Lee: KK not allowed to manage
by Tom Adams, 04 September 2008
Former Newcastle United midfielder Rob Lee has told Setanta Sports News that Kevin Keegan was never allowed the freedom to manage The Magpies in the way he desired, eventually leading to his departure on Thursday evening.
After three days of talks with Magpies officials, Keegan has resigned from his role at St James’ Park after complaining that players were signed without his agreement.
Lee feels that player recruitment is one of Keegan’s unique strengths and that the overriding influence of Dennis Wise as executive director (football) left the manager’s position unworkable.
“I’m still coming to terms with it,” Lee told Setanta Sports News. “I think 99 percent of the fans are behind Keegan. They realise he hasn’t been allowed to manage the club as he would want to manage the club.
“The thing about Kevin Keegan was bringing players in, talking to them and persuading them to join Newcastle, he hasn’t been allowed to do that and that is 60 percent of what he does.
“He is fantastic at it and if they didn’t want him to do it they should never have brought him in.
“Newcastle are not a club now that people really want to join. They are not in the Champions League, so they have to be persuaded to join and one thing Kevin was very good at, he was very persuasive.
“He persuaded myself, Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, the list goes on.
“Not to allow him to run the club and having people bring in players above his head, Kevin was never going to put up with that for long and if they wanted to go along that route they should have brought in a coach and told him ‘We are bringing the players in and you are coaching’.”
Lee also feels that if Wise is handed the manager’s job, in conjunction with his former colleague Gus Poyet, then the appointment will not be welcomed by the Tyneside faithful.
“I think the players will be very disappointed,” Lee added. “If he would have let Kevin get on with the job that he brought him in to do, which was resurrect Newcastle, I think he would have done a good job.
“As everyone knows the squad is paper thin, what other club would let their best player, Michael Owen, go into the last year of his contract? I find that amazing.
“Who knows? I think it is probably made for Dennis Wise to take over with him there, and I have heard about Gus Poyet being there as well which would sit nicely with what Mike Ashley is trying to do I suppose, but I’m sure he won’t be very popular with the Newcastle fans.”