By Sith Lord
December 21 2004

Sith Lord gives his views on current affairs at Newcastle. Bobby Robson was a world renowned manager with a proven track record of suceeding at every club he managed. He transformed Newcastle from a bottom 5 team to a top five team in the premiership. People were complaining that he hadn't won anything with the club, however, the starting position of NUFC when he took over we were never going to win anything. Within 4-5 years of his reign Newcastle had a squad many clubs were envious of and we had finished 4th, 3rd and 5th - with 5th missing out on 4th place and champions league football by one point and greatly down to key injuries at vital moments of the season.

To add to Robsons amazing track record, he loved this club. He would'nt ever jeapordise the clubs name for his own personal benefit or to protect himself, the club always came first. He rarely critisised (if ever) individual players and kept goings on behind closed doors as much as he could.

Our Chairman, who has called geordie women dogs, boasted about how much money he has taken off replica shirts, sold our best defender, constantly lied to supporters and consistently embarrasses us willingly swapped Robson, a great ambassador for the game, for Graeme Souness.

Graeme Souness was a firery player, a great player, but his management record leaves a lot to desire. Every club he has managed he has eventually left under a cloud, had public bust ups with players and only ever achieved mediocracy at best.

It was a CHOICE of the chairman to replace Robson with Souness. One I find hard to believe.

I don't blame Souness for the situation Newcastle are in at the moment. He wants to Succeed, he wants to win, he just doesn't have the abilty to. He lacks the intelligence to compete with the top managers and from past clubs we can see he lacks man management skills.

People may argue that it was time for Robson to go. I disagree. People were getting carried away with the small scale issues and not considering the bigger picture.

The summer of rumour after rumour, amplified by the press and added to by the players was generally down to poor top level management at the offset and links back to one mans comments at the beginning of the transfer market - Freddy Shepherd. "This will be Robsons last season". From his stupidity the papers focused in on Newcastle, the players lost respect for the manager, fickle fans started shouting for Robsons head.

With the club unstable, Shepherd then sells our best defender (admittedly looking like a good peice of business at present) and does not replace him, yet embarrasses the club by bidding for Rooney - linking to more unrest at the club.

The start of the season was always going to be difficult following a summer like that, yet one man, Bobby Robson was trying to hold it all together. Players refusing to play and key defenders missing, we had a poor start to the season - helped by poor refereeing decisions. Inevitably, this gave Shepherd and Hall the chance I feel they had been looking for to shift the blame to someone- Robson was that man.

The club is even more in turmoil, players are injured, results are diabolical, people want the manager sacked players are dropped, played out of position, critisised and Eurpoean qualification looks a long shot off.

People are complaining about the defencive players, yet we have the same players available that had an excellent defesive record last season as Woodgate didn't figure much. Obviously the way the team plays is different, less attacking yet also more of a leaky defence. This is due to the management of Souness with the type of players he has at his disposal.

As things stand, I feel we will not qualify for Europe this season and we'll finish mid-table. Kluivert wont stay after this season, Shearer will retire. Dyer will be sold in January along with Robert. Bernard will leave for free in the summer and even Bellamy or Given could leave. I think the captaincy could hold on to Jenas for a few seasons and I think we will get two centre backs in January.

We will therefore have a poor squad and a team not in Europe, with a mediocre/poor manager attracting mediocre/poor players. We will then be destined for mid-table obscurity.

In no way can I see us finishing in the top four in the next 3 years - the hard work put in by Robson to drag us from the depths will be undone.

The similarities are glearingly obvious between the Keegan - Daglish era to the Robson - Souness era. It worries me.

The one man to blame is Freddy Shepherd. His decisions, his lies ad his stupidity are what cause Newcastle to fail at the last stage and until he leaves, we always will.

Expect at least another 8-9 years before we are in the Champions league again if Shepherd is still the Chariman.

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