Steve McClaren

[Mattoon]

McClaren isn't a great manager by any stretch of the imagination, but to put him in the same bracket as Pardew is offensive. Much better manager and infinitely better at being a human being! Pardew can go fuck his own face.

[U2]

Yeah, McClaren has achieved way more than Pards.

[greydos]

McClaren isn't a great manager by any stretch of the imagination, but to put him in the same bracket as Pardew is offensive. Much better manager and infinitely better at being a human being! Pardew can go f*** his own face.

 

I get the feeling Pardew would absolutely love to f*** his own face

[sempuki]

McClaren isn't a great manager by any stretch of the imagination, but to put him in the same bracket as Pardew is offensive. Much better manager and infinitely better at being a human being! Pardew can go f*** his own face.

He has probably tried doing that.

[LV]

McClaren isn't a great manager by any stretch of the imagination, but to put him in the same bracket as Pardew is offensive. Much better manager and infinitely better at being a human being! Pardew can go f*** his own face.

He has probably tried doing that.

 

Wish he'd try it with a baseball bat

[Cronky]

McClaren's record suggests that if he's given the right set-up, he'll excel. If things aren't set right, the wheels come off pretty quickly.

 

Personally, I'm optimistic that the club will live up to Ashley's promise. McClaren certainly looks confident and well up for it.

[LRD]

"Ashley's promise".

[Skeletor]

The only part of Ashley's promise he'll keep is that he won't leave.

[BONTEMPI]

McClaren's record suggests that if he's given the right set-up, he'll excel. If things aren't set right, the wheels come off pretty quickly.

 

Personally, I'm optimistic that the club will live up to Ashley's promise. McClaren certainly looks confident and well up for it.

 

You're really lapping this shit up aren't you?

[Yorkie]

Do you think McClaren is a better manager than Pardew, Cranky?

 

They've both had their ups and downs in their career. If it wasn't for McClaren's Derby experience, I wouldn't say there's a lot to choose, but McClaren had them playing really good football. People should see beyond the collapse in the final half of the season, to look at what he achieved there. McClaren has also won trophies and has a broader range of experience, of course.

 

But what I think will make the big difference is that McClaren will have better players to choose from.

 

Hopefully, Dive. 

 

Cabaye, Ba, Cisse, Ben Arfa, Sissoko, Coloccini, Yanga-Mbiwa, Debuchy, Anita, Jonas, Haidara, Krul, etc.

 

Position: 16th.

[Hanshithispantz]

The only part of Ashley's promise he'll keep is that he won't leave.

The Cronky Dream.

[Paully]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/13/steve-mcclaren-newcastle-wait-major-trophies-mike-ashley

[Mole_Toonfan]

Do you think McClaren is a better manager than Pardew, Cranky?

 

They've both had their ups and downs in their career. If it wasn't for McClaren's Derby experience, I wouldn't say there's a lot to choose, but McClaren had them playing really good football. People should see beyond the collapse in the final half of the season, to look at what he achieved there. McClaren has also won trophies and has a broader range of experience, of course.

 

But what I think will make the big difference is that McClaren will have better players to choose from.

 

Hopefully, Dive. 

 

Cabaye, Ba, Cisse, Ben Arfa, Sissoko, Coloccini, Yanga-Mbiwa, Debuchy, Anita, Jonas, Haidara, Krul, etc.

 

Position: 16th.

 

[Ikon]

[TRon]

I don't think Mourinho is great at it but he is very decisive. If it's going wrong in 30 mins. he'll make a change.

 

Didn't he use all three subs against us around half time, getting the inevitable injury after that in the FA Cup one year.  Still, chalk one up on the lessons learned board.

Yep, 1-0 under Souness in early '05. Shearer knackered Wayne Bridge.

 

I don't think Mourinho is great at it but he is very decisive. If it's going wrong in 30 mins. he'll make a change.

 

Didn't he use all three subs against us around half time, getting the inevitable injury after that in the FA Cup one year.  Still, chalk one up on the lessons learned board.

 

Kluivert

 

Was that the bullet header in the late afternoon snow game? Probably one of my best club related memories of actually being at St. James' that particular game. Surreal atmosphere.

 

Edit: just found it on Youtube (search for "Newcastle v Chelsea F.A. Cup 4th. Round" then 1:45 in). That Robert cross

 

That left foot...both a wand and a hammer, execute as needed. 

