Glenn Roeder’s highly successful spell as caretaker manager at St. James Park will come to and end after Newcastle’s Final league match against champions Chelsea after the Premier League turned down an appeal for special dispensation from the North East club’s board.

Roeder doesn’t hold the necessary UEFA Pro coaching licence required to manage a Premiership club and the Premier League bigwigs have decided that there is no provision in their rules to grant special dispensation without the approval of the member clubs,

“In the event of permission being sought sufficient support from clubs would have to be obtained and a formal resolution tabled at the forthcoming Premier League AGM.”

The League have already given Roeder a two game stay of execution until the end of the season beyond the 12 week temporary allowance they are able to grant under their rules and with the UEFA Pro licence taking 12 months to complete, Glenn Roeder will now have to go back to his job as Academy manager if he wants to remain with the Geordie club for next season.

After ten wins in his 16 games in charge, it’s a shame for a man written off by many after an unhappy spell at West Ham united and especially having his tenure cut short by bureaucracy rather than footballing reasons.

For the Newcastle board it’s a case of back to the drawing board once again.

Everyone’s favourite Geordie big club, Newcastle United, have announced losses of ?6.3m for the six months up to 31st January 2006, a deficit of ?16m compared to their profits of ?9.7m for the same period a year previous.

Big money signings such as Albert Luque, Scott Parker, Emre and Michael Owen have all failed to push the club’s fortunes on the pitch despite a late rise in form under caretaker manager Glenn Roeder.

Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd said: “The current season has been disappointing, with performances on the pitch falling well below the levels we expected.

“Since his appointment, Glenn Roeder, capably supported by Alan Shearer, has overseen a significant improvement in team performances.

“We want this positive trend to continue while our search for the best possible team manager takes its course.”

(Now I’m going to sit back and see how many Geordies are still reading State of the Game after the “Newcastle a Big Club? Don’t Make Me Laugh” article and which one bites first on them still being a big club )

First of all, I’m a Newcastle fan. Secondly, I’m going to comment on last week’s Sunderland protests against Bob Murray. If you can’t bear to see this sort of thing, please look away now. You still here? Right. Well, it seems that around 600-800 Sunderland fans (depending on which hastily cobbled together internet report you read) demonstrated after the home defeat to Wigan Athletic to demonstrate their unhappiness with Bob Murray. Bob Murray has already experienced the brunt of some direct anger this season, although I must admit I think the peaceful protest is the way to go about this sort of thing.

So what can happen? Well, not very much. As I understand it, Bob Murray owns pretty much all the shares in Sunderland, so unless he wants to sell, Sunderland fans are stuck with him. They’ve been well and truly Glazered. Of course, constant protests and generally making the chairman feel unwelcome are weapons of long standing in the armoury of a fan base against an unpopular regime. But why is this? Well, it’s pretty much because as I’ve said there’s nothing else they can do about it.

Except maybe buy the club.

Excuse me for saying so, it’s a bit out there but it’s something I’d love to happen at my beloved Newcastle United. Just imagine it at your own club: a shareholders trust owning a significant or majority shareholding in the club! Fans representation on the board! Clubs run for the benefit of the fans and for their own well-being, not for the benefit of a few shareholders. Free beer in all club bars! Well, maybe not. No more speculation over whether the new kid on the block is an asset-stripper or not. I’ve mooted this idea before in many alcohol-fuelled conversations, but is it just a pipe dream?

Well, it’s certainly a pipe dream to believe the fans of any major club could own it outright overnight. But it’s possible that a well set up and well organised supporters trust could raise money to buy shares, use any dividends to buy more shares and gradually increase the fan representation at that club.

Here’s some figures for Newcastle United. According to http://www.nufc-finances.org.uk, the club has around 129 million shares. According to the latest quoted share price, the price per share is around 46p. This values the club at around the ?60 million mark. Hmm. I certainly don’t have ?20 million lying around to buy a sizeable stake.

