F365 Features

Newcastle

What went wrong
Appointing a new manager shortly before the arrival of a new owner, regardless of the identity of that manager.

The identity of that manager being Sam Allardyce. The Toon Army wear the same uniform but follow no orders and do not think alike. None the less, the uninspiring nature of his teams did not endear him to a faction. Worse, his results did not endear him to anyone. Grinding out wins, acceptable. Grinding out defeats, not.

Becoming the only team to lose to arguably the worst side, relative to their peers, to play in the top flight since the creation of the Football League in 1888.

The arrival of a new manager coinciding with a stiff fixture list, combined with a late equaliser conceded despite a blatant offside in the obvious winnable game, at home to Middlesbrough.

What went right
Whether Mike Ashley just got lucky or simply didn't know anyone else to call on, appointing Kevin Keegan worked.

His painful, painful run of defeats was funny enough for outsiders and suggested the Toon really could be relegated, but he didn't lose to anyone who finished lower than seventh. When lower-half teams gave a chance to attack, Keegan's change of formation to find starting places for Obafemi Martins, Mark Viduka and Michael Owen worked.

Reasons to be cheerful
Kevin Keegan is still on the upswing.

Mike Ashley is still very rich.

Doom and gloom
Everyone outside Newcastle will remember what has happened before when Kevin Keegan is on the downswing (though never forget that his last two league games of his first spell in charge of Newcastle were a 7-1 thumping of Spurs and a respectable 3-0 despatch of Leeds).

So will some within the city, and many more will wonder whether having Dennis Wise advising Ashley, or the owner trying to dictate to an independent-minded manager, will work.

Keegan is an idealist, not a compromiser, but his honesty includes a realist streak. Ashley plainly was not keen on the manager's assessment of the prospects of breaking into the top four.

And the moral is
Remain true to thine ownself, whether you are the pragmatists' pragmatist or an over-emotional serial resigner who hasn't watched a game in years.

Spurs

What went wrong
The board embraced a sporting director/manager structure without finding a) the right sporting director, or b) the man they thought was the right manager. Not once but again and again.

Transfer policy was led by investment, rather than footballing, requirements: £16.5m was spent on Darren Bent, not to field him regularly but because as a young English player he fit a profile. In pre-season I did not believe they could have poured out that much cash for a player they weren't prepared to back wholeheartedly. I was wrong. No club has a better/worse record of slashing the value of their big-money signings.

They decided on the identity of the right manager, but not at a point when there was a vacancy, leading to a position where Martin Jol was systematically undermined by the pursuit of Juande Ramos.

Jol's team won just one of their first 10 league games - and that was at home to Derby.

Ramos's team fared 100 per cent better in the last 10 league games - they won two matches.

Five was a key number. In goals scored, Spurs came fifth, the position they had in the conventional Premier League table in 2006 and 2007. But they also came fifth in goals conceded, for a goal difference of plus five. Somehow, that managed to be an improvement on the plus three of last season, but this brought 14 fewer points.

Seventeen points were lost when Spurs were winning at half-time, the worst record in the division.

What went right
Ramos did, at last, leave Sevilla.

December featured four wins in six league games and a victory at Manchester City in the Carling Cup quarter-finals, the first home defeat for the Eastlands club.

The latter stages of the Carling Cup were a Tottenham dream, even if the subsequent patchy league form - such as the 4-1 defeat to Birmingham that immediately followed - were a reminder that victory in the least of the major trophies is not a cure-all.

Although the campaign ended in a defeat on penalties to PSV, Spurs racked up some more European points via the UEFA Cup, giving them a decent start should they ever work out how to crack the top four.

Reasons to be cheerful
Ramos's record at Sevilla was outstanding. Now he has the chance to shape the team across the summer, rather than dealing with someone else's players.

The manager is the sporting director's choice: the pair should work much better together.

And, as always, there are some promising talents on Spurs' books.

Doom and gloom
White Hart Lane has seen too many false dawns.

Dimitar Berbatov's agent seems determined to make the headlines.

And the moral is
You get what you pay for in football - unless you're Spurs, in which case you get rather less.