[Tiresias]

Guardian being quite brutal about McClaren, though presumably half over the exclusive interview deal

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/13/steve-mcclaren-newcastle-wait-major-trophies-mike-ashley

 

Fact: as Real Madrid’s new manager, Rafa Benítez, was fond of saying. West Ham’s returning hero Slaven Bilic played 48 games for the Irons. He agreed a move to Everton a little over a year after joining Harry Redknapp in east London and would have made more appearances for the Merseyside club than his present employers but for the injury exacerbated at France 98 that ultimately shortened his career.

 

None of which really matters. During his time at Everton he agreed to be interviewed by a group of Sunday journalists, who duly arrived at the club’s rackety old Bellefield training ground to be ushered with the player into a glorified garden shed. “Is this where Everton interviews normally take place?” Bilic asked in a whisper. Afraid so, came the collective reply. “Well then, let’s go to the pub instead,” the Croat said with a wink, producing his car keys and offering anyone who needed it a lift to the nearest hostelry.

 

Once we were ensconced in said tavern, doing a lively lunchtime trade like most Liverpool boozers, drinks were naturally paid for by the press – we do have some principles – but Bilic wanted to be more hospitable still. “I’ll get the cigarettes,” he said, striding over to the machine and producing a pack of 20 that he unwrapped and placed open on the table amid the tape recorders and Dictaphones.

 

Not many of us smoked, indeed Bilic did not partake, but as a gesture of friendliness and openness it is lodged in the memory. Bilic’s credentials as a Premier League manager may not be blindingly obvious, as with Steve McClaren there have been a few bumps and bruises since their fateful Wembley meeting in 2007, but West Ham fans will like him. He is not one for always doing as he is told.

 

McClaren, on the other hand, made his long-anticipated Newcastle move heavily compromised by the club’s absurd restrictions on press access. If ever a manager could have done with taking his new public down to the pub and winning them over with a few rounds of drinks and cigarettes it was this one, at this club. Yet McClaren meekly toed the party line and agreed to speak only to Newcastle’s “preferred” media outlets of Sky and the Daily Mirror. “Let the dust settle first,” he pleaded to reporters attempting to speak to him outside the ground.

 

Presumably the fact that McClaren has joined the Newcastle board while Mike Ashley has stepped down is some sort of public relations in-joke. Ditto the laughable suggestion, gleaned from the club’s official statement on the matter, that McClaren was fired by enthusiasm for the Newcastle job when he saw Ashley break his silence on television – Sky, naturally – on the last day of the season to promise that he was determined to stick around until the club won a trophy.

 

Assuming he was not referring to second-tier silverware, which Newcastle have managed to pick up on a couple of occasions after dropping out of the top flight, that scenario could involve Ashley sticking around for some time. Of the main domestic prizes, the last trophy Newcastle won was the 1955 FA Cup, so long ago that most people in the country were unable to watch it on television. The only prize since was the proto-Uefa Cup, in 1969, back when it was still called the Fairs Cup.

 

So unless McClaren has hidden depths as a manager that he kept well-hidden in his spells at Derby, Nottingham Forest and Wolfsburg, Ashley and the long-suffering Toon Army could be in for a long wait. Sorry, make that an even longer wait. It is true that McClaren has won a couple of things in his time, and credit to him for that, particularly picking up his career in the Netherlands with Twente after the shattering experience with England, but essentially there is a disconnect here. If Ashley is so determined to win a trophy, why not hire a manager with more of a winning pedigree? With all due respect to McClaren, he is not the sort of managerial name that excites fans or shifts season tickets.

 

Even at Middlesbrough he was far from popular and the season tickets he did manage to shift were the ones ripped up in front of the dugout by irate supporters. His elevation to England seemed ill-starred from the start and so it turned out. Good luck to all on Tyneside but this puffery about hiring an innovative and forward-thinking coach belongs to the last century. Manchester United hired that man but only as an assistant.

 

What Ashley seems to be saying, when you read the details about a contract heavily incentivised towards winning a trophy, is that he would now quite like one if it came along – Newcastle were in the habit of regarding cups as distractions – but does not expect it any time soon and is not prepared to spend money to chase silverware.

 

What he needs is a competent manager, the hapless John Carver having proved otherwise, who can keep the club on its lucrative mid-table track without any more relegation scares.

 

McClaren may be able to do that, though a lot depends on early results and building a relationship with fans. Newcastle supporters crave a commitment to bold, attacking football and McClaren has never managed that in the Premier League.

 

They also dislike Ashley and will be suspicious of a yes-man. Again, McClaren has something to prove in that area, though any manager signing up to the Ashley regime is automatically compromised. Take the job and do as you are told.

 

Something journalists learn over the years is always to heed a manager’s first pronouncements on joining a club because you never quite know how long he will be around and in some cases his first words are his wisest, his best or even his last. When David Moyes went to Everton, his remark about it being the people’s club on Merseyside went down so well that within months the slogan was festooned all over Goodison Park.

