Joe Kinnear – an alternative viewpoint

I have a slightly different take on Joe Kinnear's appointment.

No one really knows for sure the why’s and wherefore’s of what’s happened, apart from Kinnear, Ashley and Llambias – even Pardew seems to be in the dark! And there’s a tendency with the press to take what few facts they have and make up a story that seems to hang together. In reality, they pontificate their opinion. I’m not saying they’re wrong, because I don’t know either. But I have been able to string some logic to JK’s appointment. Allow me to pontificate.

Trust is the gap between what you know for fact and what/whom you put faith in.

Let’s say your the CEO of an £85M or so company. Last year you expected top quartile success against your competitors in your industry. Your company achieved bottom quartile success. You hold review after review. You’re not really that close to the sharp end of the business so you don’t really understand the issues first hand, nor do you have sufficient confidence that your managers know how to turn things around.

What do you do? You get a second opinion. You call in an industry expert; a management consultant for want of a better word, to unravel what’s going on and sort things out (p.s. I, for my sins, am a management consultant, occasionally).

Kinnear gave us a clue as to his real role when he said something along the lines that he would immediately get to terms with NUFC”s poor season. That, I suggest, is why Llambias resigned. Because Ashley didn’t have faith in his trinity with Pardew and Carr to turn things around.

An MD doesn’t resign from a financially healthy club with prospects because ‘he’ cant buy a player  -allegedly, the dropping of the Douglas transfer caused Llambias to throw his toys out of the pram – bunkum. Llambias resigned because the intent that a management consultant is going to fly around the club (of which he is MD) and shit on who he wants, is a vote of no faith in his ability. (Shitting from a height is what some management consultants do and alas those that don’t can get tarred with the same brush.)

And… imagine working shoulder to shoulder with Joe Kinnear – would you like it? He f’s and blinds, he gets names wrong, he gets facts wrong. He may know a lot about football but how up to date is he? He may be able to pick up the phone and ask Steve McLaren’s opinion of one of SM’s former players i.e. Douglas – that makes sense – but he hadn’t heard of the player personally – a player whose interest from Liverpool and Newcastle has received much publicity.

Good management consultants consult. They engage their clients in defining and resolving hard-to-solve problems. They entertain. They’re articulate. They have charisma. They remain composed under pressure. They are great collaborators…

I’m wondering how many of the above traits has JK demonstrated so far.

In a nutshell, even if JK has the wisdom and the knowledge to analyse what’s going wrong at Newcastle – we may lose the likes of Graham Carr and some of our best players in the process. Now a lot of people wanted Pardew out a month or so ago – but not, methinks, with the prospect of having JK even as a stand in. And let’s say Pardew did resign – which top manager would want to work alongside JK???

This don’t look good. IF, and it’s a big IF, Newcastle sign 2-3 top class players and get off to a good start then all will be forgotten. I’d like to feel it can happen but even my fantasies don’t stretch that far.

Howay the Lads
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Paul C Burr
Follow @doctapaul