English FA Premier League: Richard Williamshas been following the drama on Tyneside as the Kevin Keegan bandwagon gathers momentum
Kevin Keegan returned to claim his birthright at St James' Park yesterday, promising to recreate the stirring challenge that Newcastle United mounted in the Premier League a dozen years ago during his first spell managing the club. And no one, he insisted, is better fitted for the job.
"I know this club," Keegan said, when invited to compare himself with his rivals for the job. "I'm not saying others don't. But I know it inside out and back to front. I know it as a player and as a manager. I know what the fans want.
"This is not a normal club. That's what people who're not from the area don't understand. I think I'm the best-qualified person to do this job and take on this challenge, to be honest with you. Loads of people would have wanted to do it. But nobody knows this club better than I do."
Every time the job had changed hands in the years since his resignation in 1997, he remarked, he had experienced a twinge of envy.
"Kenny Dalglish? Lucky man. Ruud Gullit? Lucky man. Bobby Robson? Lucky man. Whenever it happened I thought, 'That's fantastic but it could have been me'. When I left the job, it wasn't anything to do with the club. It was the circumstances."
He had asked for his reintroductory press conference to be a low-key one, and the fans respected his wish by staying away from St James' Park. The city, however, was seething with the excitement engendered by his return.
More than 250 season tickets were sold in the aftermath of the announcement, and today's home match against Bolton Wanderers promises to be a sell-out as the supporters prepare to climb back on the roller-coaster that took them so close to the league title in 1996.
The Newcastle Journal promised "a feel-good factor for the whole region, productivity up, sickness levels down, a greater sense of confidence, inspiration for workers", all thanks to Keegan's return.
The paper even found a local nun, a United supporter for 37 years, to confirm that there was nothing improper in referring to him as a Messiah. "I don't think Jesus would mind," Sr Josepha Matthews said. "We are all Messiahs if we can raise people's spirits and give a bit of hope."
Former members of his old team queued up to offer benedictions. Among them was Faustino Asprilla, who was reported to be "modelling for men's magazines" in Colombia and, in the most surrealistic twist of an amazing week, expressed a readiness to return as his old manager's number two. In turn Keegan asserted his values and approach to the job have not changed since the days when his team simply went out to score more goals than the opposition.
"In my business," he said, "you look at the customers. What do the supporters want? They want to win. But that's the minimum requirement. When they've worked all week, for them the match is a bit like people down south going to the theatre. They want to see something that's worth seeing. Provided it's a really good show, even if it doesn't work out quite the way they wanted, they'll go home thinking, 'That was good'. What they don't want is for us to go out and grapple away and win 1-0 and finish in the middle of the table."
He is firm in his belief that three years away from football, a time in which he did not watch a single match, will not handicap his efforts to get his players to match the pace, intensity and tactical sophistication of the modern Premier League.
"I'm being asked the same question that I was asked when I came back after I stopped playing: 'How can you manage when you've spent the last few years playing tennis or golf in Marbella?' But if you can manage people and you understand the game, hopefully you can do it.
"Have I been out of it too long? Possibly, but I don't think so. The game's still the same, really. It's about getting players to play. We've done it once and we can do it again."
Keegan will need every scrap of accumulated experience as he sets about the business of preparing the club for a challenge to the top four.
"We're one of the few clubs who can break into that," he said. "We're a threat to them. We've got the support. We've got the backing. Now we've got to put in a structure a little bit better that the one we've got at the moment.
"If I'm honest, I think we've got a frighteningly small squad. And that's exacerbated by the fact that we've got four players away at the African Cup of Nations and three suspended for this weekend's match. I told [ the Newcastle chairman] Chris Mort and [ the club owner] Mike Ashley, 'Look, you might have a quality squad but it's very small for the Premiership'. I didn't ask for guarantees but I know that, if I want to bring someone in . . . the money will be there."
As for his relationship with Michael Owen, Keegan said he had read the criticisms of him contained in the striker's autobiography. "I think he's entitled to his opinion," the manager said, "and I'm looking forward to working with him. I don't have a problem with that."
He had not had time, he said, to consider the question of his backroom staff and had not yet spoken to Alan Shearer, who has signalled an interest in the number two's job at St James's Park. "If there's a role that's right for Alan," Keegan said, "and he wants to do it, we'll talk to him."
Joey Barton, the United midfielder who is out on bail while facing an assault charge, would receive the new manager's support. "I had him at Man City when he was 16 or 17 and I've told him that Newcastle will help him any way we can," Keegan said. "I've given him support before and been let down but this time I'm convinced that he really wants to be helped."
His reputation as a gung-ho manager was a distortion, he said. "I'd like people to look at my record. Don't just look at the goals for. Look at the goals against. Yes, we built teams that went forward but we had a great defensive record. We broke a lot of records because we were a good side with players who were hungry . . .
"Now I've got a chance to finish some unfinished business. We got very close last time. But it didn't happen over a week or a month. I think there needs to be a certain amount of patience and reality here. I hope I get it."
Guardian Service