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Keegan high-wire act collapses too easily

Some things you couldn't make up. Kevin Keegan’s big project, which opened last year near Glasgow, is called Soccer Circus. And yes, clowns often come to mind when you think of St James’ Park.

But easy jokes notwithstanding, it’s hard to make sense of Keegan’s return to Newcastle United. It was on Tyneside that Keegan had his glory years as a manager, forging a team that seemed like the last stand of Corinthian spirit at the very moment money was creating a grim era of superclubs. Just before the phrase "big four" came into the national consciousness with soul-destroying force, Keegan’s cavaliers gave us a mad couple of years of entertainment.

Americans to feel Liverpool fans' fury

Listen carefully tonight if you are watching the televised FA Cup replay between Liverpool and Luton Town. You’ve seen Anfield bounce, you’ve seen it protest – a year ago, the magnificent six-minute demonstration about the lingering lies that surround Hillsborough overshadowed the FA Cup tie against Arsenal. But, it’s unlikely you will have seen it as angry as it will be tonight.

Tom Hicks’s statement yesterday that the club had sounded out Jurgen Klinsmann to replace Rafael Benitez has left the hard-core support furious. Now, Hicks and George Gillett Jr will find out what it’s like to get on the wrong side of the ‘twelfth man’.

Hello, Spin Central? It's the Sports Minister here, again

Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, today contributed to another pressing debate by calling for an enquiry into the number of foreigners in English football. The man who sagely noted that John Terry is overpaid should not, however, be criticised for his latest announcement. This (unreliable) transcript of a confidential telephone conversation shows he was only acting on advice . . .

"Hello, Spin Central at Millbank call centre. May I take your name? Hello Mr Sutcliffe. May I call you Stuart? I'm sorry, Gerry, I misheard you. How may I help you? Ah name recognition. Yes, Gary. Yes I can see it's a problem.

"OK, let me get this straight. You've been promoted in the reshuffle and no one knows you. I see. I understand, Gerry. Sport. Mmmm. The problem with Sport is it's a short career. Look at Banks and Hoey. Has-beens. Washed up. Moynihan's scratching a living but you must not, under any circumstances, get into that Olympic mess. Stay out of it.

"No, the man you should be looking to emulate is Mellor. A rumour goes around that he wears a football shirt and BOOM! he gets a column in a newspaper. Punditry. That's the way of the future. So you need to get into football. It's perfect.

The most selfish bunch of stiffs to wear the Three Lions

It’s hard to believe that the future for England seemed golden as recently as last month. A clutch of 3-0 victories appeared to indicate that Euro 2008 could be anticipated with glee.

Now, we prepare to watch the slow, painful strangulation of Steve McClaren. Unless Israel or Macedonia can pull off a shock at the weekend, the lynch mob will begin to gather on Saturday and begin the torchlit journey to Wembley on Wednesday night. In seven days’ time, if events go as anticipated and Russia win in Tel Aviv, we will see an England manager pilloried by his nation. Expect heightened levels of invective as McClaren clings to a job that will be untenable as soon as the Russians start celebrating. How, the nation is entitled to ask, has he botched qualification in a European Championship group that appeared awkward rather than difficult? Especially with this squad. The golden generation.

Put a sock in it, Cheryl

“I find what all footballers get paid obscene.”

You’ve heard it, you’ve probably said it. When fans had to pay £45 to get into St Andrew’s on Saturday to watch Birmingham City play Manchester United — it’s £15 when Bolton Wanderers visit — they were probably thinking it.

It’s the knee-jerk reaction of most fans. The quote above comes from Cheryl Tweedy, who is married to Ashley Cole. When a wife complains that her spouse is being paid too much, surely that’s an indication that things have gone too far? It’s a sign that the world’s turned upside down, right?

Cash-rich Arsenal reveal the vulgar truth

“Vulgarity is a sign of vigour,” Sir James Goldsmith said, justifying the economics and philosophy that we would come to know, erroneously, as Thatcherism. Vulgarism would have been a better name for a world view that put profit at the top of the agenda, said society is dead and claimed that history was finished.

Goodbye, Jose, it was nice knowing you...

Managers, who needs them? Certainly not billionaires. So goodbye, Jose, it’s been nice knowing you. Always the showman, you enlivened many a slow day.

Everyone’s an expert in this business. Me, you, Roman Abramovich... We’d all like to tell Michael Essien how to play and pick a team to go out and play Manchester United. Except it’s not that easy.

... though Mourinho was not without his faults

That does not mean to say that Mourinho comes out of the Stamford Bridge compost heap smelling of roses. Not at all.

The Portuguese may believe he is the best manager in the world - and he’s certainly in the top five. He may believe that he should be allowed to operate as he likes, without interference. And, largely, he should.

But when one of the richest men in the world owns the club, even a Special One should modify his behaviour a little. Even an outsize ego like Mourinho’s must realise that a Russian oligarch should not be trifled with. If the owner demands more attacking football, telling him, in effect, that he should pick the team himself is not a great career move. If Mourinho had shown a touch of humility in his dealings with Abramovich, the owner might not have found the need to build up the kitchen cabinet that chipped away at the manager’s powerbase.

