by LFC2007 » Tue Dec 07, 2010 12:51 am
This was rumoured a while back wasn't it? There was a game at St James's they won (was it the derby?) and that seemingly put the speculation to bed. I never really believed there was anything in this to begin with (after all that went before, I thought they'd moved on) so it comes as a bit of a surprise to me, although knowing how Ashley and co. handled the whole Keegan affair, it doesn't come completely out of the blue. I pretty much go along with the consensus. Hughton was a loyal servant to them, initially as assistant, then caretaker on a couple of occasions, and finallt as manager - and in that role he surprised a lot of people by getting them promotion at the first time of asking, and by keeping them respectable this season. Moreover, the players were behind him, and so were the fans. They were never, ever going to be able to come straight back up and perform much better than they have so far this season. There are a lot of established sides with better squads than they have, and so just staying up would be half a result for them, but it seems the owners want more and they aren't prepared to wait. Now, I don't think there's any denying that Jol - who having resigned from Ajax, we can assume will be their next manager - did a solid job at Spurs and is a good choice for a club of Newcastle's stature, but by making the move now they are setting a high bar for themselves.