IT HAS become an annual custom for Newcastle United to be locked in the throes of uncertainty before the leaves have turned, but Glenn Roeder, the manager, has urged his club to break with tradition.
After two defeats in succession, disillusion in the transfer market and controversy concerning a member of his coaching staff, opportunity beckoned for the tired, old excuses. Roeder ignored it.
Since replacing Graeme Souness in February, Roeder has done more than lift the fortunes of a depressed team. In refusing to embrace the culture of blame that has crippled St James’ Park in recent seasons, he has calmed an atmosphere that drifts quickly into tension, but his approach will be tested in the coming days.
Disquiet has been heightened by the absence of Kevin Bond, Roeder’s assistant, for this evening’s Uefa Cup first-round, first-leg match against Levadia Tallinn. Bond, appointed in June, has remained in Britain to consider his response to his reported involvement in Panorama’s investigation into alleged football bungs. The programme is scheduled to be aired by the BBC on Monday.
The Panorama reporters inquired into Bond’s spell working with Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth and it is an unwanted distraction. Roeder will not have Bond alongside him on the touchline at Le Coq Arena for a match that will help to dictate whether Newcastle make it to the group stage.
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“I was on my own last season for three months and it’s not as if I haven’t done the job before,” Roeder said. “I’m very experienced and I make all the final decisions anyway. We have two other coaches in the dugout watching the game with me, so we’ll just do the job we’ve got to do. I’ll do it for as long as I have to. Maybe that will be for the next few games. Who knows?”
Portsmouth, Bolton Wanderers and Middlesbrough were named in weekend reports as featuring in the Panorama exposé, although the last named have co-operated with the current affairs programme and their role is believed to be that of a wronged party. Middlesbrough’s involvement is said to relate to Nathan Porritt, an England youth player, who has drawn recent attention from several leading clubs.
For Newcastle, long-term stability remains a necessity and, after a series of minor setbacks, including Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at home to Fulham, it would be natural to revert to what has been the club’s default setting. It was rejected. “There’s no doom and gloom,” Roeder, who will keep faith with Titus Bramble, his error-prone defender, said.
There is a bigger picture. “Our expectations are so high, and rightly so,” Roeder said. “But when we don’t get close enough to those expectations, outside forces become very gloomy about our prospects. In many ways, I view that as a back-handed compliment. When I was appointed, I said that someone will get the balance right between consistency and the expectation level. It needs people in the club to be positive and we are.”
Roeder reported that this week’s training has been “absolutely fantastic” and the mood defiant. “It is just going to make us tighter again,” Damien Duff, the Ireland winger, said. “Some people think it might make us fall apart, but this is a great set of lads. We’ll bounce back.”
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As Roeder put it, “in situations like this you can either put up the white flag or fight on and we will be fighting on”.
Nolberto Solano has not travelled for the match against the first Estonian club to reach this stage of the competition, having suffered a hamstring injury, while Roeder may opt to rest Scott Parker (leg) and Shola Ameobi (hip).
LEVADIA TALLINN (possible; 4-4-2): A Kotenko — T Sisov, M Lemsalu, V Cepauskas, A Kalimullin — K Nahk, A Dmitrijev, K Vassiljev, M Dovydenas — V Voskoboinikov, N Andreev.
NEWCASTLE UNITED (possible; 4-4-2): S Given — S Carr, T Bramble, C Moore, C Babayaro — J Milner, S Parker or N Butt, Emre Belözoglu, D Duff — A Sibierski, O Martins.
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Referee: M Ingvarsson (Sweden).
TELEVISION: Live on Five from 3.40pm (kick-off 3.55pm).
BEEN THERE DONE THAT
England’s Uefa Cup hopefuls are not among the big players on the Continent but all four sides can point to a winning European heritage – even if, in the case of Blackburn Rovers, it is through their manager
Newcastle United
Most people think that the 1969 Fairs Cup is the club’s most recent – indeed, only – piece of European silverware. They’d be wrong. Newcastle triumphantly raised aloft the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1973 – and retained it for the next two years. Because the competition was temporarily abandoned. While in 2001, Newcastle were runners-up in the Intertoto Cup. In truth, Faustino Asprilla’s first-half hat trick in the 3-2 win over Barcelona in the Champions League in 1997 and the run to the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup in 2003-04 are a little more memorable.
Tottenham Hotspur
Once upon a time, before the Champions League was even a glint in a Uefa money man’s eye, there was a competition called the European Cup Winners’ Cup. And Tottenham won it in 1963. Spurs also lifted the Uefa Cup in 1972, beating Wolverhampton Wanderers, and 1984, defeating Anderlecht on penalties.
West Ham United
This is only the sixth European campaign in the club’s history. The club won the BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year award in 1965, which may just have had something to do with winning the Cup Winners’ Cup in the same year. They were runners-up eleven years later. No complaints about the Intertoto Cup in the East End: without it, West Ham would never have reached the Uefa Cup in 1999-2000 and enjoyed the privilege of being knocked out without scoring by Steaua Bucharest in the second round.
Blackburn Rovers
This is the sixth time since 1994, and the third time in the past five years, that Blackburn have reached continental competition, but have they achieved anything? Is Robbie Savage a UN Goodwill Ambassador? At least the manager knows about European success, Mark Hughes having won the 1991 Cup Winners’ Cup as a Manchester United player.
Tom Dart