But maybe I could put in ?20. If 49,999 other fans could do the same, that’s ?1 million. Which equates to around 1.6% of the total shareholding. Not a great deal by any stretch of the imagination. But now let’s imagine we could put in ?20 every year for 10 years… and we’ve now got a 16% stake. That’s not enough to run the club, but it’s enough that the fans would have a say in how the club was run, and it may be enough for fan representation in the boardroom.

And there’s three significant figures: at a 10% share, you prevent anyone from reaching 90% and being able to compulsory purchase the rest. At a 25% share you prevent anyone from reaching 75% and being able to delist the company from the stock exchange Glazer-style. Of course, at a 30% share you need to be prepared to make a takeover bid yourself…

I’ve just used the figures for Newcastle United because they happen to be my club and I know where to look them up. The same principle would apply to any club with publicly available shares. And if the shares aren’t publicly available, maybe if the supporters trust could raise enough money they could start buying them privately…

So next time you’re feeling disgruntled with who’s running your club, why not try and do something about it? If the Sunderland fans were to get together and buy back their club I’d find myself in the rather odd position of continuing to wish the club the worst of luck whilst wishing the fans well.

It’s not an impossible dream. Big clubs are owned by their fans in Spain. Supporters trusts in the UK already own shares in many of our clubs. Heh. It wouldn’t be easy, though. But, if you want it enough, if you’re prepared to work hard enough, if you’re prepared to put a little of your money and a whole lot of your time where your mouth is, and you’re prepared to be patient, then maybe, just maybe, it could be you.

Shola Ameobi has called for Newcastle United caretaker manager Glenn Roeder to be given the job permanently after he guided the club to another win over Bolton at the weekend.

“Glenn Roeder has been fantastic for me as a player,” said Ameobi, who scored his side’s third goal at the weekend. “He has instilled confidence in each and everyone of us.”

He added: “I think that’s showing through. He will back you all the way and we are all playing for him, and everyone has seen the results.”

The Newcastle board still seem to be looking towards big name candidates Martin O’Neill or Ottmar Hitzfeld as their preferred choices to succeed Graeme Souness in the St James Park hotseat but O’Neill is being very cagey as he looks to manoeuver himself into the Englands manager’s job which would suit his current family situation.

Hitzfeld has been out of the game for around 18 months but has shown minimal interest in the Newcastle job despite claims a few weeks ago that he had flown to Tyneside for talks with Freddy Shepherd.

It’s imperative for Newcastle as a club to make the right choice of manager this time as another wasted couple of years could be catastrophic for the club with a spiralling wage bill and, more often than not, a treatment table which has seen more action than Sven’s four poster this season. Whether Roeder is the man for the job is only something that a courageous appointment by the Newcastle board will show us in time and time is one commodity the fans of Newcastle United are not willing to give to another mediocre managerial appointment.

Right, well first of all I’m one of the Newcastle fans who noticed State Of The Game through the erm… shall we call it “well-discussed” topic of the relative size of Newcastle United. I’m not going to dwell on this, however. Nor am I going to dwell on who I want as our next manager, or why, or whether they’ll come, where we’ll finish and so on. This sort of thing has been discussed in great detail elsewhere. What I want to talk about is one particular thing: the character assassination job Glenn Roeder is carrying out on Graeme Souness - I think without even being aware of it.

Firstly, it’s clear that under Souness morale both on the pitch and in the stands was low. It was clear that we were playing poorly and getting poor results. It was also clear that we had a small squad with a lot of injuries which may not have been Souness’ fault.

So what’s happened? Roeder was appointed as caretaker manager, and said that he wasn’t expecting to change much, and he felt sorry for Souness - although that’s how it was in football. Yet over the following month he appears to have managed to demolish what little remained of Souness’ managerial reputation.

In brief, then:

Last four league games under Souness (Middlesbrough, Fulham, Blackburn, Man City): 1 draw, 3 defeats. Goals for 2. Goals against 7. Players missing over this time: Owen, Carr, Taylor, Parker, Dyer, Emre (missed 3 of 4).

