Kevin Keegan: Bottler or manager wronged? Post your comments below!
Today question was submitted by Simon Fayers.
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47 Comments
Bottler never changes does he. Regardless of what went on behind closed doors. keegan walks every time
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Wasnt biting at Terry’s comments just giving a bit of friendly banter back. I think Terry’s humour is fantastic. If I upset any Albion by the comments of the submarine I apologise.
Happy. I must have missed something but what Jealousy do we have?? We are 100% happy with our start to the season. Are you??Honestly??
Keegan is a bottler, I was listening to talk sport this morning and agree with Mike Parry who said the guy is emotionaly unsuitable to manage.
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I hold what can be described as an old fashioned view of football clubs. I think a manager should be allowed to manage the playing side of things with no interference. The European way is to have a director of football and a coach, and as normal we think that the rest of Europe is correct and we follow suit. However if we look at the most successful manager in the modern game in England (Fergie) he has no one directing his thoughts on Manu. What doesnt help is the amount of foreign owners who see the the European way of doing things as the way forward.
Keegan is a walker, but in this instance i think he has a point.
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I think he appears to have stood up for a principle-” The Mangager responsible for players and their recruitment to the team “-He is held responsible in all cases for the performance of the team surely this is a principle established in stone ” -How can he be responsible for buying players he has never seen play-Players tranferred without his approval infact a player of quality-Wise and Co are based away from the club and obviously have miss-judged the fans and the course Keegan would take-Whatever- a Director in the crown swigging beer when his team is getting out played is an image which says it all. Who-ever takes over at Newcastle now will have to be acceptable to the fans with a lot of credibility and judgement. Wise and the Director will probably walk away eventualy and surely if a Arab Millionare was to come in then the club is probably more an asset than say Manchester City.-Answer-
Keegan was right to walk away we judge him on his conduct with the National Tean - to judge him on the Toon issue, he has done the right thing. He was great player and proved is management skill at Newcastle in the past-Crazey Dave
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I think he appears to have stood up for a principle-” The Mangager responsible for players and their recruitment to the team “-He is held responsible in all cases for the performance of the team surely this is a principle established in stone ” -How can he be responsible for buying players he has never seen play-Players tranferred without his approval infact a player of quality-Wise and Co are based away from the club and obviously have miss-judged the fans and the course Keegan would take-Whatever- a Director in the crown swigging beer when his team is getting out played is an image which says it all. Who-ever takes over at Newcastle now will have to be acceptable to the fans with a lot of credibility and judgement. Wise and the Director will probably walk away eventualy and surely if a Arab Millionare was to come in then the club is probably more an asset than say Manchester City.-Answer-
Keegan was right to walk away we judge him on his conduct with the National Tean - to judge him on the Toon issue, he has done the right thing. He was great player and proved his management skill at Newcastle in the past-Crazey Dave
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How can you call him a Bottler? That is the craziest thing i’ve heard. How would you feel if Morgan sold Kightly, Ebanks-Blake and Hennessey in the Summer without the permission of the manager. It’s an absolute disgrace. How can you manage like that?
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a bottler get a life he has been forced out of the toon by dennis the nutter wise who is a complete muppet to be precise i predict a low finish for them now be interesting to see who goes there now though
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morning bomber, terry, happy. Been rained off so i can join in today !!! im with you bomber, ive got an old fashioned view too, and i firmly believe that all these billionaires are going to eventually leave our game in tatters.Form a super league as quick as possible and put the 4 greed specialists in it with scudamore and lets get this game back to its roots. If we go down this season, (dont think we will ) lets go down as wba, not someones plaything. Remember pride lads, we are who we are and proud.
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i have to agree with 6.
Keegan possibly is a little unstable and I wouldnt want him as wolves manager, but if the board starting selling players left right and centre and taking away your control you wouldnt be impressed.
Fergie is the prime example.
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Completely agree with a lot of the comments already posted. The manager should have sole responsibility for deciding which players he wants/doesn’t want in his squad. The directors should concentrate on the commercial side of the football club. I wouldn’t call Kevin Keegan a bottler. If you are not allowed to manage a football club in the true sense of the word then I can understand the high levels of frustration that both Keegan and Curbishley have experienced. This level of interference is a consequence of the fact that football is now about ‘money’ and the requirement for instant success. It is time football became more highly regulated to stop this behaviour before it completely destroys the game!
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I know Kevin personally and he is not a bottler, but he does hold his own council and if he feels he is being undermined, he will walk away.
