Newcastle United Managers - The Premier League Years

Bobby Robson almost won the league with a defence of Andy Griffin, Andy O'Brien, Titus Bramble and Aaron Hughes. He is our best ever, Keegan 2nd, Rafa 3rd.

I'd forgotten that. Jees, how the fuck did those four get us into Europe???

Going to do my list with things I liked and things I didn't like about them. I may be hard pressed to find nice things as I get further down my list. A lot of this is just my recollections of feelings and I haven't gone back and fact checked so I will naturally accept any corrections ( but not about my ordering )

1. Keegan (1st time): A magical time as this coincided with me falling in love with football. He has such charisma and we played such amazing football. I feel privileged to have had this as my introduction to football. Downside was I always felt he would try to shoehorn his new buys into a system that worked. EG; playing two right wingers at the expense of the left side, 3 centre midfielders making us wonky, 3 centre backs when that didn't really fit our style etc

2. SBR: After Keegan's departure we went through Gullit and Daglish who on paper should have been great but ended up being bad fits for us. SBR picked up us and the players. Downside was I never felt he beefed up our defence which would have taken us to the next level.

3. Rafa: Picked us up not only with his meticulous methods with a below average team, but his reconnection with the fans that had been eroded and destroyed by the ashley regime. My downside with Rafa is not his fault, it's he couldn't take us to the next level because of ashley. My love of football started to rekindle under his reign.

4. Keegan: (2nd time) After the garbage football served to us by a con artist who has stolen a living as a football manager, Keegan was the tonic we needed. Downside was really the players we had, which wasn't his fault. My hate here also isn't his fault. His leaving the club started my falling out of love and interest with not just NUFC, but football.

5. Roeder: Did a solid job as caretaker and I felt fully deserved the job. Nice guy from all accounts too. Weird dislike, but he spent an absolute age going on about Dirk Kuyt, who went to Liverpool and all of a sudden that courting of Kuyt never happened and it was always Obi Martins that was first on his list.

6. Hughton: wasn't expecting much, did very well with what he had and such a decent fellow. But I was already well on my way to losing interest.

7. Dalglish: Should have been a great appointment and historically a natural successor to Keegan. Didn't feel right though and I have memories of him just buying a load of left backs.

8. Gullit: Again, should have been a good appointment. The derby debacle was a disgrace, he dropped Rob Lee from the squad and started to remove people who I had seen progress from young lads into developing pros such as Steve Watson.

9. Bruce: I very much dislike this prick. No good anywhere he has been, screws over every team he has worked for. A yes man for our regime, a less odious pardew and a less competent mcclaren. Whilst I hated man u, I always rated him highly as a centre half but I have nothing good to say about him as a manager. Especially OUR manager.

10. Kinnear: what even is this disgrace? Sweary and incompetent. Might have been an alright fit for Wimbledon, but he had no business at our club.

11. Allardyce: Did a good job at Bolton, fucked us over a few times when they really had no business beating us. He was THE name that folks would mention to be our next manager but I never liked him. I just had a gut feeling about him when I heard his name and he was managing (I think) Notts County. When we dropped points to a very underwhelming Derby he absolutely deserved the chants of "you don't know what you're doing". Only good thing ashley did was get rid of this knobhead. Also, I like hippos and his hippohead nickname kinda ruins my liking of hippos.

12. McClaren: lee effing ryder kept pushing this blank, empty, soulless nothing of a manager on us constantly until it was clear it was happening. He kept knocking us back until he could get Derby to sack him so no love for the club, or a brilliant challenge he wanted to take on. It was all about the money. Sure, people wanna get paid but there has to be more to managing a football club than just money for simply writing names on a teamsheet and laughing at mega-losses.

13. Souness: Replacing SBR with this? Really? And nobody ever brings up with buying (I think his name was) Ali Dya after a bloke claiming to George Weah claimed his was the next superstar. He put him on as a sub at Southampton, realised he was shit and then subbed him off. Every time he is doing his bitter punditry this should be brought up and rubbed in his face. Also, I always felt his buys were very dodgy. Boumsong ffs. So, so bitter because of his own failings with us too.

14. Carver: We had the chance to move on and remove the stain of pardew. We had so many options yet that utter shitfiddler charnley managed to remove his lips from ashley's skidmark maker to promote this cowardly liar to "head coach". His lies? One stands out for me; the FA cup match where he claimed throughout his interviews he would play a strong side, which would have included Sissoko. He then didn't play him, pretending like he was injured and I think everyone saw through this total bullshit. Also, and possibly the most egregious thing, the Jonas situation. 