 

McClaren did not have anything quite so slick to say, though as unofficial mottos go, “Let the dust settle first” is not a bad summary of present‑day Newcastle.

[TRon]

While that article does have some valid doubts over McClaren, a lot of the criticism really should be aimed at Ashley. The transfer budget, no cup win policy and media bans are all down to him.

[Andy]

The article pretty on point, but it's soured by the fact that it blatantly only exists because the club won't speak to them.

[Dave]

As the dust begins to settle on the managerial arrival and attentions turn towards transfer activity, here are some initial thoughts on the appointment of Steve McClaren. 

 

It wasn't just the press release date of January 2015 that brought a sense of deja vu, with the obligatory "great club, great fans, sleeping giant" mantra repeated.

 

In fairness it's hard to see what else could be said - other than an apology for something that wasn't his fault - and some of the rhetoric evident in his Chronicle interview online here was getting towards Kevin Keegan territory. Well, they both come from Yorkshire anyway...

 

His claim to have always wanted the job is also hardly original, but doubtless it became even more attractive when he found himself out of work - something that will have endeared Steve to his new employers (the last manager United paid to release from a post elsewhere was Graeme Souness from Blackburn Rovers in 2004).

 

The unveiling though was a select affair in stark contrast to the coronation of messrs Dalglish, Robson, Gullit and Shearer without a single fan in sight - even JFK was flanked by a crowd of urchins for his first press call.

 

That journalists were also in short supply - at least for the first 24 hours - was a fact irrelevant to many fans, but of deep concern not only to those directly affected

 

Aside from the club's own media staff, one TV network and one national newspaper were permitted an audience, with local reporters and writers all excluded. Relaying that to people of our acquaintance outside the region led to questions whether the NCJ press ban still applied.

 

Those actions will fuel the cynicism of those reluctant to believe in the promised new era of communication and what look like naive hopes that press restrictions would actually be eased as a result.

 

Instead, this may well be a taste of things to come, with predictions that this season will see the club test Premier League guidelines on media access, with absolutely no regard to convention and accepted practice.

 

McClaren cannot be blamed for that, but after the highs and lows of his CV he'll be as aware of anyone what use the press can be - and what havoc they can wreak if they have to go out and find stories themselves. It's in his own interest for a communications review to be on the agenda when the new board meet for the first time.

 

One thing in his favour was the departure of coaches who may have been victims of circumstance, but who should never have been put in the positions they were, as yet another half of a season was willfully tossed off in the (almost) misguided assumption that we were "safe".

 

There are warning signs as management by committee becomes more obvious via the board revamp, McClaren already admitting that he'll be guided by advice on the viability of the current squad from his new colleagues.

 

Surely even Lee Charnley wouldn't seek to claim that he had great knowledge in the area of player evaluation, while Graham Carr's knowledge surely comes from the pre-Magpies career of our recruits? How much can the latter have seen of Remy Cabella and Emmanuel Riviere in the Premier League to assess their suitability?      

 

Although the club were reluctant to admit that anything was wrong with our direction or progress under Alan Pardew, for McClaren to have arrived and merely occupied the vacant chair would have left him tarnished in the eyes of some without a ball having being kicked. 

 

As much as fresh blood is required in the squad, new faces and ideas are also needed among the coaches to try and rectify our perpetual failings (corners, dead balls, defending set pieces, distribution from defence etc.) 

 

Laughably, the newspapers were instantly full of stories suggesting that McClaren had "opened talks" with a host of players, suggesting that the journalists concerned didn't quite understand how we conduct transfers. 

 

Regardless of that though, his influence has to extend further than trying to revitalise Cheick Tiote via an old pals' act. Never mind transfer dealings, worries persist that team selections aren't purely made by our boss. 

 

One intriguing prospect is the fate of the Nottingham Forest duo Karl Darlow and Jamaal Lascelles, who now return to United after a season at the City Ground.

 

McClaren's stint in charge of Forest during 2011 came while goalkeeper Darlow was at the club, having been acquired for their academy three years earlier on the advice of Aston Villa coach Eric Steele - a regular coaching colleague of McClaren over the years.

 

He may never have picked Darlow for the first team but has looked on from the other end of the A52 in the last two seasons and sent his Rams side out three times to try and score past him (Darlow played in a 1-0 win, 0-5 defeat and a 1-1 draw against Derby).

