Newcastle go into an early-season derby with a dressing room of disaffected senior players. It sounds like a re-run of 1999 but, says Stuart Rayner, there are significant differences.

NO Tyne-Wear derby has started earlier in a season than Saturday’s, but the extra preparation time did Ruud Gullit no favours in 1999.

When Sunderland visited St James’ Park on August 25, 1999, the Magpies were in disarray.

They had only one point under their belt from four games – despite having led in three. The winless streak extended to the previous season’s FA Cup semi-final, which went to extra-time.

The main problems, however, were off the field, where senior players were being alienated.

If the suspicion is that Alan Pardew has set about breaking up the cabal of senior players at St James’ Park – whether by choice or on orders from above – there is no doubt that is what his predecessor Gullit was trying to do 12 years ago.

None had successfully been forced out, as Kevin Nolan thinks he was in May, but that was only because they had taken the Joey Barton/Alan Smith approach of digging their heels in and seeing out their contracts.

Rob Lee had been dropped the heaviest of hints when he was not even given a squad number, while Steve Harper’s nose was put out of joint by unexpectedly losing his place. Most significantly, though, Gullit was gunning for Alan Shearer. He later claimed to have told the striker to his face that he was “the most overrated player I have ever seen”. The Dutchman thought his No.9 was over-powerful and “didn’t want to try”, harbouring a grudge “after his mate Kenny Dalglish was sacked” – although curiously it did not stop him adding to Shearer’s influence by giving him another captain’s armband to go with the won he wore for his country.

Shearer faced the indignity of being dropped to the bench (right) – along with Duncan Ferguson, on his way back from injury. As if that were not bad enough, the man in their place was the untried Paul Robinson, a boyhood Sunderland fan and £500,000 signing from Darlington. It was one of the most infamous decisions in derby history and backfired badly on the Dutchman. Sunderland won the derby, Shearer the power struggle.

Gullit’s management career and Robinson’s playing one, never really recovered.

“Looking back, the derby probably was a case of too much, too young,” the latter would later admit. “That game made me, or so people thought. It was obviously flattering to be picked and everyone wanted to know about the kid who kept Alan Shearer out of the team.

“But I’d rather have played in it at 26 or 27 years-old rather than at 20.

“I’m a Sunderland lad, so I knew how massive the derby was. But I wasn’t ready for all the attention which came with it.

“It was very difficult telling yourself ‘you’re keeping Shearer and Ferguson on the bench’ and not getting carried away.”

Robinson was substituted after 57 goalless minutes – by Ferguson, not Shearer – and would only play 11 more matches for the Magpies.

Newcastle were leading 1-0 at that stage through a goal by Kieron Dyer, wearing the No.7 shirt Lee had been evicted from. Having already shot himself in the foot when he pinned up the team-sheet (which is when Shearer found out about his demotion), it gave Gullit the ammunition to blow his toes off. After the match he pointed out that his team had been ahead until the introduction of his two big-name strikers – Shearer replaced Silvio Maric with 18 minutes to go – as if the defeat was their fault. It was not exactly what fans who had been chanting the names of Shearer and his close friend Lee all night wanted to hear.

On a night when it did not rain but it poured for the miserable home fans, Kevin Phillips and Niall Quinn put second-half goals past Tommy Wright – the goalkeeper re-signed on loan days earlier because Shay Given and John Karelse were injured and Lionel Perez was another in the overcrowded doghouse. By that stage the game could have been called off there was so much surface water on the pitch. “I would have abandoned it if any of the players had asked me to,” referee Graham Poll later revealed. “They didn’t.”

Luck, then, had clearly conspired against Gullit, who had was highly thought of when he arrived after a successful spell at Chelsea promising the “sexy football” which became the slogan of his management.

His laissez-faire approach had raised eyebrows at Stamford Bridge, and continued to long after the ill-fated spell on Tyneside. For a derby fuelled by passion the one-time playmaker came across as too cool for school.

From start to finish, it was painfully clear Gullit had just not got the Tyne-Wear derby, trivialising its importance. “I have been involved in derbies in Milan,” he said before the game. “This is just about being the best team in the region. I am very calm about it.” Much too calm.

Three days later, Gullit’s resignation letter was on Freddie Shepherd’s desk, though at least there was no solicitor’s letter demanding compensation to accompany it.

Twelve years on, another Newcastle manager goes into an early-season derby with senior players disgruntled (or in Nolan’s case gone), but the situation is far less dire. Not the derby debutant Gullit was, Pardew knows full well what is at stake when Newcastle meet Sunderland, and has reached for the olive branch rather than the big stick. History, it seems, will not be repeating itself.