Sorry Mac, you can’t blame me!
STEVE McCLAREN is an experienced manager who has taken up the fight from the Engl and dugout to the Dutch Eredivisie, from the East Midlands to the North East.
But yesterday, with Newcastl e sliding towards the Championship, he showed a distinct lack of composure.
The Newcastle manager is fighting for his job following yesterday’s Sportsmail exclusive story (below) that he is ‘on the brink’.
He has lost t he respect of many of his players, but yesterday he tried to blame this newspaper for the negativity that surrounds the club. He also made a personal attack on me in front of the TV cameras and questioned my integrity.
McClaren’s Newcastle team are in the bottom three and facing a relegation battle. Confronted with an exclusive back page story in this newspaper, and subsequent articles, that he was one game f r om t he s ack, he showed a bitter, angry side to his nature — tossing around false accusations and making it personal.
He accused me of having an agenda against him and Newcastle, a club where I used to work and once followed as a supporter, attending matches as a season- ticket holder with my father, George, since the age of five.
McClaren argues that some of the details in the story were ‘ lies’. But the crux of the article was not disputed — and I stand by it.
McClaren apologised later but before that he accused me in front of the cameras. McClaren said: ‘Someone told me about it, and unfortunately it’s done, obviously, by a journalist who for the last 18 months has written nothing but negative things about Newcastle, a journalist who used to work at this football club and who four or five years ago was released from this club. Whatever that journalist writes, I’m afraid I don’t read it.’
Following the television interview, I responded by saying: ‘Steve, don’t you dare accuse me of having an agenda. I’m not the problem. You are.’
McClaren can prove me wrong by going on a winning run and keeping his job. But as things stand, Newcastle cannot continue like this. McClaren cannot continue like this.