Joe Kinnear's shabby treatment of the press in combination with his pseudo-Cloughisms and air of grumpy superiority have not endeared him to many over the course of the few weeks he has been in charge at St James’ Park. Nevertheless, it is worth examining the case for this classy, charming and witty man to be given the reigns at Newcastle on a permanent basis.
An Improving Record
Joe Kinnear’s record during his brief spell at Newcastle hasn’t been all that bad. In fact, the plucky Irishman might even have started to gradually turn the club around after a dismal start to the campaign.
Kinnear’s Geordieland tenure didn’t start in the most positive of manners with a 2-1 home defeat to Paul Ince’s Blackburn. This set-back was followed up with two respectable 2-2 draws; one away at Goodison Park and the other at home against Mark Hughes’ Robinho-inspired Manchester City.
Just a few days later Kinnear’s side found themselves upstaged at the Stadium of Light by bitter rivals Sunderland in the Tyne and Wear derby, a result which cast shadows of doubt over Kinnear’s short-term future at the club.
However, Newcastle rallied to record only their second victory of the season in their next game with a gritty 2-1 win over West Brom. The Magpies, with a new found confidence and toughness developed under Kinnear, then went on to beat Martin O’Neill’s Aston Villa 2-0 at St James’ Park the following week – a good result in anyones book.
Despite a poor 2-1 defeat at the hands of Fulham last weekend, Newcastle have begun to play better football over the last fortnight and look like a side that is on the brink of starting to get consistent results. The question for the mess that is the boardroom at St James’ is whether or not to keep Kinnear on as manager when his interim contract runs out in late November.
New Beginnings For The Magpies?
It has been bandied around in the press that Newcastle are expecting to have sealed an agreement with new owners and make a decision on Kinnear’s future by the 22nd of November. If there are to be new owners, those who take over from Mike Ashley are likely to want to make their mark on Tyneside by installing their own man in the dugout and starting afresh with the management team looking the way they want it to look.
With Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Mexican job on the line and the likes of Alan Curbishley, Juande Ramos and Avram Grant out of work, the new owners would not be blamed should they wish to replace Kinnear with a higher-profile candidate once they arrive at the club. Although Kinnear is slowly turning Newcastle around, the results the side have got under his stewardship still have not lived up to the high (perhaps excessively high) expectations of the Geordie faithful.
Kinnear is a solid, old fashioned manager – Jose Mourinho he is not. If new foreign owners come in at the end of the month they may well want a more visionary coach with more top-level experience at the helm. Kinnear is an old hand, a man who knows more about football than Stephen Hawking knows about the universe, but he simply doesn’t fit the role of a modern coach. Perhaps he is suited for a behind the scenes role, but it is difficult to see him being succesful as a Premier League manager in the long-term.
Newcastle need to find a more dynamic coach to bring on what is a talented squad at St James’ Park and the board and fans alike need to have faith and stick with in whoever that manager turns out to be. There is a nasty habit of mistrusting managers on Tyneside, something that will have to stop if Newcastle United are to progress.
Yes or No To Joe?
To conclude, keeping Kinnear at St James’ Park wouldn’t be the worst option avaliable to any prospective new owners. He is far from being a bad manager and from the outside looking in it seems as though he inspires loyalty from the players he coaches.
The issue is that if Newcastle want to become a force at the top-end of the league once again, they will need to employ a coach with a long term strategy and a mapped-out vision for the future of the club. Is Joe Kinnear, at the age of 62 and with no major trophies to his name really the man for this particular job?