Stability at Newcastle, but is it good news?

If you didn’t know better you might think that things were pretty good for Newcastle and their fans at the moment. Clear by a point at the top of the Championship, the temporary manager who has taken them there given the job on a permanent basis and the chairman saying he will put an extra £20 million into the club.

Mess

Unfortunately, we do know better and the club remains in a bit of a mess. You can’t knock manager Chris Hughton and his players because they are getting on with things on the pitch in difficult circumstances and doing enough to be top of the pile.

The fact is that not many Newcastle fans will be pleased that Mike Ashley has taken the club off the market for the second time and, in truth, not many will be thrilled that Chris Hughton has been given the manager’s job. The other suggestion from Ashley that the naming rights for St. James’ Park will be sold have gone down like a lead balloon.

Established

It has been done elsewhere at new stadiums like the Emirates, the JJB and the Reebok, but can you imagine any of the established grounds, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Anfield, White Hart Lane and St. James’ Park being known as anything else? In a hot-bed traditional football fanatical area like Newcastle that would be regarded as a disgrace.

It might be true to say that the latest developments at least give some stability to a club that has lurched from off-field crisis to off-field crisis. Having said that, who thinks Ashley won’t still try to sell if the opportunity arises and who thinks that Ashley will stand by his manager through thick and thin?

The Newcastle United supporters trust issued a statement that needed no clarification.

“Ashley will continue to call the wrong shots at the club. Now it has come down to the fans to step in to remove Mr. Ashley.”

The former chairman of the Independent Newcastle United Supporters Association, Frank Gilmore, told the BBC that the appointment of Chris Hughton was up there with the worst decisions Ashley has made.

“Chris Hughton’s a lovely man but he’s no football manager. This season he’s made decisions on the pitch which didn’t add up and if he’s been appointed full-time, then that doesn’t show a lot of ambition. I can’t see Chris Hughton attracting the type of player we need to get us back to where we should be, and that’s the top half of the Premier League. There’s one guy just taken over at Middlesbrough who was available, who’s got experience – Gordon Strachan. There are other managers out there.”

Obviously, not every Newcastle fan will have read the recent news with dismay but a pretty high percentage of them will have done. Mike Ashley has, by own admission, made a lot of mistakes and the majority of the Toon Army regard his tenure as being an unmitigated disaster.

Disaster

By not selling the club, appointing a manager about whom the fans have reservations and talking about renaming St. James’ Park, he is continuing that list of mistakes and potentially taking his reign into new depths of disaster.