Mort infuriated by takeover talk

Feb 22 2008 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

NEWCASTLE United chairman Chris Mort has praised Kevin Keegan’s impact as manager as he vehemently denied the club was for sale following intense speculation last weekend that owner Mike Ashley was looking for a buyer.

The Journal understands both Ashley and Mort are growing increasingly exasperated by the constant flow of stories suggesting they are looking to make a quick profit by selling the club for £300m, just eight months after they took control from majority shareholder Sir John Hall and chairman Freddie Shepherd. But both are considerably happier with the return of Keegan as manager, with Mort adamant he has already had a positive impact at virtually every level of the club, despite failing to win any of the five games he has been in charge.

“We absolutely appreciate the impact Kevin has made,” said Mort. “It is clear that Kevin has had an immediate and very positive impact.

“The feedback from the players and backroom staff has all been very positive. Although the players are working harder in training, they are enjoying it more.

“Of course, we appreciate it will take time for Kevin to turn things around. He has a three-and-a-half year contract and we are looking to see what can be achieved over that period.

“He has already got the team playing more football and I am comfortable that the results will follow once we get that first win. We also appreciate that we could have seen out this season and brought Kevin to the club in the summer, but that would have meant another transition season next season and we wanted to avoid that.”

Nevertheless, while Mort is keen to see some stability at the club after years of managerial upheaval, he is angered by those he feels have deliberately been trying to undermine that process at boardroom level ever since the takeover last summer.

United’s future ownership has been the subject of constant speculation this season, with stories regularly appearing in the media claiming Ashley wants to make a quick profit on his £250m investment.

The latest of these was a report last weekend that former captain Alan Shearer was being lined up to front a new buy-out consortium and that Ashley had also approached Dubai Investment Capital, the Middle Eastern consortium attempting to purchase Liverpool from joint-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, about a possible sale.

This was described as “absolute rubbish” by Mort last night and United’s chairman feels there is a deliberate campaign by unnamed parties “to cause disruption to the club by spreading so many false rumours about a takeover.”

Mort added: “The reality is that the Alan Shearer story on Sunday and the PCP (finance group supposedly brokering DIC deal) story on Monday were both absolute rubbish. Alan has obviously denied he has been approached by a consortium and we had never heard of PCP until Monday’s story.”

If the takeover rumours are a headache for Ashley and Mort, the arrival of title-chasers Manchester United to St James’s Park tomorrow, just a month after they thrashed the Magpies 6-0 at Old Trafford, will be a cause for concern for Keegan and his players.

Mort was in the directors’ box on that dark day for the club, but he feels revenge on Saturday could be the spark that ignites Newcastle’s recovery under Keegan. He said: “It hurt me as much as anyone to watch it, but I appreciated before the game how low the players’ morale had got over the months leading up to the Man Utd game, so it was not a huge surprise.

“It is a memory we’d all like to appease with a good result this weekend. Clubs tend to go on winning runs and losing runs and Man United would not be a bad time to bring our losing run to an end and to start getting in to a winning habit again.” According to Keegan, Newcastle still need another 12 points to be sure of safety this season, but the club already have one eye on the summer and the re-opening of the transfer window.

With 12 months experience of running a football club behind him, Mort is convinced Newcastle will be better prepared for the transfer market than they were during his first summer at the helm.

He explained: “The club will be better prepared as we have a manager and scouting team with several months to consider both where we need strengthening and who we might bring in, whereas last summer we had a new manager and new senior scouting staff joining in the summer that had not worked at the club previously.

“In addition, whilst I appreciate we have had a poor run of results, we have a much stronger squad of players now than that with which we finished last season. So we will also have the advantage of adding new players to a much stronger base.”