15. Pardew: I hate this cretin so much. We had had some crap managers during my time, but this was the epitome of utter despair. At least the managers (who did not work out here) who went before him had some credibility from managing elsewhere or doing a good job here. This failure hadn't had any such success and should never have been mentioned in the same breath as us. A liar, a yes man and all round slimebag who shagged his player's wives elsewhere, was so influential in lowering the fan's expectations and then becoming seemingly untouchable. He has zero good points and I wish nothing but the worst for him. He made me WANT to see my team lose. Oh yeah, did he ever do the self imposed community service he said he'd do for the headbutting incident?  Such a waste of oxygen.

KK

Sir Bobby

Rafa

Hughton

 

No need for the rest, all bin material.

 

100%  - The list only has four names. Chris H was a gentleman, tactically aware and an all round good guy. Just the sort Ashley doesn't like. I often wonder how fat he could /would have taken us with a decent owner. The 1st 3 names are absolutely carved in stone.

 

He’d have been an Eddie Howe at Bournemouth type of success for us IMO. We were very direct under him and could dish it out to teams. I think we’ve never had a better team-spirit at the club post KK than under Hughton who managed to create and foster that over two divisions which I personally thought was remarkable especially given the jumble sale type of mix in that dressing room in terms of characters and nationalities. He was a real gent too and like KK always spoke up for the club, fans, area, the team and his players and wasn’t it his parents who said he was so proud to be NUFC manager, the biggest job he’ll ever have and how happy he was to have taken us back up into the Premier League?

Rafa probably tops them all in terms of his all-round abilities and skill-set with Nobby second in that regard and KK third. KK stands head and shoulders above them all though because he built an entire club up from the ground up in his own image and almost won the title. His work transformed a tin pot club into the second biggest in terms of status and wealth in the whole world who could at that time attract any player in the world to come to the Toon.

We played the most attacking football in the world and were the most exciting team to watch and the most exciting club around.

Then we went public...

Roeder gets a pass from me on the shit list because he should never have been given the job full-time full-stop and he was NUFC through and through, a good guy who as a player and before manager had done lots of good for the club.

He was undermined too. That caretaker spell after Souness though was a good time for us fans and our club which will go down in the annals of the club’s history for certain events that followed, Shearer breaking the all-time club goal scoring run and beating the mackems 4-1 away.

We played some good stuff in that spell. In the end he was inept, had no real clue, lost the dressing room pretty much straight away once Shearer stopped playing and had signings kind of forced on him. The rot had already set in, he did at least stop it for a while.

Souness was a disaster, his appointment was for reasons other than football the most, and the only football reason was because he was a so-called disciplinarian. Ironically, the club’s discipline under him become more than a joke, it become shameful.

He was appointed because the chairman, his brother, his son and various agents got a cut of the deal because they were all associated in business with each other. A betting scam? Not far off it.

Souness was also undermined, however, and the signings of Luque, Emre and Parker excited me, Souness nought bad, but he always bought players we needed in terms of their position and roles.

Dalglish was never going to work because by the time he come in the game had changed so much and the club had changed. He did make several important and very good buys though, players who served our club well.

Gullit, he was the one who you could say got away, he could have achieved something here, but he didn’t manage the dressing room. He was a good guy though and didn’t take any compensation after his sacking, believing he didn’t deserve compensated for having done a bad job.

Big Sam, he should have been appointed if that’s what the club were wanting after Souness. I maintain he’d have kept us up and would have done a reasonable job.

Pardew... the Ashley of managers for our club, a cancer.

McLaren, a coach not a manager, way out of his depth and zero charisma to manage this size of club and the fanbase especially under a cult owner.

Another interesting feature is just how damaging the appointments of Dalglish and Souness were.

 

 

Dalglish knocked 20 percentage points off our win percentage.

 

Souness knocks 15 percentage points off SBR's win percentage.

 

Also highlights just how good the talent was under Pardew.

I can somewhat forgive the Dalglish appointment, on paper it made sense at the time, didn't work but he was hindered by Shearers injury and Ferdiands sale and he did buy Given and Speed. Souness though good lord.

