Our assistant sports editor and Toon seasonticket holder is one of many fans who believe a change of manager may not end their misery Toon need more than a new boss
STEVE McClaren’s Newcastle reign may have been a disaster but as he walks away displaying the haunted look of a man who has spent too long on the front line of a particularly brutal war, he does so as one of the few club employees who actually cared what happened on the pitch.
The disgracefully half- hearted efforts of the majority of players in a squad assembled seemingly at random do not refl ect well on their head coach, but perfectly illustrate the miserable state of a moribund club.
Hope, passion, fervour, pride, excitement, tension, fun – all those things that used to make match day the highlight of the week – have been drained away and replaced by numb apathy.
Even relegation holds little fear when staying up would only mean another season aiming for that dream spot in the top eight while watching Leicester shoot for the stars.
Under Mike Ashley, Newcastle United have no other point than to cling on to the Premier League gravy train while advertising sports shops and payday loans.
Forget the title, we can’t possibly win it on our budget. Forget the Champions League, we can’t compete with the big boys. Forget the cups, there’s no money in them and we’ll probably get knocked out anyway. Forget the Europa League, it’s too much grief, the players get tired and we won’t win that either.
Forget bringing in players who might win the hearts of a public desperate for heroes, if they are any good we’ll sell them to someone with more ambition.
No, let’s settle for doing the bare minimum needed to stand still, bring in all that lovely TV money and give a worldwide platform to the ubiquitous Sports Direct signs that cover an iconic stadium.
If this regime had bought a Formula One team, they would have been happy to race in each grand prix with a Transit van pulling one of those big triangular signs advertising Sports Direct, chugging around at the back occasionally catching the TV cameras while hoping everyone else breaks down.
There is an oft- repeated myth that when Newcastle buy players, as they did in the last transfer window, it is thanks to the owner putting his hand into his own pocket.
In fact the club spend only what they make, and there is no harm in that, although recruitment seems to hinge on the owner’s love of a good deal rather than what the football team requires.
Newcastle’s shopping policy is akin to that of a man who goes shopping to replace his badly torn trousers but comes home with a couple of shirts because they were on special offer.
Add to that a management structure from the board down that is pitifully ill- quipped to run a top- fl ight football club and it is little wonder a job McClaren had dreamed of swiftly turned into a nightmare.
The farcically inhumane manner in which McClaren’s tenure is ending is a vivid illustration of the lack of class and basic competence with which the club is run.
Under current circumstances it is diffi cult to see how Rafa Benitez, or indeed any replacement manager, could make much difference. And with the club now owing Ashley somewhere in the region of £ 129 million, it is diffi cult to see how those circumstances can change.
Ashley arrived on a huge wave of optimism, buying the club from
under the nose of Freddy Shepherd in a coup executed so quickly he neglected to do even enough due diligence to spot a black hole in the club accounts worth a reported £ 105m, which he paid off in an interest- free loan to the club.
Hopes were high as a man usually described as “a reclusive billionaire” claimed he wanted to “have some fun” with the club, took to drinking with fans in the Bigg Market and buying huge rounds for anyone who happened to be in the vicinity.
He seemed like the sort of bloke who might have a fl aming sambuca too many in Tup Tup Palace and buy us Lionel Messi on his credit card before he sobered up.
Instead he signed Xisco and Nacho Gonzalez, sacked Kevin Keegan then Chris Hughton and installed Alan Pardew, a man only too happy to toe any joyless party line he was required to.
In retrospect, rather than a funloving football fanatic, Ashley was more like the lad who dishes out sweets to everyone in school to try to buy a few friends.
He has none of those in Newcastle any more, and the sooner he finds a way to get his precious money back and end this unfortunate regime the
better.