Souness out, but who will be in?

So I’ve let the storm die down for a few days. Souness is now just a distant (bad) memory in terms of his reign at St. James’ Park, but now the question of who will replace him remains. In the aftermath of Saturday’s performance against Portsmouth it seems clear that the team are capable of putting in a good performance with the right man in charge. The team was fairly similar to the team that played against Man City mid-week, and to the team that scraped past Cheltenham in the FA Cup the week before, so what had changed?

Well, my guess is the motivational skills in the dressing room, and the desire of the players to impress their new manager, whoever that may be. It is undoubtedly a good move in the short term to have Roeder and Shearer looking after the team. Especially Shearer. Anyone who has ever seen him play will know the commitment that he puts into each and every game. He leads by example when playing for Newcastle, he plays hard, and he plays to win. Few can question that. You have to imagine that this is also carried over to his motivational skills in the changing room, and I think that making him Roeder’s right hand man was a stroke of genius. That aside I am so glad that he has said that he doesn’t want the job full-time. I can think of no worse fate than having Shearer step in as (an inexperienced) manager next season, perform badly, and have the fans turn on him. All the good things he has done for the club as a player would be forgotten, and he would be run out of Newcastle.

In turn Roeder can’t take the job as he doesn’t have the correct coachign licenses (he can only be caretaker manager for a maximum of 3 months without the correct badges). This is also good for the Academy as he’s doing a good job there.

So we have to look elsewhere. The current top 2 names are no surprise really. Martin O’Neill is tipped as the bookies favourite, but he left Celtic to spend time with his family (his wife was seriosuly ill) and I don’t see that changing. So that comes to the man I’d like to see in the job. Kevin Keegan. Few people have managed to get a team to perform the way that Keegan did during his time at Newcastle United. Many, many fans say that during that period, Newcastle were their second team, the team they liked to watch for entertaining football. There was a definite philosophy of “if you score 3 we’ll score 4″ which was great to watch, if not often nerve-wracking. Would he come back? There is only one man who can answer that! Will he be welcomed back by the fans? You bet your life he would. So in a week where Robbie Fowler made his “return of the messiah” to Anfield, could Keegan do the same and come home to St. James’? Only time will tell, but my fingers are crossed that he does.