He may be public enemy number one on Tyneside at the moment, but one thing you can definitely say about Mike Ashley is that he's not afraid to make unpopular decisions.First of all he committed what many in the city saw as the ultimate sin when he forced Kevin Keegan out of Newcastle United. King Kev made it painfully clear that he would not work at a club which bought and sold players without his say-so. During all those crisis meetings, all Ashley had to do was say: ''OK, Kevin, you can have the final say on which players come and which ones go - after all, you'll be the one who has to work with them every day.''
Instead, he decided to side with Dennis Wise, the man he had brought in as his director of football - and the man most Newcastle fans blame for Keegan's decision to walk. Ashley is a very successful businessman with a very clever head on his shoulders, so he MUST have known what the reaction of the Toon faithful would have been. He must have known his name would be mud.
Of course, the inevitable happened and Keegan walked out. I wrote an article before the start of the season about how KK was joint favourite to be the first Premier League boss of the campaign to part company with his club. I said he had a long history of walking out on clubs and that I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if he was on his merry way not long after the first ball had been kicked. After all, the bookies don't often get it wrong.
However, even I can't argue with his decision this time around. The restrictions being imposed on him were ridiculous in the extreme. Why appoint a manager and then give him no say in who he manages? Is it just me or is that the most incredibly stupid thing you've ever heard? Well, I suppose Alan Curbishley for one must agree because, as it turns out, the West Ham boss beat his Newcastle counterpart to the punch by 24 hours for the exact same reason.
But, if this morning's newspapers are to be believed, Ashley has just outdone himself in the stupidity stakes. Reports suggest he's about to appoint Gus Poyet as the next Newcastle manager. So, not content with flooring the Newcastle fans by forcing their Messiah to walk away, he's now sticking the boot in by replacing him with Wise's best mate! Like I said, Ashley's certainly not afraid to make unpopular decisions.
But if forcing Keegan out was an unpopular decision, then appointing Poyet takes things to a whole new level. I know he has been in the frame for the job ever since Keegan walked, but I never thought Ashley would be stupid enough to actually go ahead and appoint him. Talk about being a glutton for punishment!
I'm not a Newcastle fan and I can't speak for them, but if this had happened at my club, I'd see it as another huge slap in the face. How Ashley can have the gall to sit in the stands in his black-and-white replica shirt pretending he's just another fan is beyond belief. You'd be hard pushed to find a single other soul in a packed St James' Park wearing a similar shirt who agrees with him. These are not the actions of a Newcastle fan.
If Ashley has any semblance of sanity left, he might want to think twice about being in his seat for Newcastle's next home game against Hull on Saturday.
Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan has admitted he will have showdown talks with owner Mike Ashley tomorrow.
Keegan called his press conference a day early after he was summoned to a meeting with Ashley and Dennis Wise, the club's executive director of football.
The trio are due to discuss Newcastle's summer spending plans but Ashley is also seeking an explanation from his manager following his extraordinary outburst on Sunday.
Keegan said he could not see Newcastle breaking into the top four of the Barclays Premier League but it was his dig at Ashley which raised eyebrows in the St James's Park boardroom.
Before starting his press conference at lunchtime today, Keegan insisted he would not take any questions about the pending meeting with his owner.
Keegan said: "The reason we have press conference a day early is so I can go to London tomorrow to talk to Mike Ashley.
"That is a good thing and I will look forward to that and that is the only comment I will make.
"I will only talk about Everton from now on so any other questions are for another day and I will try and answer them as honestly as I can at that time."
Keegan was unable to resist explaining himself once more, though, as he insisted Newcastle can be the fifth biggest club in the country but did not have the financial clout of the top four.
He said: "I was giving an honest answer to a question about how we had fared against Chelsea. I said we were a million miles away.
"We are the fifth biggest team in the country and I need to make sure we achieve that. Sunday against Everton will be a big test for us to see if we can reach that point. I won't say 'we'll win the League' because I'd be carted off to the nuthouse if I said that.
"Only Man United have bigger crowds than us. But they have a bigger global appeal because they have a bigger profile than us.
Everton, as Newcastle had done before them, briefly broke the stranglehold the big four clubs have had on the corresponding league places in recent years, and Keegan points to their development since as an illustration of what he means.
He said: "David Moyes has done a fantastic job there - I think they are the only team that has broken into that top four, so the best person to ask if it can be done is David Moyes.
"I remember the year after that, they finished down at the bottom because the problem then is you have more games and you need a bigger squad.
"There are other problems that come with success, but they are nice problems."
Keegan was presented with a potential problem of a different kind when he learnt that striker Mark Viduka could be sidelined for up to six months.
The 32-year-old went for a planned injection to address his long-standing Achilles problem knowing he was likely to be out for three months as a result.
However, the injury proved to be worse than feared and he will discover over the next fortnight whether or not he needs a minor operation and the extended period of rehabilitation that will involve.
Keegan said: "He went to have this injection. He had the injection and the problem is slightly worse than was feared.
"He goes back in 10 days to two weeks having had the injection, and that may well solve the problem, as was originally thought.
"But there is a chance, the doctor informs me, that he might need something more than that."
Keegan called his press conference a day early after he was summoned to a meeting with Ashley and Dennis Wise, the club's executive director of football.
The trio are due to discuss Newcastle's summer spending plans but Ashley is also seeking an explanation from his manager following his extraordinary outburst on Sunday.
Before starting his press conference at lunchtime today, Keegan insisted he would not take any questions about the pending meeting with his owner.
Keegan said: "The reason we have press conference a day early is so I can go to London tomorrow to talk to Mike Ashley.
"That is a good thing and I will look forward to that and that is the only comment I will make.
"I will only talk about Everton from now on so any other questions are for another day and I will try and answer them as honestly as I can at that time."
Keegan was unable to resist explaining himself once more, though, as he insisted Newcastle can be the fifth biggest club in the country but did not have the financial clout of the top four.
He said: "I was giving an honest answer to a question about how we had fared against Chelsea. I said we were a million miles away.
"We are the fifth biggest team in the country and I need to make sure we achieve that. Sunday against Everton will be a big test for us to see if we can reach that point. I won't say 'we'll win the League' because I'd be carted off to the nuthouse if I said that.
"Only Man United have bigger crowds than us. But they have a bigger global appeal because they have a bigger profile than us.
Everton, as Newcastle had done before them, briefly broke the stranglehold the big four clubs have had on the corresponding league places in recent years, and Keegan points to their development since as an illustration of what he means.
He said: "David Moyes has done a fantastic job there - I think they are the only team that has broken into that top four, so the best person to ask if it can be done is David Moyes.
"I remember the year after that, they finished down at the bottom because the problem then is you have more games and you need a bigger squad.
"There are other problems that come with success, but they are nice problems."
Keegan was presented with a potential problem of a different kind when he learnt that striker Mark Viduka could be sidelined for up to six months.
The 32-year-old went for a planned injection to address his long-standing Achilles problem knowing he was likely to be out for three months as a result.
However, the injury proved to be worse than feared and he will discover over the next fortnight whether or not he needs a minor operation and the extended period of rehabilitation that will involve.
Keegan said: "He went to have this injection. He had the injection and the problem is slightly worse than was feared.
"He goes back in 10 days to two weeks having had the injection, and that may well solve the problem, as was originally thought.
"But there is a chance, the doctor informs me, that he might need something more than that."
