Realist Kevin lowers fans’ expectations

May 6 2008 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

KEVIN Keegan has admitted he will not be able to turn Newcastle United into a Champions League club – claiming the gulf between his side and the so-called ‘Big Four’ is too big for him to bridge during the three years he is contracted to manage the Magpies.

United succumbed to title challengers Chelsea at St James’s Park yesterday in what has proved an all-too-familiar story on Tyneside this season, with goals from Michael Ballack and Florent Malouda killing off the last of their resistance.

Newcastle have taken just one point from the Premier League’s top four this season, a sobering reminder that they have a long way to go to sustain any kind of challenge to the top-flight elite. And, acknowledging the scale of the task ahead of him, Keegan delivered a pessimistic verdict when asked if he could envisage a way in which he could turn United into a team capable of breaking the domination of English football’s leading quartet of clubs.

“Not at the moment, the gulf is too big. During my time here – and I’ve got three years left – Newcastle will not be a Champions League club,” he said.

“That’s what I want to tell the fans, I don’t want to mislead them. We’ll try our best and if one of them (the top four) hits a brick wall and falls by the wayside and we can jump in there I’ll be delighted, but realistically it’s going to be tough.

“At the moment we’re a million miles away from them (Chelsea).

“This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world. The top four this season will be the same top four next year.

“But what I can say to Newcastle fans is that we’ll be trying to get fifth and win the other league that’s going on. We should make a run of that.

“Providing the owner backs me – and I’ve no proof of that yet, but no doubts he will – I can get three or four players in and if I can do that – and we have luck and no injuries to key, key players – then we might be able to win the ‘second league’ in the Premiership.”

The United manager was in animated form after the game as he sought to douse some of the expectation built up by his side’s spirited end to the season.

Yesterday’s defeat was United’s first in eight games but the sheer strength of Chelsea’s squad – which included Joe Cole as an unused sub and saw no place for Ashley Cole or Shaun Wright-Phillips – underlined Keegan’s feelings that the top four have “broken away” from the rest of the league.

Keegan also sought to clarify a post-match television interview which was interpreted by some to mean that he will not be given sufficient funds to strengthen his squad over the summer, claiming what he meant was that there was no amount of funds that could make Newcastle into title challengers.

While Keegan’s assertion that United will not be able to challenge for one of the top-four places appears to mark a scaling back of ambition since the 4-1 win at Spurs in March, the manager is adamant it does not.

He believes that finishing in one of the European qualification spots would be a sizeable achievement given the situation when he took over from Sam Allardyce.

“I think it’s very, very exciting to finish fifth in the league for Newcastle,” he said. “You’d be mad in my position to say we can get in the top-four next season. You can’t ask an owner to spend that kind of money or get the players to come to this club that you would need to get in the top four.

“We lost out on (Luka) Modric to Spurs and that tells you something. It’s a blow – it’s not the end of the world.

“I’m still optimistic for this club in terms of where it’s been in the last couple of years.”