 

The Dalglish and Gullitt appointments were genuine mistakes, both were highly rated managers who just turned out to be poor in retrospect. Dalglish's second spell at Liverpool perhaps exposed him to closer scrutiny on Merseyside then he'd previously had. I think before that they saw him through rose tinted glasses somewhat.

tbh it would be hard for them not to have rose tinted glasses since he was one of their greatest ever players and last manager to win a league for them. Wouldn't be much different for us if Keegan came back again as manager tomorrow

I know what you're saying, but I think Keegan deserved the adulation as a manager a bit more. He set higher standards, and refused to drop them, whereas I thought Dalglish towed the line a bit too much with Fred Shepherd's budgeting. When Shearer got injured we were reduced to playing JD Tomasson up front, for a CL club I thought that was a bit shit.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

Yeah I know he had his hands tied a bit, but that was the point, I don't think Keegan would have compromised and that's the difference. That said, I still don't think Dalglish did a good job with the resources he had. That team he was left by Kev was pretty fucking good.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

 

Yeah I know he had his hands tied a bit, but that was the point, I don't think Keegan would have compromised and that's the difference. That said, I still don't think Dalglish did a good job with the resources he had. That team he was left by Kev was pretty fucking good.

It was and adding only players like Shay, Nicos, Speed, Nobby, Hamman et al would have made it even greater. But he also filled that team with Rush, Barnes, Pearce, Glass and Anderson et al. Sir Les was never replaced, Tino wasted, Ginola never replaced and pretty much allowed to leave. Shearer’s injury was huge in terms of the negative effect it had on Dalglish and in particular JDT too, that was potentially a dream partnership. Our Shearer and Sutton at Blackburn.

I still believe though, we would have had a good enough season under him if he hadn’t of been sacked when he was and in time with the proper signings he did make he’d have had the team top 6 before the time he’d have needed replaced. The home 0-0 draw with newly promoted Charlton stood out as a bad result for him the most at the start of that season and our total capitulation in the FA Cup final still left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.

From what I can remember, he was way down on the actual real list of managers to replace KK from the outset. They wanted Bobby the most and even enquired about Fergie and if rumours are to be believed, they looked at Cruyff himself and managers from Italy, rumoured to have been Capello and someone who I would have loved, Nevio Scala. They even thought about Shearer as player manager.

Dalglish just made safe sense giving he’d won the title with Blackburn with Shearer and Batty and defensively could provide the perceived missing link between that and the attack which was ‘missing’ from KK’s side. A complete and utter false narrative because under KK we conceded less goals than they did in the same number of games ratio IIRC or certainly had similar figures like we did with Man Utd who conceded 2 less than we did in 95-96. They just kept more clean sheets, Blackburn and Man Utd.

Bobby was the one though, he would have had no problem working around the club’s then new structure whatsoever, he would have used his vast scouting knowledge to bring in talent that wouldn’t have to cost the earth either and would have developed and nurtured any focus around youth, the academy and bringing players through from within. He would have kept with the style of play KK had us playing too but maybe would have made us more tactical and more direct when needed in order to go in there, get the win and get out by hook or crook.

Look at what he did to the pigs ear of a mess Dalglish and then Gulit made of KK’s era. Look at how strong we were in attack with an ageing Shearer and an unknown Bellamy and what was a then wild card in Robert, all with a distinctly average group of defenders. Look at how he developed young players or improved players games. Speed went from a bit of a flop to a midfield general. Nobby went from someone with a fine right foot with good delivery to a playmaker, a little genius. Bellamy went from being all huff and puff speeded up to a dynamic forward left to right, behind the number 9 and his pace becoming a huge asset to the team. Robert went from an unknown player in Europe to a talisman and one of the most explosive striker of a ball in the league, dead or moving, from range, out wide, crossing and shooting. Dyer was, when fit, transformed into a dynamic attacking player from midfield. Shay a young number 2 ‘keeper at the club into one of the top 5 number 1’s in the league.

He turned Shearer from a finished man into the number one finisher again, one of the game’s top marksman. He turned a relegation threatened/mid-table side going nowhere into a top 4 side, a European side, competing at the top of the table and in Europe against the top sides.

Imagine what he would have been capable of doing with KK’s side?

I’m 100% certain we’d have won something eventually and been challenging as we had been even as a PLC and unable to just spend willy nilly on whoever we fancied had we had Bobby from the start.

He did all of that anyway and all under tougher conditions brought about by the run away from the rest top-4 and their financial might through the CL which had emerged and we were no longer s part of by the time he did eventually take over.

And then he was sacked after finishing 5th and replaced by Souness.

And we’ve never recovered, one spiral down hill after another where even a 5th place finish again, didn’t mean anything at all because it was the exception to the rule rather and not what finishing mid-table would have been under KK and would become under Bobby where the two had the club in the top 6, sometimes in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th, but always in and around top spot.

Those days are coming back around soon because these guys won’t let a Bruce finish 10th or even 6th and then replace him with a David Moyes or a fucking Alan Pardew. In the near future managers will get sacked for not winning or finishing 5th for example and replaced by managers who have won things or can do better than finishing so lowly.

