Is Sheikh Khaled wealthy enough to buy us another Keegan?
Ask anyone who knows me personally to describe me and I can guarantee that the words “positive” and “optimist “ would not be forthcoming, however it’s definitely time to try to get past the Arab takeover and get on with our lives as far as we can until something happens.
There have been stories in the paper about how Rafa is definitely staying because he’s chasing players and signing off on preseason games and stuff like that. In all honesty that means nothing. Rafa’s manager of the club and that’s his job. Stuff happening in July and August is planned in May and June, and even if Rafa is leaving, as a professional he’ll get on and do what needs to be done, right up to his last working day.
The story being pushed now is that Rafa has been offered a contract with a number of options. Knowing Ashley the options mentioned will be along the lines of “take it” or “leave it”, with a possible third option stating that there’s a bail out clause for Rafa if the club should be taken over by new owners and Rafa doesn’t want to stay there and have to spend all day every day counting his transfer funds.
Yes, I’m sure Rafa would be very wary about staying on if the club was sold. All that money available and having to make decisions himself? It would be like working for a professional football club, and I doubt they pay him enough to take on that kind of responsibility.
All that said we continue to assume that Rafa would be the first choice manager for the new owners, which journalist Justin Allen, the guy who first broke the story, insists he is.
But for how long?
I’ve just had a browse through Premier League club histories and a very interesting if not quite so encouraging trend came up.
5 clubs didn’t help me make my point at all here so of course I ignored them, however, looking at the other 15, the trend suggests that when a club is taken over by new owners the existing manager is replaced within an average of 5 months. Some got lucky and had a season to prove themselves, while at the other end of the scale the deal with a new manager was agreed previously and once the takeover was announced it was out with the old and in with the new in just two days!
So while Rafa may be the soup de jour, tomorrow is another jour!
As for talk of Mourihno and Wenger being considered, what do you think of that?
Who would be your choice to replace Rafa. And I’ll give you a clue. Rafa is not a choice to REPLACE Rafa.
While I think the likes of Hodgson and Wenger are past it now because of their age, there’s something about the possibility of Keegan coming back that would get my juices flowing.
He’s no spring chicken but there’s still a space in his CV that should read “Newcastle United Premier League Champions”
This brings me to another question regarding all that money. Do we really want to be just another one of those clubs that goes out and buys trophies? Personally I hope the new owners (touch wood) splash the cash to a level allows us to buy half-decent players but not to the Man City and Chelsea extent. Anybody can spend half a billion quid and buy the league. That would just leave us as the fortunate beneficiaries of a lottery. But buying decent players, developing them and actually having to work to get somewhere? That is an achievement.
The way I look at it, no neutral felt all warm and fuzzy when half a billion quids worth of foreign superstars stood up there waving their medals around.
I suppose what I’m trying to say here is that I’d much rather win it as a Leicester or a Blackburn, than a Citeh or a Chelsea.