Abramovich, according to his biographers, can be insecure and conscious of his humble roots. If that’s true, abrasive self-confidence is probably not the way to deal with him. As in most divorces, there’s fault on both sides.

Rested Torres is new benchmark for Benitez

Managers. Who needs them? They ask for money, they buy players and then act in a manner that confuses ownership and astounds the man on the terraces. Take Rafael Benitez. He complains he has had to shop in the bargain basement and is rewarded with big money by the American owners of Liverpool.

He spends it on Fernando Torres, who has a great start to his career in England. After scoring three goals in three league games, Torres is rewarded with a seat on the bench for the next two league matches. Liverpool draw 0-0 twice. Was that good management? They may be asking that question in the Anfield boardroom. They certainly are on the Kop.

As noted before, everyone’s an expert in this business. Benitez can put down a European Cup and ask the ‘experts’ whether they have won one. It’s a compelling argument, indeed. But they don’t help themselves, these managers. They really don’t.

Gerrard and Owen liberated by McClaren's water-carriers

Hooray for Michael Owen. He’s back and firing on all cylinders. And Steven Gerrard, now that he hasn’t got that dead weight of Frank Lampard to carry, has shown what he can do. The galactico theory does work, it’s just finding the right superstars. Who needs Rooney and Lampard?

Well, not quite. What the events of the past week have proven is exactly the opposite. The goals and the glamour can go to the galacticos but it is the water-carriers who deserve the glory.

Time for O'Neill to deliver for Villa

When will Martin O’Neill impose himself in the Premier League? He has been in charge of Aston Villa for a year but has not managed to dispel the grey cloud that has hung over Villa Park for more than a decade.

A home match against Liverpool, in front of a full house, should have started the season with a bang. However, neither the players nor the Holte End seemed to have the belief that the game could end in a home victory.

Kitson got exactly what he deserved

There are, as you might expect at The Times, colleagues in this workplace who went to well-known schools with illustrious Old Boys. There were a couple of famous names who went to the school I attended, the most eminent being Tommy Smith, scorer of the decisive goal in the 1977 European Cup final and No7 in Times Online’s list of hard men that appeared last week. Frankly, the Anfield Iron should have topped the bill. Placing Smith so low can only lead the reader to the inescapable conclusion that the list was compiled by a jealous Evertonian.

I say this not to highlight the discursive nature of lists but to illustrate where I stand on physical contact in football. Not only am I decidedly ‘Old School’, I am from that old school, where a rugged approach was important on and off the pitch.

Covering the issue of role models

This week we produced our Premier League preview supplement, which is in The Times on Saturday. While we were working on the cover, something occurred that gives an insight into the way you think while producing newspapers - and makes you consider how football relates to the wider world.

For the cover, we used Subbuteo players painted with the kits of the 20 Premier League clubs. Looking at it, I realised that all the models were white, which clearly does not represent the ethnic make-up of the top flight. Would this cause offence? Should we digitally manipulate our little men or would that be worse — a miniature version of The Black and White Minstrels show?

Baines plays the partisan for Everton

One of the more laughable aspects of the transfer window is to hear the arrivals at a club tell how they’ve supported their new team since boyhood. Last year it was Craig Bellamy who justified his move from Blackburn Rovers to Liverpool by citing a childhood allegience. This year he’s playing for West Ham United. Bellamy’s juvenile affection for Anfield didn’t do him much good.

But does claiming allegiance make the fans any more sympathetic to a newcomer? I doubt it. Because like badge-kissing, it’s one of those gestures that looks contrived.

Don't look now

The Premier League trophy was in the office this morning. It sat about two yards from me as people queued up to have their photos taken with it. Oh, the excitement. The fools.

I blanked it. Didn't look at it or go near it. After all, it's not a real trophy until it's spent a year at Anfield, is it? And what would a johnny-come-lately, flash 15-year-old have to tell anyone about football history? Bitter? Me?

In a word, yes.

(Thanks to Alex, left, for the pic)

When £135k a week is worthless

Managers hate injured players. A crock on the sidelines can do nothing for the man in the hot seat except get him the sack. Even when the injury is clearly real, managers will brood about it, felling that the player involved is malingering. Even now, Glenn Roeder must lie awake at night and think: “That little ******* Owen.”

Les Ferdinand was a fine player but one who enraged all the coaches he worked under. “If he broke a nail he’d be out for six weeks,” was the sour joke that followed him round. That’s because managers don’t care about the future. They don’t care about people’s career. They care about results. Now.

So Jose Mourinho must be full of hate today. He will be looking at the wreckage of his first-team squad and thinking evil thoughts. He doesn’t care about their pain. Doesn’t care that they can barely walk. He just wants them on the pitch and the points.

Oh, for a new Brian Clough

I spent Saturday re-reading David Peace’s The Damned Utd. It seemed appropriate — Leeds in turmoil, Community Shield  weekend...

The 1974 Charity Shield was the first at Wembley and the first to be decided on penalties, with one team led by a psychotic young manager and the other by a barking-mad elder statesman of the dugout.

Things are so different in football these days.