And if we are to return to the club KK built and the team SBR started, that’s the true barometer not Dalglish, Souness, Gulit, Roeder, Big Sam, Pardew, McLaren and evening Hughton unfortunately and maybe not even Rafa himself.

Bring it on, bring it all on.

Remember though, it’s only all possible because of the greatest manager we’ve ever had, Kevin Keegan.

Sir Bobby and his team and that era was only ever possible thanks to KK.

Under Ashley, the possibility of the Souness era would look like the halcyon days.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

 

Yeah I know he had his hands tied a bit, but that was the point, I don't think Keegan would have compromised and that's the difference. That said, I still don't think Dalglish did a good job with the resources he had. That team he was left by Kev was pretty f***ing good.

The only thing I would give some leeway with Dalglish is that the fact in the space of 24 hours he lost 50 goals per season and that's almost impossible to replace.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

 

Yeah I know he had his hands tied a bit, but that was the point, I don't think Keegan would have compromised and that's the difference. That said, I still don't think Dalglish did a good job with the resources he had. That team he was left by Kev was pretty f***ing good.

 

The only thing I would give some leeway with Dalglish is that the fact in the space of 24 hours he lost 50 goals per season and that's almost impossible to replace.

Aye and often overlooked, even if he had the money to spend, who would he have bought? He’d have had to enter the European market and right then, top strikers were not readily just up for sale, we had to break a world transfer record on a Geordie to bring in such a top striker only a short time before he arrived.

JDT was obviously brought in for the future, but clearly also signed to dovetail with Shearer.

We only signed Rush just to give us some extra cover which revealed where we were at in terms of finances and our market reach in that area, whether self inflicted or because it wasn’t a buyers market even at top dollar.

Dalgish had no choice, the spending money didn’t no longer belong to the club, but the business which belonged to its shareholders. KK wanted nowt to do with that or any of them.

 

Yeah I know he had his hands tied a bit, but that was the point, I don't think Keegan would have compromised and that's the difference. That said, I still don't think Dalglish did a good job with the resources he had. That team he was left by Kev was pretty f***ing good.

 

The only thing I would give some leeway with Dalglish is that the fact in the space of 24 hours he lost 50 goals per season and that's almost impossible to replace.

 

Aye and often overlooked, even if he had the money to spend, who would he have bought? He’d have had to enter the European market and right then, top strikers were not readily just up for sale, we had to break a world transfer record on a Geordie to bring in such a top striker only a short time before he arrived.

 

JDT was obviously brought in for the future, but clearly also signed to dovetail with Shearer.

 

We only signed Rush just to give us some extra cover which revealed where we were at in terms of finances and our market reach in that area, whether self inflicted or because it wasn’t a buyers market even at top dollar.

JDT actually looked very good pre-season playing in behind Shearer, unfortunately the injury meant he was thrust up front and was on a hiding to nothing.

1. Kevin Keegan 90s - manager when I first started supporting Newcastle. 2nd place 5-0 Man U

2. Bobby Robson - wish I got to watch football more during this. Caught the tail end of his tenure. When I moved to America, I was dirt poor and didn’t have cable or internet. Followed Newcastle through Fifa 2002. Wish I got to see the Feyenoord game you guys are always talking about.

3. Alan Pardew - controversial but I enjoyed the football under him(not through his tactics or him personally), it was the players of course). But I felt like we could win any game we went into because of the players we had. We had some really good games and I remember them fondly.

4. Rafa- Just the fact that he took the job. What a gent. Got us back up, two excellent finished with dross signings. Annoyed he left for China but he’s got standards. Can’t hate him for that.

5. Glenn Roeder - never had faith in the guy. Felt like that 7th place finish was the character of the team at the time. Kind of like how Chelsea won the Champions League with Di Mateo.

6. Chris Hughton - Thanks for getting us back up but never felt like he knew what he was doing.

Do kind of like Bruce. I’m pleasantly surprised that we’re not in a relegation battle. Do hope the takeover goes through and we upgrade of course.

Don’t count the other ones.

Wum

1. Kevin Keegan 90s - manager when I first started supporting Newcastle. 2nd place 5-0 Man U

2. Bobby Robson - wish I got to watch football more during this. Caught the tail end of his tenure. When I moved to America, I was dirt poor and didn’t have cable or internet. Followed Newcastle through Fifa 2002. Wish I got to see the Feyenoord game you guys are always talking about.

3. Alan Pardew - controversial but I enjoyed the football under him(not through his tactics or him personally), it was the players of course). But I felt like we could win any game we went into because of the players we had. We had some really good games and I remember them fondly.

