Keegan hoping it really is good to talk

May 9 2008 by Mark Douglas, The Journal

Kevin Keegan meets Mike Ashley today to map out Newcastle’s summer plans and build a platform to bring European football back to Tyneside. Mark Douglas looks at the pressing issues that need to be addressed

KEVIN Keegan began the week joking that his relationship with Newcastle owner Mike Ashley was perfect because the pair never talk.

Now, having bought himself a private audience with the billionaire businessman on the back of that flippant comment delivered in the wake of United’s grim Bank Holiday defeat against Chelsea, Magpies manager Keegan will be hoping the conversation he never envisaged happening is worth the wait.

There was a thinly-veiled frustration underlying Keegan’s explosive Press conference on Monday, with the United boss understood to be privately seeking clarification on how the club’s new structure will facilitate the ambitious transfer recruitment policy he and Dennis Wise have discussed.

Additionally, the Newcastle team chief is impatient about the lack of progress on contract talks for key players like Michael Owen and Steven Taylor, two of the dressing room leaders that Keegan believes are essential to the club’s progress.

But if the manager, as was suggested this week, does see himself as “just a coach” at Newcastle United, today’s meeting brings him right back to the heart of the discussions when it comes to mapping out the immediate future of the club.

Keegan’s future is not one of the topics up for discussion, and although his animated media conference has prompted Ashley to set up the meeting, he will not take measures to rein in the public statements of a manager who has endeared himself to the St James’s Park public with his brutal honesty.

Ashley is a keen gambler – he reportedly won over £1m on the back of the spin of a roulette wheel last week – but having backed Keegan at the turn of the year, it would be a tremendously risky move to dethrone the King of St James’s Park. Indeed, Keegan would have had to have done something a lot more serious than merely throw a few ambiguous statements into a charged question-and-answer session to warrant a dismissal that would rock Tyneside – and seriously undermine the credibility of the current regime.

Still, Keegan left a few questions in the air after his post-match statements on Monday – the biggest of which surrounded the budget available for player recruitment this summer.

Candidly admitting he doesn’t know the precise amount coming his way to bring in the blue chip reinforcements he believes he needs to secure Uefa Cup football was interpreted in some quarters as an admission that funds are low.

Keegan refuted that suggestion yesterday, bringing up the sizeable outlay the club was prepared to make on Croatia star Luka Modric as an example that Ashley is prepared to finance his expansion plans. “It is obvious by the fact we went in for Modric that there is some money there. A lot of it has been put in the public domain for you. You don’t need me to spell it out for you,” he said.

“We were going to pay over three years and it was around £20m so we were going to spend in this current year, something like £6.5m on that player plus wages.”

Keegan will find out today exactly how the owner and chairman plan to help him achieve his target of fifth place, but he remains optimistic that, having harnessed some kind of momentum in the closing months of the season, he can bring success back to Tyneside. “As I said at my first Press conference, if you turn this club around, whoever it is, it is like a big ship. When it is listing and things like that, everything is exaggerated and it is a major problem.

“And when you turn it around, the momentum starts to go with you and it can go quicker than most clubs you know. You can shortcut challenges and that to get from where we are to try to get sixth or fifth place next year, which was always going to be our aim.

“Normally it would be too much in one step but this club is one of the few which could do it in one step if everything is right.

“But on that subject I do believe fifth is a good target – it’s a very good target to set ourselves from where we are now. I don’t want to rake over the ground of what I said on Monday but I believe this club is the fifth biggest club in the country and it’s not an unrealistic target. Do we want to be like Everton next season? Yes, because they’re in the frame for the fifth place.” Today’s meeting brings another twist in a fascinating week on Tyneside, which began with Keegan’s wonderfully politically incorrect statement that the top four of the Premier League has become a closed shop.

The evidence of the last six seasons provides powerful evidence for his argument, but the cynics would argue that it’s hardly wise for the manager of a club actively trying to recruit four “top, top” players to write off their chances of Champions League qualification – however true the statement might be.

Still, Keegan was in no mood to back down when grilled further.

“I think you can go round and get thousands of opinions from the fans – who I believe are always a good barometer – and not just Newcastle United fans and ask them can you get in the top four? They would probably say ‘Yes, I hope so but if we’re honest that top four has been the same for a long time’.

“I’ve seen what other people have said – Richard Scudamore and others trying to defend the league – and I fully understand that. What I expressed was my view and I stick by it. My view – and (that of) the majority of people you speak to with a knowledge of the game – is that if you look back at the last six years, the top four has been the same, bar Everton flitting into it briefly.”