Kevin does not like confrontation, but he will not suffer fools either and though he will stand his ground on issues that are important to him, he will not jeapordise that which he holds so dear, the fans of Newcastle United.
At the moment, Newcastle fans and the media are holding Mike Asley and Denis wise responsible for the chaos that reigns at the club and they are right to do so, but had Kevin stayed they would have stopped him talking to the media and eventually cast doubts on Kevins ability to manage.
Any manager worth is salt, is never going to make himself accountable to the likes of Denis Wise, Wise has got to be one of the most despicable and hated characters in football, a rotten apple so to speak and I for one do not blame Kevin one bit for walking away and I hope the Newcastle fans understand why he made that decision.
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I think the real point is this: Keegan wasn’t buying players someone else was, but who would be blamed or sacked if Newcastle weren’t winning?
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This all comes down to one main priciple…
If results don’t go the way the board want or the team doesn’t perform to the expectations and targets set for the season, then it is the manager that will be relieved of his duties.
If the manager is not responsible for all aspects of the team and things go bad, he will still be the one who comes under the axe.
In this situation where the board are controlling what players he has at his disposal, how can he plan to build a team that will accomplish what the board expect? I can’t see the board being sacked or resigning when results go bad even though it has come down to their interfierence. Buying and selling players is part of the managers job. A manager cannot use his abilities to build a tea to play the way he wants if he has no control over it… most likely reducing the performance of the team.
Keegan was no longer the manager before he walked… and he was right to do so.
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I feel sorry for the newcastle fans… but then again they might be battling with the baggies to stay in the prem this year. Bye Bye Kev try Brian Robson!
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A manager is there to manage the team funnily enough.Keegan wasn’t allowed to do this (nor Curbishley at W Ham) but is blamed for poor results.If you take away your teams best assets or sign players that the manager doesn’t think suitable (inc ‘football directors’ who couldn’t direct traffic) then the manager has every right to complain.If Man U had sold Ronaldo and had signed e.g. Craig Beattie or similar instead of Berbatov do you think Ferguson would be happy?
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I agree with number 6, whats happened at both Newcastle and West Ham is deceitful, a football club will never run succesfully with the manager being left in the dark.
The board of both clubs should hang their heads in shame!
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The issues in the Keegan situation, for me, highlight the tendency of owners to ‘interfere with professional judgement. The more grotesque the incursions of large finance into football, the more likely this is to increase.
Professional football still excites me etc but at heart I know it is profoundly sick. There is no longer genuine competition.
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Ashley and wise should be ashamed of themselves.
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Obviously thing have gone on at the club that we may well never know the exact details. All things point to Dennis Wise, I am a strong believer that the manager should have the say that who the club trys to buy or sell.
how can a manager get the best out of a team when its not “his” team.
I know we sometimes go on about the way JP does his buisness (by squeezing every penny out of thye deal or not spending a penny more than he has too) but at least TM gets to give him the list of players to chase and the players TM no longer requires.
I agree with 13 you cannot continue in that sort or working relationship!!
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Keegan has never been successful as a manager without money.
He left Man City with a mountain of debt, took Fulham out of what’s now League 1 with Fayed as chairman (any of us could’ve managed that!!) and took Newcastle to the top in the days nobody had big money.
The only time he was asked to manage on a level playing field was at international level where his tactical naivety was brutally exposed.
Agree with you Bomber that the board should never interfere, but I don’t think it was a big surprise to anyone that Keegan’s not lasted the distance again.
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He should probably never come back in my opinion - it was never going to work for him the way it did last time. The guy is idolised at Newcastle and rightly so, what he did with the club in his first spell as manager was extremely impressive and he deserves his place as a Geordie idol. However, it seems like Mike Ashley only brought him in as a measure to get the fans on his side, and it has backfired on him spectacularly - Keegan is a man of principle, a true football man in ever sense of the word, and if he was not given autonomy in his transfer dealings then he was never going to take it lying down. I think he has done the right thing in leaving, but it’s just another negative in the sorry decline of NUFC - a once-great club, now reduced to football’s laughing stock. I admire KK for sticking up for what he believes in, and despite his repuation as being a bottler, I think he is not foolish to stay around when he sees that something is not working. His legacy as a manager will ultimately be the success he almost achieved when he first managed NUFC, but I think this is probably the last we see of him in the dugout.
All-in-all, it just makes me extremely relieved that we have sych a well-run club with a supportive, forward-thinking owner, a chief executive who keeps the club running on a sensible financial basis, and a manager who commands respect from his players - someone who has given more of a chance to young, talented footballers than any other manager in the club’s recent history, and who is allowed to get on with his job without interference from the people above him. The future is bright, the future is Old Gold!!
