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Opinion

No news is not good news

8 years ago
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It is now three days after the latest feeble surrender by the Newcastle team under Steve McClaren and there is no news.

This is not good news.

When I say news, I mean something actually happening that could potentially lead to a reversing of Newcastle United’s headlong nosedive into the Championship.

Late Monday afternoon it emerged that Newcastle board members Lee Charnley and Bobby Moncur had travelled to York by train, to meet fellow board member and Chief Scout, Graham Carr.

Steve McClaren was widely reported not to have been invited to this ‘board meeting’, though Tuesday morning sees reports that claim Mike Ashley’s master of spin, Keith Bishop, was at this York meeting.

I just don’t buy it that this was a meeting where you are seriously supposed to accept that it was to decide the future of Steve McClaren and choose his replacement.

It just looks like a typical stunt to make it look like something is happening, travelling by train was always going to attract attention and if this was really intended to be a secret meeting, then they’d have jumped into a car and journeyed under the radar.

Anyway, it is all nonsense regardless, this is the 21st century and if your grannie can Skype you if you move to Australia, I think a company that turns over £130m can have a video conference etc if there is something urgent to decide/discuss.

If there was any intention to get rid of Steve McClaren then surely a conversation of some sort would have taken place before this latest disaster against Bournemouth, as in ‘if we get beat (yet again) are we going to get rid?’.

The only possible change I can possibly think of that couldn’t be foreseen, is if Steve McClaren had had a change of heart and now wanted to leave the club. However, that clearly doesn’t appear to be the case and he’s going nowhere without a pay-off.

Monday saw Sky Sports’ north east reporter Keith Downie outside the training ground gates and whilst chatting about the situation, he said there was rush anyway if they were going to replace Steve McClaren, as there is (was!) still seven days to the next (Leicester) game.

This is the kind of bizarre logic that appears to be permanently resident at St James Park and we see similar in transfer windows.

When fans/pundits are saying players have to be brought in as soon as possible to integrate with the new team-mates and play as many friendlies as possible, the message you tend to get from the club and friendly media, is ‘what’s the rush, the window doesn’t finish until end of August/January’. However, as we saw with last summer’s chaotic pre-season, that mentality then proves a key factor in having to wait 10 weeks for the first Premier League win of the season.

If Newcastle were serious about bringing a new manager in with 10 matches to go, you surely need to do it ASAP and give him as many days as possible to bully/cajole this set of losers to turn into something better than we have seen.

Later media reports have claimed/guessed that Steve McClaren has now got two more games (Leicester away and Sunderland home) to save himself.

After the derby there is a two week gap before Norwich away, which presumably would be seen as a gap to give a new manager time to work with the players.

Sadly, I think whatever happens we are almost certainly stuck with what we have got until the end of the season….and potentially beyond.

I hope I’m proved wrong.

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