As Mike Ashley, Newcastle United’s owner, ups his vitamin D levels in Barbados he has much to ponder. Foremost among the dilemmas he must confront is precisely how to deal with life after Alan Pardew.
Ashley’s staff in Newcastle spent early Monday maintaining that everything was business as usual with Pardew – who, like his players, enjoyed a day off – scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday lunchtime regarding the home game against Burnley on New Year’s Day. Behind the scenes the sports retail tycoon was playing long-distance hardball during compensation talks with Crystal Palace. By the time Burnley’s team coach pulls up outside St James’ Park, the Premier League landscape will have altered quite dramatically and the hunt for a new Newcastle manager should be well under way.
1 So what will happen next?
Peter Beardsley could well shimmy back into the limelight, at least in the short term. The former Newcastle and England forward has done a brilliant job since being placed in charge of the club’s development squad and is a strong candidate to step up as caretaker.
Much admired by Ashley, who likes his football philosophy, Beardsley would relish the chance to take temporary control and could even be a dark horse to succeed Pardew. With the assistant manager, John Carver, and the first-team coach, Steve Stone, also from the North-east and likely to stick around, team affairs should function smoothly enough during the transition period. With Pardew having had very little say in transfer market activities, Newcastle’s January transfer plans may not be disrupted too much.
2 Surely Tony Pulis must be the favourite?
Highly unlikely. As Sam Allardyce learnt to his cost at St James’ Park, Ashley is not a fan of the brand of direct football which brought Pulis success at Stoke. Moreover players such as Ayoze Pérez, Rémy Cabella and Fabricio Coloccini are arguably as unsuited to Pulis’s style as Tuncay proved in the Potteries. Then there are transfers – Pulis likes a big say but Ashley does not permit his managers autonomy, or much input, in buying and selling. And Newcastle also have a policy of avoiding signing players over the age of 26.
Steve Bruce is regarded as another contender but would Ashley really be keen to blow part of Palace’s compensation fee on hiring a manager who has spent £40m during 2014 only to lead Hull City into a relegation fight?
3 Who else is in the frame?
Few Gallowgate Enders would say no to Rafael Benítez and, under a different owner, Napoli’s former Liverpool coach would arguably be perfect for Newcastle but Frank de Boer looks a more realistic bet. Already his agent has denied De Boer will leave his post at Ajax before the end of the season but the manager is on record as referring to Newcastle as “a sleeping giant”. Ashley is said to be prepared to appoint a foreign coach and Saint-Etienne’s Christophe Galtier cannot be discounted. He would be a cheaper option than many and there are persuasive suggestions he has had informal contact with Newcastle in the past. Tim Sherwood – possibly in tandem with Les Ferdinand – is expected to be taken seriously at St James’ but theories that Coloccini could morph into a player-coach are surely too fanciful.
Newcastle’s captain may have Ashley’s ear but he has not taken his coaching badges and public speaking is far from his forte. Whoever takes over would benefit from an ability to speak a smattering of French as, despite a recent influx of Beardsley-honed youngsters, the dressing room remains heavily Francophone. Then there is Steve McClaren; highly regarded by the Gallowgate power brokers, he is happy at Derby County but knows the North-east inside out and may be tempted by another crack at the big time.
4 Was Pardew the problem at Newcastle – or the solution?
It would have been extremely interesting to see how a selection of rival Premier League managers – some much more celebrated – might have coped with satisfying Newcastle’s regular 52,000-strong home crowd while working to Ashley’s strict budgetary and youth oriented guidelines.
Like all managers Pardew made mistakes and supporters were justified in becoming fed up with last season’s long balls and lost causes but he recovered, repeatedly, from major blows – the respective sales and failure to replace Andy Carroll and Yohan Cabaye plus Joe Kinnear’s brief, disastrous, incarnation as director of football spring to mind. It did not help his cause that press access is limited at St James’ with the manager’s interaction with the media restricted to an unusual degree.
This inability to get his message across contributed to Pardew finding himself in the peculiar situation whereby he had lost a crowd who dismissed him as Ashley’s puppet while retaining the support of the dressing room. Newcastle fans will probably never forgive him for losing four straight derbies to Sunderland but they could yet discover the grass is not necessarily greener …
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