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who ever is appointed as newcastles next manager will be a yes man i gurantee it wise and ashley are picking the team and whos bought not the manager
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I think Keegan has a strong point, BUT I also think he is very childish and extremly temperamental. Anyone who recognised the two different personalities involved i.e Keegan and Wise who had any common sense could see that relationship was never going to work. Keegan has a track record of throwing his toys out of the pram and walking from every job he has been in and Wise is the smart arse who isn’t always as smart as he thinks.
Basically, it was a marriage that was always heading for divorce.
He should have been allowed to manage and select players within his budget though. Otherwise it was a total waste of time employing him!!!
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John Aston-Yes would agree with you but can they stop him talking to the press-Yes- now because of his contract implications but one of the conditions of SKY is that Managers will talk on game and team issues–Yes or No -Regards Crazey Dave
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Lets be honest. Who would want the Newcastle job?
Possibly the worst run club in the prem. Expectation is unreal. They will never be a top 4 club. They are just about in the top 10.
Keegan had no team and no strikers but still managed a 1-1 at Man Utd on the opening day of the season! So you can’t blame him for results!
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Bring back the good old days the 60’s 70’s and 80’s and forget today there’s no future for English football i’m afraid, with all those billionaires coming to your country you’re going nowhere. You just sit there and watch Italy Brazil Germany Argentina etc winning world cups with england not even qualifying. Bring the good old days and you know what you have to do ….
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Kevin Keegan is one of lifes nice guys and we all know where nice guys finish.
Glad to see he walked away still sane.
Up The Wolves
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newcastle are just a cr*p team and even the best managers in the world couldnt change that. there only labled as a big club because they have passionate support as they are a one club city.
never will be a big club
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25 - Expectation unreal - Fans feel they should be a Top 4 club. I know another team very much like that. Mad Mick for Newcastle manager anyone?
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How can a manger be responsible for team performance if he has no say in who is in his squad? Would you trust the likes of Dennis Wise if your future as a manager depended on it? How can Keegan develop a team when he doesn’t know who will be sold out of his squad in January?
I wonder if Mike Ashley let others make decisions for him behind his back when he was developing his business and amassing his wealth. I don’t think so. Kevin Keegan is right to leave under the circumstances, as he has said he was left with no alternative.
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I just dont think hes cut out for football management. Im sure he has his reasons for walking and if this was the first time, fair enough, but it isnt. England, Man City and Newcastle (where he also lost out to mind games first time round??). In my view he is a genuine guy who lets personal emotions rule over professional integrity, he just aint cut out for it and should have realised that after the England job.
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To start with I cant beleive that E&S and some of the people on here on using the word Bottler!!!!! Fairplay to him for walking away I do feel sorry for the fans and the players as there the ones who will suffer until everything calms down…. How the hell Dennis Wise got the posistion he did I will never know.. All the best to keegan whatever him whatever he does he wont be short of work. Come On The Wolves
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As a few other people have said, Keegan was in a lose - lose situation. If the team plays badly he will get the blame, if the team drops down the table he will be sacked! The problem with that is that Dennis (I’m a tw@t Wise) was making all the key decisions and he would always come out squeeky clean. Who wants a bet that Wise will become the next manager?
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What a great record in management, never been sacked!!
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Keegan is certainly a decent man who has always in my opinion tried to follow his own high standards that were set as a player, he was not the most gifted of players but through his own determination he became one of the best in the world and valued, every team needs a keegan type, his downfall is that he is a little naive and immature almost a disney type character that beleives that everyone else should hold his values ,in the world of business it would seem to me that Ashley has got into a situation that requires him to actually put his hand into his deep pockets and he clearly did not realise you need very very deep pockets to compete with the big four , i would say that he has no intention of doing this and when Kev realised that he may have to work to produce the players over a period of time he walked,still depends what he was promised, and working with Dennis wise would not suit all, but despite this i would say Keegan was made aware of the clubs intentions and that caused his departure.
