Could it be Clarence? But what about David? Or Brendan perhaps, they do say he likes a project? No, hold on a minute, Rafa has got to be a better bet, a spot of Rafaology will soon sort it.
Newcastle United have won only two of their 13 Premier League games this season and the Tyneside rumour factory is working overtime. No sooner had Jamie Vardy opened the scoring in what was to become a 3-0 victory for Leicester City at St James’ Park on Saturday than speculation began mounting as to who would replace Steve McClaren.
Once Real Madrid had surrendered to Barcelona, Rafael Benítez joined David Moyes and Brendan Rodgers on the list of likely lads. By Monday morning though that trio were forced to make room for Clarence Seedorf.
Reports in the Italian media suggested the former Milan midfielder had already held “secret discussions” with Newcastle and was all set for relocation to north-east England.
The club did not take long to let it be known they were not interested in Seedorf after all, and have no plans to replace McClaren. If keeping faith with the former England manager is surely the right thing to do, the lack of substance to the Seedorf talk was, in one sense, slightly disappointing.
If only Newcastle had been trying to persuade the former all-conquering Milan star to turn back the clock and step out of retirement. The suspicion is that, even at 39 and long since retired, Seedorf may still be capable of pulling on a black and white striped shirt and outclassing the rest of a malfunctioning midfield.
This failure is not really McClaren’s fault. He does not have responsibility for signing Newcastle’s players and, having inherited a right mess, is attempting to make the best of a bad job.
A squad suffering from three years of chronic underinvestment was very nearly relegated last season so out went John Carver, in came McClaren and £50m was spent on Georginio Wijnaldum, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Chancel Mbemba and Florian Thauvin.
Although Mbemba, a centre-half, and Wijnaldum, an attacking midfielder, disappointed against Leicester they have generally looked decent buys. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the collective £25m blown on Mitrovic and Thauvin. The latter, a winger, is so out of his depth in the Premier League it can, at times, be almost painful to watch the summer import from Marseille.
Hatem Ben Arfa may have been high maintenance but there are few Newcastle fans who would not swap their former No10 for Thauvin. Apparently reborn at Nice and back in the France squad, Ben Arfa is, ironically, the type of creator who may well have flourished under McClaren. Unfortunately after falling out with Alan Pardew and being loaned to Hull, he was offloaded for nothing last January.
Then there’s Mitrovic. The Serbia striker scored a lot of goals for Anderlecht last season but has all too often looked slow, volatile and ineffective in England’s top tier. After being whacked by Robert Huth early in Saturday’s game, Mitrovic – who did not relish Wes Morgan’s attentions either – looked as if he could not wait for his replacement by a similarly lacklustre Papiss Cissé.
If only McClaren had been allowed to sign a reliable goalscorer in the Charlie Austin mode last August. If only he had been allowed to strengthen a defence understaffed at centre-half (why on earth didn’t Newcastle make more of an effort to recruit the excellent Virgil van Dijk, now shining at Southampton, from Celtic in the last window?) and full-back.
Who decided Davide Santon was really surplus to requirements last January? Who, watching Paul Dummett’s struggles against Leicester, possibly thinks the technically assured Santon, now back at Internazionale, would not have represented an upgrade at left-back?
And yet arguably the biggest problem of all is in central midfield. Newcastle’s policy – something drawn up by Mike Ashley, the owner, and executed by Lee Charnley, the chief executive, and Graham Carr, the chief scout – of signing only players aged 26 and under dictated they decline a chance to re-sign Yohan Cabaye from Paris Saint-Germain in July.
Cabaye’s age has failed to prove a problem at Crystal Palace where the 29-year-old Frenchman’s game is elevating Alan Pardew’s current side to a new level. Desperate to introduce a new patient, possession-based passing approach at St James’ Park, McClaren could have done with having Cabaye’s playmaking skills to calibrate a midfield low on technical proficiency and creative vision.
It is worth noting that Pardew abandoned all attempts to play a passing game on Tyneside when Cabaye departed for PSG, instead deciding Newcastle’s limitations made them much better suited to a counter-attacking, sometimes brutally direct, approach.
Gallowgate Enders hated such fundamentalism and in certain matches Newcastle have looked infinitely more attractive under McClaren’s choreography. But as Sunderland’s Sam Allardyce keeps reminding us, managers, no matter how good they are, stand or fall by the players their club recruits.
In theory the lightweight, between-the-lines players Carr – the de facto director of football – seems addicted to acquiring should be suited to McClaren’s passing blueprint. But without a proper framework to support them they cannot possibly be expected to flourish. Newcastle’s spine is far too weak for such fragile talents to stand a chance of prospering.
A commanding centre half, a strong central midfielder and a prolific centre-forward would make all the difference. Right now, with Jack Colback and Cheik Tioté injured, central midfield is so under-manned there is a real case for, perhaps temporarily, converting Fabricio Coloccini from life as a fading central defender to a fresh deployment as a deep-sitting midfield anchor. Such a quasi-sweeping role would not only protect the backline but enable Coloccini to show off his stellar distribution skills.
Then there’s the attitude problem. Players like Leicester’s Huth, Morgan and Danny Simpson have their limitations but Claudio Ranieri’s squad are clearly all fighting for the same cause. A lack of leadership and experience in Newcastle’s dressing room – that recruitment policy again – means there is no one around to challenge Moussa Sissoko when he drifts through one of his frequent spells of underachievement.
McClaren is in the process of trying to get the message through to Charnley and Carr – and thus Ashley – that the club will lose a fortune if it gets relegated and the best way to avoid that fate is buying a bit of battle-hardened nous in January.
He may yet succeed and there remains a feeling that, in the medium-to-long term, the 54-year-old could prove very right for Newcastle – but arguably his biggest, most immediate challenge is clinging on to his job until New Year.
With a tricky trip to Crystal Palace on Saturday followed by a visit from Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool and then an excursion to Tottenham, it is quite likely Newcastle could still be stuck on twoleague victories by the time Aston Villa arrive at St James’ on 19 December.
Perhaps sensing potential for impending tragicomedy, television executives have made the Villa game the third in a run of four successive December fixtures McClaren’s side must play in front of the live cameras.
Should his side stumble once more against Rémi Garde’s fellow relegation strugglers, Ashley really would have a very big decision to make.
