Alan Shearer poised for Newcastle return

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Alan Shearer is likely to be reinstated as Newcastle manager if Tyneside businessman Barry Moat completes his takeover of the club.

By Paul Kelso Chief Sports Reporter [Telegraph]
Published: 11:20AM BST 06 Aug 2009

As Telegraph Sport disclosed last night, talks between Moat and advisors to current owner Mike Ashley are underway in London this morning, with the broad terms of a £100m deal thought to have been agreed.

While a deal has not yet been confirmed there is a chance that it could be sealed in principle by Saturday, when Newcastle open their first Championship season in 16 years, away to West Bromwich Albion.

Shearer, who is currently on holiday in Portugal, is scheduled to be summarising the match for the BBC, and is currently due to fulfil the commitment.

He is likely to speak in detail about the prospects of a return to Newcastle on Football focus at lunchtime.

Moat, a millionaire with extensive property and telecoms interests, is an associate of Shearer's having served on his testimonial committee, and is expected to offer the former England captain the manager's job.

Shearer left the post just two months ago having failed to keep Newcastle in the Premier League, and has made it clear he would relish the chance to bring them straight back up.

Lawyers for the two sides are working on the final terms of an agreement that would see Moat pay Ashley £100m for the club.

Moat has put up £50m of his own money and is thought to have secured bank funding for the remaining £50m.

While negotiations over the sale continue the club continues to try and offload players from the payroll.

Sebastien Bassong could depart as early as today, with Tottenham favourites to secure his signature for around £10m, and there is a chance of at least one other departure.

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Newcastle blame Mike Ashley for their demise, not southerners

Posted by Louise Taylor Thursday 6 August 2009 12.39 BST guardian.co.uk

There is no feeling of north-south divide on Tyneside – Mike Ashley simply failed miserably at Newcastle

Assumptions are dangerous. They often prompt prejudices and then things can turn unpleasant. Placed in a wider context, Joe Kinnear's assumption that Newcastle United fans do not like Londoners running their football club is a lazy misunderstanding, sufficiently laughable to be taken with a pinch of salt. After all how could anyone take the following seriously.

"I think Mike Ashley got a lot of unfair criticism last year, I think anybody from London does, that's the way life is up there," said Newcastle's former manager who has always made much of his Irishness. Despite being largely brought up in Watford, Kinnear was born in Dublin and is awfully proud of it. Meanwhile, if we are splitting hairs, Ashley, the club's owner, was born in Buckinghamshire.

And yet we maybe shouldn't just shrug, shake our heads about this latest JFK-ism and move on. "It's awful public relations for the region," reflected one Geordie yesterday. "It sort of reinforces the idea of a north-south divide and the impression a surprising number of people in the south seem to have that we're all a bit backward and insular and living on benefits."

In reality Newcastle is the city where YO! Sushi, the Japanese restaurant chain, saw its most successful UK launch when it opened a franchise in Fenwick department store. Its airport boasts daily flights to Dubai on Emirates, thereby linking the region to the Far East and Australia. The Royal Shakespeare company regularly praises audiences at the Theatre Royal as among the country's most knowledgeable. And yes, it also has a Waitrose now. With high streets, towns and cities up and down the UK increasingly homogenised these days and Tyneside's heavy industries virtually all long gone, Newcastle is not so very different from many other places.

Equally the fans of its football team – who nowadays often work in computers, service industries or the public sector – are no more or less demanding than those of a lot of rivals. Had, for instance, Mike Ashley bought Tottenham Hotspur, installed Dennis Wise as football director and run events at White Hart Lane in the same shambolic way as at St James' Park, Spurs fans would surely long since have turned on him, southerner or not.

Quite simply Ashley's hamfisted regime has ruined newly relegated Newcastle – so when the Toon Army unfurled banners declaring "Cockney Mafia Out", it was a symbol of intense sadness and frustration rather than any intrinsic hatred of Londoners. Instead Magpies fans have loads of Londoners they love. Glenn Roeder will always be guaranteed the warmest of welcomes when he returns to Tyneside – ask almost any Newcastle supporter and they will tell you how disappointing it was that things didn't quite work out for Roeder during his managerial stint at St James'. Unlike Kinnear, Roeder has class and dignity in abundance.

Then there's Rob Lee. The erstwhile England midfielder didn't really want to join Newcastle as a player but he quickly fell in love with the place. Were his great friend Alan Shearer to be installed as Newcastle's manager the Toon Army would be delighted to see Lee installed as his deputy. There are countless more examples but you get the drift.

And on the subject of Shearer, he and Kevin Keegan are far from the only managers who would pass muster with St James' season-ticket holders. "Up there KK and Shearer are their two Messiahs and that's who they want all the time," said Kinnear, thereby inferring that Newcastle was firmly under the spell of some fundamentalist type messiah cult. "You get it whoever you are," Kinnear added. "That's just the way they are up there ... And so you just have to bite the bullet and get on with it if you're not one of those two."

Does he really imagine José Mourinho, Guus Hiddink, Arsène Wenger or Rafa Benítez would be told they were not welcome? Significantly in "who do you want as manager" polls in local north-east papers Gérard Houllier attracted an awful lot of votes as a favoured option.

Admittedly there is a romantic, slightly sentimental streak running through a part of Newcastle's support but many fans feel Keegan's day has passed and, while Shearer is widely wanted, it is acknowledged that he is not the only managerial pebble on the beach.

True they hanker for someone, from wherever, with some style, a touch of glamour and possibly a bit of bling – which is why Sam Allardyce didn't work out – but, right now, at the current nadir, Steve McClaren might even be welcomed with open arms. Thinking about it, he might not be such a bad shout to extricate them from this summer's mess. As a former Middlesbrough manager McClaren is not blind to the north-east's perceived big drawback: geography.

At Sunderland, Steve Bruce, a Geordie manager, has made the subject his soundtrack of the summer. "It's about geography," he has kept sighing as assorted players, most notably Peter Crouch – egged on by his partner Abbey Clancy – said "thanks but no thanks, isn't it a bit far north?"

Maybe part of the problem is that so many football men's attitudes seem stuck in the 1950s and they suffer from a surprisingly common failure to "see the bigger picture". Happily, in other spheres it seems people have acknowledged that we are a small island and Newcastle is only three hours' drive from Manchester and an hour's flight from London.

One North East, the regional development agency, tells me: "For the past six years the north-east has had the fastest rate of business start-ups in the UK – including many [coming] from London and the south-east. The north-east is well known for being one of the most welcoming areas of the UK," Then it adds: "David Still, CEO of US firm Clipper Wind, which recently built the word's biggest offshore wind turbine in the north-east, says he has no problem in persuading people to relocate to the north-east from California."

Then there is Brendan Murphy, the International Trade director at the North East Chamber of Commerce, who has helped ensure the region does a lot of business with overseas companies, including several from China and the Middle East. He sees it as anything but an insular and culturally idiosyncratic patch.

"Like Joe Kinnear I'm from Ireland," said Murphy. "But I've always found the north-east people to be very open with a real outward focus. I've lived here eight years and I've learnt that business in the region is open to anybody coming in from anywhere as long as they can demonstrate they can make a difference."

Unfortunately Mike Ashley and his cohorts failed miserably to step up to the plate. In the process they have brought a wonderful football club to its knees. That, and no other reason, is why they are loathed at most points north of Scotch Corner.

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Its actually a fantastic business opportunity for anyone with that kind of money. Get them back into the top half of the premiership and sell them on for 3x the price in a couple of years