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The situation at the Toon and the Hammers goes to illustrate where we are with football today. When businessman run football clubs there is always a potential for disaster.Businessmen expect a return on their investment and they go about trying to ensure this happens in a businesslike way, that means to some of them they must be involved with every aspect of the running of their business, in these cases it’s a football club.Sir Jack put his man into the Wolves in Moxey, Ashley (wisely or unwisely…excuse the pun) chose Dennis the Menace. Neither man is primarily working for the club, they are looking after the interests of the man that employed them, and if the club do well while they are doing this that is a bonus. Abramovitch runs Chelsea as a hobby, rarely do hobbies make you money, so profit margins do not come into it. The Arabs will run Man. City as a hobby as long as they are winning, they will do this by owning everything and stifling the opposition, they did the same in horse racing and they are trying to do it in Formula 1. It depends upon the motives of any club owner as to the role of the manager/coach whatever. Ashley will sell, both them and the Hammers will struggle as they cannot compete with the spending power of the big fish and they have shown their hands now and become something of a poison chalice. My hat off to Keegan, he doesn’t need the Toon but they might find out all too quickly they need him. Remember when he sold Andy Cole? There was uproar and he faced the fans and asked them to let him manage and to trust him, they did and they finished runners up.Nuff said.
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Think about it!!! It takes a lorra bottle to walk away from a giant like Newcastle and all the media attention that surrounds it.
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Whilst i am no big Keegan fan,i cannot begin to understand how the Toon Army fans feel.What a week - they sell arguably their best prospect(Milner),watch the chairman down a pint in 5 seconds live on TV(a real role model) and then the manager resigns after the press publish an article claiming he walked out earlier.No chance for the Magpies this season…
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Keegan was over-rated as a manager, with money he could buy strikers and just score more goals than the opposition, without money he hasnt got a clue.
Look at the way he managed England, he walked after losing, he should never have gone back to Newcastle, even tho everybody up here loves him, if he had stayed away they would still love him.
Milner WANTED to leave, he was sold because he wanted to go to vile.
Ashley is a businessman, he will sell up if he gets a profitable offer on his investment.
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Never thourght Keegan was the brightest, he has a responsability to the fans and should of gone public with his quarrels, if he got the sack as a result then at least he didnt turn his back on the fans that love him.
Plus you could argue he gets paid £4m a year and should do what his gaffer tells him!
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38,stevo,i can down one in 2 secs aye boing boing donk donk
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Keegan has a history of walking away when the going gets tough ala England, Man Citeh, Newcastle etc BUT with regards to this episode, if what we hear via the media is to be believed, how on earth can a manager manage a team made up of a sprinkling of players you asked for and the rest you didnt even know were being brought in???
Denis Wise as the man who makes decisions for the players Newcastle should bring in? What exactly as a club manager has Denis Wise achieved? Could have understood a wise older head doing that role and consulting WITH the manager, but if what we hear is true KK was on a hiding to nothing!
Be very interesting to see what develops in the legal realms with this case?
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Cant believe they re-appointed him, everyone knows you shouldnt go back were u were once succesful. Saying that, hes never won anything at top level, as a manager, so i suppose he had unfinished buisness. But no matter how glad i was to seeing him back, and his style of football, in our game, i just knew he would walk away again. Never finished the job anywhere because he bottles it!!!
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Greg. 21. I enjoy your posts, always articulate and well presented but you had me going at the end with ‘the future’s Old Gold’. I honestly thought you were talking about TM and my Baggies!
One last thought. Who would you choose as a friend, the Newcastle owner or Kevin Keegan? KK every time for me.
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Bridget & Tony - I agree with most of the comments on this blogg but I do not think you should underestimate the ability of Dennis Wise. He is a Manager for the future no doubt. Millwall to a Cup Final and Europe. Leeds points behind but I think on the way to the top before he was lured away by big money for a cushey number. I agree with Keegans principles on this issue but I do not think Wise would buy in rubbish. He of course would not be acceptable to the fans at Newcastle but he is capable of managing and has in my view the ability to take a team to the top. Crazey Dave
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I would like to make two points on KK. He was appointed MANAGER which means he is solely reponsible to the board for training, development of his staff and RESULTS. As it appears he has not been able to have full control of his staff (players) then his position has been undermined. Secondly, to those who have stated he is a “bottler” well I say get real.Why have so many Newcastle fans been protesting in FAVOUR of KK? You would have thought Mike Ashley would be in Newcastle face to face with KK. Where was he, in the USA? As an ex-Manager in business that sums it up for me. KK WAS 100% CORRECT TO WALK AWAY.
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What a sorry shambles Mike Ashley has created.If you are running a business you make sure your senior staff are a/ communicating and b/ pulling in the same direction. This looks like a case of non-existent co-operation and suspicion between KK and DW which Ashley failed to manage correctly.
I never expected KK to stay for too long, it seems as if he gets either bored or takes the media nonsense to heart if things do not go according to plan. However, you would have to say that he gives everything a go, hope he comes out of this OK.
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