Former Newcastle United manager Joe Kinnear has raised the possibility that he could make a surprise return to St James' Park after claiming he has been offered a two-year contract at the Tyneside club.
The 62-year-old said that he was offered a new deal by club owner Mike Ashley a fortnight ago - just months after he was forced to leave Newcastle, in the middle of their ill-fated fight against relegation last season, to undergo a triple heart bypass.
However, Kinnear has told Ashley that he will not be able to return to work at St James' Park until the autumn as he recovers from the surgery he underwent last April.
The managerless Championship club have previously stated that Kinnear was not being lined up for the job, but today the former Wimbledon manager said he had been urged to return to Tyneside.
His previous stay was best remembered for a foul-mouthed rant at newspaper reporters as interim manager, and a 23-match stint that yielded just five wins, after he took over following Kevin Keegan's shock resignation and was succeeded by Alan Shearer after being sidelined by his health problems.
"I have been offered a two-year contract and it is something I am just mulling over at the present time," Kinnear said. "I have told Mike that I am not going to go back to football for at least another three months and then we will look at the situation then.
"I could be back. There is that possibilility. But at the same time from now until then they could quite easily employ someone else. That's how the situation lies at the moment.
"But should that happen I will be on the look-out elsewhere and as we all know the only time you do get asked to take these positions is when someone else loses their job."
Coach Chris Hughton is currently in charge of first-team affairs at Newcastle, whose new era gets under way in earnest on Saturday at West Bromwich Albion, but Kinnear has signalled that he is about to take over for Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley, whose efforts to sell up have stalled.
Meanwhile, deal broker Keith Harris has insisted he remains optimistic that he can put an end to the uncertainty at Newcastle by selling the club this summer which would scupper Kinnear's hopes of returning to serve Ashley.
The chairman of City investment firm Seymour Pierce is still upbeat, although he has struggled to find a buyer for Ashley who asked him to sell the club following relegation to the Championship last May.
Harris, the former chairman of the Football League, spoke out as it was claimed that Ashley was contemplating taking the club off the market this week unless a buyer can be secured ahead of the new season.
"Newcastle are clearly not going to be sold before 5.30 on Saturday but I'm hopeful something might be done by the end of the month," Harris said.
"I wish there had been an announcement but it is not through lack of interest. As opposed to two years ago, the glass is half-empty instead of half-full.
"The shock to Newcastle's revenue line after relegation is very severe. It was important to show that players were capable of being sold."
Harris said the credit crunch had undermined his efforts to sell Newcastle for Ashley, who also put the club on the market last year following a fans' backlash that followed the resignation of Keegan.
"We are acting for buyers and sellers right but as you will have noticed by the lack of announcements it is not easy getting deals over the line right now," Harris said.
"We are still suffering the hangover of a shocking economic period and the best news I think the world could have had is the financial results of two of the major banks on Monday which showed there is now some vibrancy back in the economy.
"It is tough. I am acting for buyers as well so I am seeing it through the eyes of someone - this is in respect of another club, taking painstaking care in analysing all sorts of possibilities - we can go up or go down, how you can wrong. That wasn't happening two years ago. I was a much more laissez-faire attitude.
"The issues in analysing Newcastle are several-fold. One is the shock to the revenue line where the media drives the income. Today there is at least £35 million and probably £40m of difference and there isn't a business in the world where you can say I am budgeting and until May, when your new financial year starts, you don't know what your budget is going to be.
"We are doing quite well. I wish there had been an announcement but it is not through lack of interest. It is a fantastic football club and asset by any measure. What it reflects is people taking painstaking care. My goodness what happen if this happens or that happens or the other happens whereas two years ago it was optimism, optimism, optimism."
No comments:
Post a Comment