FORMER United manager Glenn Roeder has urged Mike Ashley to let Kevin Keegan manage the club.
Roeder, now boss of Norwich City, says the situation at St James’s Park is a tragedy and that Keegan should be allowed to get on with his job at the club.
Roeder told me: “All Kevin wants is to be allowed to manage Newcastle United. Or should I say manage the English way.
“It is the fashion today to use the European way of putting someone between the owner and the manager in some kind of technical director role.
“But it is always difficult for a manager when someone unknown turns up at the training ground on a Monday morning.
“It never really happened to me at Newcastle. The nearest was when Freddie Shepherd came to me and said he had agreed a £5m fee with Chelsea for Damien Duff and I went along with it because I thought it was a good move for us.
“However, I can categorically say that here at Norwich City I have had 100% control over all our transfers.
“Events at Newcastle in recent years are nothing short of a tragedy.
“It’s easy for me to remember when they last won a domestic trophy because it was in 1955, the year I was born. But the people who have suffered most are the fans – the best fans in the business.”
It appears that Ashley has been left to choose between Keegan and Dennis Wise with the whole future of Newcastle United at stake.
There was even speculation today that both United’s director of football Wise and vice-president Tony Jimenez had been removed by Ashley, but this was not the case at the start of the third day of the United crisis.
Sources close to Ashley in London insisted that the club owner was always loyal to his men.
But does Ashley stick with Wise or Keegan as he appointed both of them?
There is no doubt that Keegan has been unhappy that he has not had complete control of United’s buying policy – something which, in the main, has been conducted by Wise and Jimenez.
And Keegan, who again was missing from the training ground when the players went out today, appears to want to see the back of Wise and Jimenez.
But at the same time, all Keegan is asking for is the right to manage Newcastle United.
Keegan’s situation at St James’s Park has been mirrored by the announcement that Alan Curbishley has quit West Ham because players were bought and sold behind
Meanwhile, former chairman Freddie Shepherd believes that Keegan cannot lose in the current situation, in as much if he stays he will be more powerful and if he goes there will have to be some form of financial remuneration.
And The Chronicle can reveal that Indian billionaire Anil Ambani and his Reliance Group are ready to harden up their interest in buying United.
My information is that Ambani’s representatives are coming to England on Monday with the intention of buying a Premier League club and the one they have mainly in their sights is Newcastle United.
But Mike Ashley has always insisted that he has no intention of selling United.
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