First four league games under Roeder (Portsmouth, Aston Villa, Charlton, Everton) : 3 wins, 1 draw. Goals for 7. Goals against 1. Oh, and much improved performances (although still not perfect); morale on and off pitch also much improved. Players missing over this time: Owen, Carr, Taylor, Dyer (missed 2), Shearer (missed 2), Babayaro (missed 2), Bramble (missed 1).

So that’s approximately the same quality of opposition, approximately the same problem with injuries/suspensions and quite a different return in terms of points…

But let’s look at the different management techniques revealed in interviews to find out exactly how Roeder is plunging that knife further into Souness’ back.

Firstly, training. Now, maybe this is because Roeder has special skills, being a former defender, but when talking about the defence, he said he “was surprised the first few times I worked with them because there was no communication” and “I don’t know how you can play as a defender without giving information and covering each other. It’s that simple. We have got them working together and talking to each other.”. As the local Evening Chronicle (www.icnewcastle.co.uk) points out, while Roeder has not directly criticised Souness, the implications of this are fairly clear.

Now, we’ll move onto the alliterative man-management and maintenance of morale. Souness bemoaned his luck with injuries, stating that “The reason we’re not winning games is because we haven’t got our best players on the football pitch.”. Which seems to me to be a somewhat negative approach, and also suggests that he’s telling the players he is sending out that their own manager doesn’t think they are up to it, and they’ll be out of the side as soon as he can drop them.

Roeder preferred to have a more positive attitude “I’ve been a bit fed up with the negativity leading up to this game (Everton) .Apparently, because we haven’t got Alan playing, we haven’t got Michael playing and we haven’t got Kieron playing, the best we could hope for was probably a 0-0 draw. I told the players before the game that was absolute rubbish. I said I didn’t think they’d been shown the respect they deserved.”. Which to me tells the players that he’s got confidence in them, that he believes in them, and - well I’m no psychologist, but I would think it might help morale.

And if that indirect comparison isn’t enough in itself, he goes on to give that knife another little twist : “Don’t forget I spent two years out of the game and I sat and watched and heard managers making excuses before a ball was kicked in some games. What kind of message does that send out to the players?”

Because of the way he’s bent over backwards to avoid mentioning Souness at times, it seems he’s not actually trying to carry out a hatchet-job on what remains of Souness’ managerial reputation… but he appears to be managing it nonetheless.

It?s hard not to be consistently surprised by the complete un-truths most football fans will readily swallow. But there?s one, along with the ?Michael Owen will score you twenty Premiership goals a season? fallacy that really irritates me, and that is Freddy Shepherd?s assertion that the Newcastle managers job is ?one of the biggest in world football?.

I?m sorry Freddy; can you repeat that? One of the biggest in world football, really? Well that makes sense, I guess, since your team regularly wins trophies?oh wait, no, it doesn?t.

The strangest thing about this was that when Shepherd said this recently, no one questioned him. No one even batted an eyelid. Everyone simply accepted what he said as fact. Does no one else find it odd to see big names in continental football - the likes of Hitzfeld, O?Neill and Eriksson ? linked with a job that was until relatively recently filled by unspectacular domestic managers such as Jim Smith? Newcastle were last the champions of England way back in 1927 and have not won the FA Cup for some fifty years and yet somehow they still retain ?big club? status. People tend to overlook that they have a worse recent record in winning trophies than Aston Villa, that bastion of mediocrity. Consider the reaction if Doug Ellis was to claim that the Villa job was one of the biggest in world football, as Shepherd did ? you?d barely be able to hear him over the laughter. And yet, surely, Villa has a better claim to being a big club than Newcastle. It?s worth remembering that they won the old First Division in the 1980-81 season and the European Cup the following season, beating the mighty Bayern Munchen in the final. Granted, you could say that the last real trophy they won was ten years ago now (and it was only the League Cup) but still that?s better than Newcastle?s recent trophy winning record.

So what is it that makes football ?experts? accept Freddy Shepherd?s self-deluding bluster? As we?ve seen, plenty of so-called smaller clubs have been more successful than Newcastle in the recent past, so it?s not that. What, then? Is it the fans? Undoubtedly Newcastle has a huge loyal fan base (who else but Newcastle fans would be willing to pack themselves in to St. James Park on a Monday morning to welcome yet another big name mercenary while dressed like walking bar codes?) yet loyal fans alone does not a big club make, as Manchester City show.

