N’Zogbia warned to watch attitude

Apr 12 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

CHARLES N’Zogbia has been told by his Newcastle United team-mates to buck up his ideas or leave the club, writes STUART RAYNER.

The Frenchman had a transfer request refused in January and while Kevin Keegan has not given up on the talented 21-year-old, he revealed he is not the only person at St James’s Park to warn N’Zogbia about his attitude.

N’Zogbia was one of United’s best performers under Sam Allardyce despite more often than not being asked to play at left-back, a position he had been reluctant to fill in the past. But he has started just two games since late January and is unlikely to do so in this evening’s 5.15pm kick-off at Fratton Park.

Keegan is not the first Newcastle manager to openly question N’Zogbia’s attitude. Then-caretaker Nigel Pearson dropped him from the substitutes’ bench for the final game of last season, at Watford, annoyed that N’Zogbia was more engrossed in his mobile phone than the team meeting he was in. Now Keegan has inherited the problem of engaging his talented midfielder.

“What we’ve got at this club now are 16, 17 players who are totally committed as a pack to taking this club forward and Charles has just got to come into it a little bit more, in all honesty,” Keegan explained. “I think he’s been told that by the other players. The players and myself would like to keep him here because they know he can be a tremendous asset. But he’s got to be fully, fully, fully committed to Newcastle United and I think he might decide to do that. He may not but I hope he does.

“When I first came in there were eight days left of the transfer window. Charles and his agent wanted to move him out and I wouldn’t allow that.

“Having said that, I said if he did his best until the end of the season and felt the same way, I would let him go. But it would be on our terms, he’s got three years left here.”

As is his nature, however, Keegan is optimistic about the future of a player Newcastle only signed with great difficulty from Le Havre in 2004.

“I had a chat with him on Friday. His training in the last week has been the best since I’ve been here,” he said. “If he can learn to be a team player with his individual skill, he will be a hell of an asset and I would like that club to be Newcastle United. But he has got to come into the team and he knows that too. I’m not saying anything to you I haven’t said to him.”

With Newcastle’s Premier League future now all-but assured, Keegan’s thoughts can now turn to the summer, when he insists the only departures will be on his terms.

“We are safe, I think, but we’re not mathematically safe yet,” said a manager who has finalised his pre-season plans but is yet to tell his squad.

“When we are, we’ll talk about Stephen Carr and Peter Ramage, there’s also James Troisi (out of contract in the summer). We’re aware of that but, with the greatest respect to those players, they’re not the priority when we’re fighting for survival. They’ll come up over the next week or two. We’re doing everything stage by stage.

“But there’s no point strengthening your squad and then letting your best players go. None of those players have come and knocked on my door and said they want to leave so, until that happens, I will just assume they want to play for this club and fulfil their contracts.

“I don’t think you will find any of them coming in front of the cameras or in front of the Press and saying it is not a good club to be at.”