4. Rafa- Just the fact that he took the job. What a gent. Got us back up, two excellent finished with dross signings. Annoyed he left for China but he’s got standards. Can’t hate him for that.

5. Glenn Roeder - never had faith in the guy. Felt like that 7th place finish was the character of the team at the time. Kind of like how Chelsea won the Champions League with Di Mateo.

6. Chris Hughton - Thanks for getting us back up but never felt like he knew what he was doing.

 

Do kind of like Bruce. I’m pleasantly surprised that we’re not in a relegation battle. Do hope the takeover goes through and we upgrade of course.

 

Don’t count the other ones.

Pardew above Rafa? I accept we finished 5th under him one season, but in view of his whole tenure I'm surprised you remain so positive. We played good football for only really one season, and only in spells. The beginning of 13/14 we got some good results, but I can't remember it being exactly good to watch. He oversaw some of the bleakest days in the club's modern history.

Roeder was OK I think. Did really well salvaging what he inherited from Souness in 2006 and finishing 7th was miraculous - played some good football near the end too. Didn't receive the same kind of financial backing Souness was afforded once made permanent manager (Duff always seemed to me a Shepherd signing, and one who only curtailed N'Zogbia's development) and had to rely on loans and freebies, Rossi, Sibierski, Olivier Bernard's return lol. Considering our back four in 06/07 was some combination of Stephen Carr, Peter Ramage, Paul Huntington, David Edgar, Craig Moore and Celestine Babayaro I'd say he did well to even keep us up that year, especially with the injuries.

Bobby Robson almost won the league with a defence of Andy Griffin, Andy O'Brien, Titus Bramble and Aaron Hughes. He is our best ever, Keegan 2nd, Rafa 3rd.

 

I'd forgotten that. Jees, how the f*** did those four get us into Europe???

Those 4 were all capable of having the odd amazing game, even bramble. Hughes was always solid, O'Brian usually reliable.

I seem to remember Griffin always playing well in champions league games. Wasnt here one game where he marked Nedved (?) completely out of a game?

1. Kevin Keegan 90s - manager when I first started supporting Newcastle. 2nd place 5-0 Man U

2. Bobby Robson - wish I got to watch football more during this. Caught the tail end of his tenure. When I moved to America, I was dirt poor and didn’t have cable or internet. Followed Newcastle through Fifa 2002. Wish I got to see the Feyenoord game you guys are always talking about.

3. Alan Pardew - controversial but I enjoyed the football under him(not through his tactics or him personally), it was the players of course). But I felt like we could win any game we went into because of the players we had. We had some really good games and I remember them fondly.

4. Rafa- Just the fact that he took the job. What a gent. Got us back up, two excellent finished with dross signings. Annoyed he left for China but he’s got standards. Can’t hate him for that.

5. Glenn Roeder - never had faith in the guy. Felt like that 7th place finish was the character of the team at the time. Kind of like how Chelsea won the Champions League with Di Mateo.

6. Chris Hughton - Thanks for getting us back up but never felt like he knew what he was doing.

 

Do kind of like Bruce. I’m pleasantly surprised that we’re not in a relegation battle. Do hope the takeover goes through and we upgrade of course.

 

Don’t count the other ones.

 

Pardew above Rafa? I accept we finished 5th under him one season, but in view of his whole tenure I'm surprised you remain so positive. We played good football for only really one season, and only in spells. The beginning of 13/14 we got some good results, but I can't remember it being exactly good to watch. He oversaw some of the bleakest days in the club's modern history.

 

Roeder was OK I think. Did really well salvaging what he inherited from Souness in 2006 and finishing 7th was miraculous - played some good football near the end too. Didn't receive the same kind of financial backing Souness was afforded once made permanent manager (Duff always seemed to me a Shepherd signing, and one who only curtailed N'Zogbia's development) and had to rely on loans and freebies, Rossi, Sibierski, Olivier Bernard's return lol. Considering our back four in 06/07 was some combination of Stephen Carr, Peter Ramage, Paul Huntington, David Edgar, Craig Moore and Celestine Babayaro I'd say he did well to even keep us up that year, especially with the injuries.

Just enjoyed thenplayers we had. The midfield and attack were combative and deadly. The subs annoyed me, the starting 11s were just braindead but it was the best football we played in 10 years.

A lot of Rafa was just tense and hanging on. I didn’t think we could beat anyone.  Rafa, the genius he is, got the points but the matches were painful.

I am being hard on Roeder.  06/07 was a crappy squad. Totally right about Duff. Stunted. N’Zogbia. It was so annoying seeing a talented player on the bench when he had won games for us at 18. The Alkmaar loss annoys me. We should have gone theough. Threw away a two goal lead.