No, it?s not about success or popularity. Like everything in football, it comes down to money. Freddy Shepherd (and Sir John Hall before him) have pumped huge amounts of money into the club (as well as raking plenty in from the fans, ever willing to pay the hyper inflated ticket prices and buy the ?new? replica shirt every year), and as a result Newcastle can afford to punch above their weight in the transfer market, buying players such as Shearer, Owen and Parker, players that belie their true status as an average side on a par with the likes of Aston Villa or Manchester City. However, Newcastle?s relative riches may be as much of a curse as a blessing for the club, not unlike Tottenham Hotspur back in the 90s, the club have a tendency to acquire trophy players rather than actual trophies. Naturally, this is not enough for the fans. With the amount of money that has been spent, they expect their club to be challenging for European places at the very least, yet these days the club finds itself looking over its shoulder at a relegation battle it could still be dragged into.

Managing this club does not sound like ?one of the biggest jobs in world football? anymore. One of the hardest jobs, almost certainly. The expectations from the fans are almost impossible to fulfil, especially considering the squad, for all the smattering of big names here and there, is full of underachieving and average players. Unless they particularly relish an almost impossible challenge and thrive on suffocating pressure, I can?t see Hitzfeld or anyone of that ilk taking the job. After all, come the summer there will doubtless be some real big clubs with vacancies. Newcastle or Real Madrid, which would you prefer?

Former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri has expressed interest in replacing Graeme Souness as manager of Newcastle United.

The likeable 53 year old Italian now joins the likes of Ottmar Hitzfeld and Martin O’Neill as the bookies favourites for the job of revitalising the fortunes of the struggling North East club.

Ranieri has been out of work since last February after a disappointing spell as Rafael Benetiz’s successor at Valencia but had previously led Chelsea to 2nd place in the Premiership and the semi-finals of the Champion’s League and would have a deeper knowledge of the English game than the current fan’s favourite Hitzfeld.

He said “I’ve worked in Italy, in Spain and in England, but at the top I put England. I love England because of the atmosphere and the fans. If possible, I would like to return to work in England. I am looking for another good job with a club who has ambition. Newcastle is a good team, an ambitious team. It is one of the best clubs in England.”

Despite weekend rumours of Martin O’Neill taking over as Graeme Souness’s successor as Newcastle United manager, former Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld has allegedly arrived in Newcastle to begin talks with the Newcastle board about the position.

One of Germany’s most successful club coaches of all time, Hitzfeld has led both Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund to Champion’s League success as well as winning several Bundesliga titles with Germany’s big two clubs.

Although he has been out of the game for the past 18 months, it is believed that the tough, authoritarian German would relish the task of revitalising the struggling North East giant’s fortunes where he would bring a reputation for dealing ruthlessly with big name stars as well as winning major trophies.

Image from BBC Sport

Following another heavy defeat against Manchester City last night, Newcastle United have terminated manager Graeme Souness’ contract with immediate effect. With only one point from their last six Premiership games and now sitting in a lowly 15th position in the table, the Newcastle board have finally given in to the pressure being exerted by their fans over the past few weeks and parted company with the fiery Scot.

Backroom staff member and former Newcastle United player Glenn Roeder has taken temporary charge of first team affairs with captain Alan Shearer as his assistant as they try to negotiate a path away from the prospect of an almighty relegation battle in the season’s run-in.

Despite spending over ?50m in his time on Tyneside on established internationals such as Michael Owen, Scott Parker and Emre, Souness has been plagued with injury and discipline problems both on and off the pitch, most notably the on-field punch up between Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer last season. With results also not going to plan it has seemed inevitable this season that there would be a parting of the ways and, despite receiving several votes of confidence from Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd in recent weeks and riding the storm of a very vocal fan protest outside St. James Park last week, the club have taken the initiative in an attempt to save their Premiership status.