 

Lascelles meanwhile had signed his first professional contract at Forest shortly before McClaren arrived and debuted at senior level shortly after his departure. Like Darlow though, he featured for Forest in East Midlands derby matches and scouting reports on his form and failings will have passed across McClaren's desk.

 

Given that knowledge, it will interesting to see whether McClaren declares either or both suitable for top flight selection or prefers to look elsewhere to fill those spots in his side (if persistent rumours that Tim Krul is seeking a new club this summer have substance).

 

That may one early source of conflict, while resisting the pressure to field fringe players that Pardew succumbed to is another potential flashpoint. That's a reference to the refusal of Pardew's request for signings before the 2012/13 season and the "solution" offered of fielding the likes of Adam Campbell and Romain Amalfitano. We bought five players in the next window. 

 

Mention of the January window also raises the question of what power McClaren will wield at that point in the season. It's a fair bet he won't repeat Pardew's "over my dead body" line about Andy Carroll leaving but it remains to be seen whether he can initialise transfer activity. 

 

Put simply, if the head coach seeks reinforcements in mid-season then that request has to be the trigger for action - rather than an evaluation of whether our points tally on January 1st triggers some panic buying. 

 

There's also a worry that McClaren picked out the season -closing victory over West Ham to eulogise over and set as a benchmark to attain next season.

 

Yes there was a better atmosphere than the funereal ones that had become the norm  but aside from that indefinable "passion" from players (at least one who has now left), there were worrying deficiencies in our play. 

 

Allardyce's mob were also the perfect opposition for us: it's hard to think of more listless and pliant opponents, and if they didn't throw in the towel, then they hardly worked up enough of a sweat to need a shower.

 

He may been busy watching his Derby side implode further up the M1 on the first Saturday in May, but hopefully Steve's mate with that big screen TV stuck our woeful defeat at nearby Leicester City on his Sky+.

 

Sitting through that 90 minutes would give a far better indication of the low ebb that this club had sunk to and the incredible lack of care, fight and discipline that was shown by what will form the basis of his starting XI. 

 

A big part of his job has to be coaxing performances from those discredited players, whether by motivation or fear. 

 

If only to rehabilitate players to a level where they can be moved on, he cannot afford to isolate squad members in the manner of the current Crystal Palace boss did and Carver ended up doing by accident or design.  

 

For all the talk of top eight finishes and silverware, that declaration about trying in the cup competitions has been viewed as progress. That alone underlines how little has to be achieved here for McClaren to be an improvement. 

 

Given the current status and standing of this club, it's difficult for us to believe that a better candidate could be persuaded to come and work for this regime than him.

 

McClaren remains the only living manager to have won a domestic trophy at one of the three main clubs in the region, while he's experienced a European final and an FA Cup semi-final since his new employers. He has to have something more than war stories to recount.

 

Sadly for Steve, he has to contend not only with the results of several wasted transfer windows, but also a fanbase who have been weaned on false dawns.

 

Uninspiring, one-dimensional or a safe pair of hands, he's as competent as we could have hoped for and there has to be at least a shred of optimism that he and the club have an ambition beyond improving the balance sheet. 

 

McClaren's challenge is simple: to get fans off their seats at St.James' Park cheering their team on, rather than heading for the exits. Build it and they will come back.

[Lenny]

Read that yesterday. Don't always agree with them but I do like to hear what they think.

[Guest chopey]

Has McClaren actually started work yet

[Yorkie]

Has McClaren actually started work yet

 

Well he's already kissed Ashley's arse a couple of times so the job's in full swing I'd say.

[Ronaldo]

Has McClaren actually started work yet

 

Well he's already kissed Ashley's arse a couple of times so the job's in full swing I'd say.

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zFYtPYwEWNc/U8nWUsKvh_I/AAAAAAAAJ3g/cgML9VIyGiM/s1600/Pennywise+13.gif

[Guest Gino14]

I get the Guardian being critical of McClaren.  He's not exactly got an unblemished record or anything, I'm not quite getting where the love for Bilic is coming from in that article though, at least not in terms of his management record.  It just seems to come from a place of London media bias and hatred of Newcastle for banning half the press.  Bilic could potentially be a very good manager, but he doesn't have a record of perfection.  He as has been pointed out, led Locomotiv Moskow to their worst season ever and I doubt we'd be that excited to have him here.  He had some success early, but hasn't really done that much since.  Suddenly he's about to become a great success though and McClaren a guaranteed failure?  That's just not really how Football works, it really just depends on so many things and the author of the article has a lot of arrogance about it.

[STM]

When I read that Guardian article I thought it was far too single minded.

 

Our relationship with the media will play very little part on our success on the pitch. In fact it will be largely forgotten by the time the league kicks off.