ALAN Shearer’s frustration continues to escalate following yet another costly delay in his proposed appointment as Newcastle United’s permanent manager.
Although United fans had been promised an answer by the end of this week, the silence was again deafening from within St James’s Park yesterday as nobody was willing to comment publicly on whether a decision has been made.
The Journal understands that, although Shearer is on holiday in Portugal, he was expecting to be told on Friday whether the banks who are in charge of restructuring the club’s finances had cleared his appointment on a four-year contract.
The delay is a growing source of irritation for a manager-in-waiting who is desperate to get on with the job of repairing the damage done by relegation from the top flight.
That raises fears the assurances he asked for in terms of a transfer budget, his control of player retention and his wages have not been cleared, prompting another crisis at a club which is in danger of spinning into a whirlwind of decline.
However, while there has been no official confirmation from the club or Shearer about a decision, Newcastle’s suffering supporters will continue to live in hope over the weekend that a long-awaited green light will be received from the bankers early next week.
Shearer is adamant he will only take the job if he has a realistic chance of succeeding. He does not want to be brought in as just a big name to lure supporters back to watch the team in the Championship next season while having his hands tied by strict economic constraints behind the scenes.
As far as Shearer is concerned, the delay is already a damaging one as the Magpies are stuck in limbo and have been unable to make any headway in the transfer market.
With only four weeks until the first-team squad are due to return for pre-season training, it is alarmingly unclear which players will constitute that squad, with several current members – including high earners like Joey Barton, Alan Smith and Damien Duff – indicating they are willing to stay even though the club cannot afford to keep all, if any, of them.
