job unless results start improving. His record this season is almost identical to that of Hutchings, only Wigan actually managed to beat Boro. Draws against local rivals (two-all against both Sunderland and Newcastle) aren’t enough for even the most staunch Boro fan. Chairman Steve Gibson has been extremely patient with Gareth, given him his chance when he didn’t have the qualifications and given him money. His overall League record isn’t up to much, 14 wins out of 50 games (to date) with 23 defeats. More experienced managers have been given less of a chance than that. Either Gibson has an unwavering faith in Gareth or sees something a lot of us don’t. Either that or he realises the only way to maintain Premiership status is to get the results against the similarly-rated teams?

No idea on who should replace him, but someone with experience of a relegation battle would have to be top of any list; but I wonder if Jose likes pies?

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Martin Jol takes over, gets Spurs to a creditable 5th in the table. Their highest ever Premiership finish.

The very next season he consolidates them in that position which is no small achievement with the established strength of United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool ahead of him.

This summer they spend an absolute fortune on players but due to the board’s idiocy completely undermine the manager, causing him to lose the dressing room. The players know he’s a dead man walking, they respond accordingly.

Some of Spurs players should hang their heads. They should realise they don’t play for the manager, but for the club. Martin Jol has been treated appallingly by the Spurs board and by some of his more senior players. Berbatov in particular will have done nothing to enhance his reputation as a top player with his sulking and antics. And let’s remember all Berbatov’s goals come against lesser teams, he hasn’t once scored in the league against any of the top 4.

Juande Ramos will come in, perhaps, but there’s nothing like the expectation surrounding a new coach at White Hart Lane. All he’ll hear is about the glory days and the stylish football but Spurs fans are living in the past. They haven’t won the league since 1961 and haven’t come close between then and now.

Today’s newspapers are hailing Ramos as a cross between Wenger, Ferguson and Mourinho. Nothing like building him up to knock him down again. Spurs fans will get all excited but those with any sense at all should be embarrassed about the way their club has behaved. They just sacked the most successful league manager they’ve had in years.

Let’s not overlook that Daniel Levy’s only ambitions for Spurs are to get them into the Champions League - so he can sell the club! Not so he can make them a major force in the long term but because he wants to sell at the highest possible price. That kind of short term thinking is what has them, deservedly, in the relegation zone.

The only way is down, with any luck.

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I suppose you’d have gotten long odds at the start of the season for Jose Mourinho to be the first Premier League manager to lose his job. It’s all a bit ant-climactic now that it has happened though.

We know the relationship between the manager and Abramovich has been non-existent for quite some time now and Chelsea’s relatively stuttering start to the season did nothing to help it. You wonder did Abramovich blame the manager’s style of football for the 24,000 crowd the other night. Hard to take when you see an Arsenal side assembled for a small percentage of what you spent playing great football and packing in 60,000 each time.

Some people will miss Mourinho and his character. Not me. I’ve always thought he was an arrogant, offensive man who lacked the basic manners to be able to treat anything he said in a tongue in cheek fashion.

What’s sure though is that Chelsea are much worse off. He might not have been a very nice man but he was a very good football manager and Abramovich will do extremely well to find someone half as good. Avram Grant? Not a hope.

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Just in case you missed the insinuations in my last post, here is what I meant to say:

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist.

I hope that’s clearer now.

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…in a photo taken in 2001. Ouch.

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Liverpool’s new owner George Gillet:

If Rafa said he wanted to buy ‘Snoogy Doogy’ we would back him.

Will Snoogy Doogy be the player to push this Liverpool side on to their first title in nearly 600 years? In this reporter’s opinion, yes, and I for one welcome our new Snoogy overlords…

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Last September, when the BBC aired its Panorama program about bungs in football, Newcastle relieved Kevin Bond, one of Glenn Roeder’s coaches, from his duties at the club.

Now Newcastle have just appointed Sam Allardyce, a man implicated in far more serious offences than Bond, as its manager. Bond, as you might expect, is not happy. He says:

Morals and integrity are things people stand on when it suits them and they go right out of the window when it doesn’t. It is the biggest U-turn in someone’s stance on a matter that I have ever come across. The hypocrisy of Freddy appointing Sam is staggering.

It’s not difficult to see his point. On the other hand it won’t do his legal action for wrongful dismissal against Newcastle any harm at all, will it?

And the other difference between Bond and Allardyce? Despite his bluster and threats the former Bolton manager is yet to proceed with his legal action against the BBC (although he’s still petty enough to refuse to answer their questions at press conferences) while Bond is suing for them libel.

Make of that what you will.

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