MICHAEL WALKER SOCCER ANGLESFor modern managers, even legendary status is no guarantee against the fickleness of fans
TO BORROW a phrase from the modern age, professional football may be getting bipolar. From manic depression to unwarranted optimism, there are extreme shifts in moods, and even with the season barely a fortnight old it feels as if it is a condition touching more and more people. You saw some of this towards the end of Steve Staunton's time with Ireland, supporters unsure whether to clap or boo, so sometimes they did both.
It is a sense that will surely be increased when Arsene Wenger and Kevin Keegan walk across from their dugouts and shake hands this evening. At Arsenal and Newcastle United, each man respectively falls into the category of legend as well as manager. Yet the aesthetic achievements of Wenger and Keegan at their clubs cannot bulletproof them from an increasingly impatient and vocal type of "fan". Or from directors.
To a large extent, of course, each man does have protection. Modern Arsenal would not exist without Wenger and this wraps him in a warm coat on cold evenings such as last Saturday at Fulham. Without Wenger's acumen in the transfer market dating back to Nicolas Anelka and Patrick Vieira, Arsenal would be a different club. For a start they would not be held in such regard by others because of the way they play. It was not like this under George Graham, was it? Wenger is responsible for this and as such can command time and freedom to mould whatever it is he is next working on.
Worryingly for some Arsenal supporters, however, Wenger seems bent on creating something comparatively cheap and something essentially English. This concerns followers on two fronts, but especially the economic aspect. Yes, it would be great, people say, if Wenger can build an English core into Arsenal again, but are there the players to do so? If there are, and they cannot all come from Arsenal's academy no matter how fertile it is - and it is pretty ripe - they will be expensive.
Wenger mentioned his interest in Gareth Barry on a couple of occasions this summer, but would he really be prepared to sanction €22 million on a good but not thrilling midfielder? Therefore it would seem there is an element of contradiction. Realistically Wenger is not going to construct an Arsenal team with eight Englishmen in it every week - though some of the English Arsenal youth players are the most highly rated in the land.
But if Wenger's attitude to finance is a partial explanation for why that might not happen, the anxiety among Arsenal folk is that Wenger appears to have lost interest in buying big regardless of nationality.
Spending €15 million on Samir Nasri of Marseilles might not seem small beer to most of us, but there are still groans and moans to be heard around north London that Wenger has not spent this sum on three or four occasions this summer. After all, it is five seasons since Arsenal won the league title.
Given Arsenal's fixture list, the easiest of the established top four until November, if the club are not first or second by then, the irritation being expressed about Wenger could just morph into something less pleasant. The sort of thing Alan Curbishley is currently hearing at West Ham. His work at Charlton Athletic has been forgotten quickly.
What Keegan did in restoring pride and results to Newcastle in the early 1990s will never be forgotten on Tyneside, but Keegan has put his neck in an uncomfortable position this week by selling James Milner to Aston Villa. It came three days after Keegan described the proposition as "unthinkable".
But, who'd have thought it, there was Milner at Villa yesterday. Meanwhile, Keegan sat in a roomful of sweaty reporters in Newcastle trying to explain how this transfer was his idea and won't we all be in the know when two new players walk into Newcastle in the next 48 hours to replace Milner.
There is genuine exasperation locally as to what Newcastle are doing and why. Keegan will attract a degree of criticism for not railing against others internally if that is what he would once have done. But the punters are far more likely to turn on Dennis Wise, the head of recruitment brought in above Keegan - or beside him.
Wise has no personal relationship with the region to fall back on in hard times and if Newcastle's good start to the season fades fast, and there are no new major signings, then the flak will flow. Keegan and Wenger will be pleased to don their old overcoats then. It could get cold. Polar even.
