If what we have seen over the past 5 years passes for tactical awareness then would that we had naivety once more. :-)

Was KK tactically naive? People will point to important matches where we led and lost, assuming presumably, that had a more defensive stance been taken after the lead was established the game would have been sewn up.

Personally, I regard such arguments as unproven and unprovable. If you look at the 12-point season for example, you cannot permit yourself the luxury of selecting a handful of games to prove your point. You have to look at them all. How many games did we get a lead, continue to press and went on to murder the opposition? Who is to say that had we said "Let's not be naive now - we'll throw on a defender" that those games might not have cost us points because we allowed the opposition back in? How many times do you see a side fall back after getting a lead only to lose the advantage?

Keegan has to be judged on results. The results were outstanding. There may, I am sure, have been opportunities when something more could have been squeezed out of a game due to a judicious change of player or formation at a crucial time. But then, as I say, if the manager had that mind-set, how many points might have been dropped in the other matches? Unanswerable questions - let the results speak for themselves, KK was sufficiently tactically aware, together with his other qualities to have done a damned fine job.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Answers

total agreement from me. He knew how he wanted the game played and went out and did it. It worked.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

I think Robson knows exactly the way he wants the game played but he just hasn't got the players to do the job.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

I'm getting visions of TSM,when we saw how he wanted to play things, we realised we didn't like it. At least if Bobby keeps us in the dark he'll remain popular.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Jonno,

As you know I'm a KK fan. He had a clear strategy at the Toon that was based on filling the team with technically gifted, attack-minded players, who played a high tempo and fast passing game. More times than not they rolled over the opposition in wave after wave of attacks.

I think KK's naivety was in not recognising that this would work all the time, and there would be occasions where we would need to defend, especially when it come to the run in when nerves would inevitably come into play. He simply had no answer to this scenario - no clue: a more tactically aware Coach would have had. It cost us the Championship.

THE classic example of this was the 3-4 at Anfield, which I attended - and still have nightmares over! We were winning 3-1 deep into the 2nd half, but were simply not controlling the game.
Liverpool had very clearly told Steve McManamanamanaman to play in the space behind John Beresford, who as usual was striding forward to support Ginola at EVERY conceivable opportunity in the attempt to get another goal. Most people in the ground could see the threat - presumably with the exception of the Toon bench. It probably didn't even need KK to bring on a substitute to bottle things up; it may have been sufficient to tell Bez to stay back and block off that wide open space. Of course, he didn't, or Bez ignored him (unlikely) and the rest as they say is history.

Even at 3-1, I sensed we were not going to win that game, and will always believe that KK's naivety that night cost us the PL Championship, because that was when the seeds of the nervy performances that followed were really sown.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

I expected you to pick that game Clarky!

As I say, I think these arguments are unprovable but that makes them no less interesting. I won't attempt to challenge your view on this and you may well be right about that game. Alternatively, it may well be that once Bez back tracked we would have been on the rack. The comments today might be "We were all over them - if Keegan hadn't told Bez to drop back we'd have scored 5!" Or, if Bez had supplied the ball into the area to get number 4 we'd now be saying "any other team would have pulled him back but Keegan knew EXACTLY what he was doing!"

We can never tell for sure. One thing though we'll all find little disagreement on - it was a magic season.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Jonno,

My frustrations with KK's tactics over that game, or the outcome of that wonderful, magic season, pale into mere insignificance compared to how I feel right now about our Club.

IMO Kevin needed to adjust his tactical thinking by maybe 10%: right now we've got about 10% right, and the Club is in need of major surgery - over and above what is needed to repair our centre-forward, that is.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

If a general won the majority of his battles but lost key ones at key times which led to loss of the war he might consider himself unlucky. If however he lost those key battles because of a bone headed belief that there was only one way to fight and if you had the right men it usually worked then he would be branded at best naive.

When I was a kid, I wanted to eat sweets all the time, stay up way past my bedtime and for every football match to be a 4-3 thriller. Now I've grown up I eat better, go to sleep when I'm tired (or when the kids let me) and can appreciate the finer points of a hard fought 0-0 draw. Keegan still wants to play kid's football, his style is seductive but you don't win anything with kids do you?

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Certainly not!

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Keegan is a romantic. He needs to feel that by blatantly disregarding received notions of the right way to do things he has proven that he is the magic ingredient.

You can gain a fascinating insight into his mindset from the interviews he gave on the video "Kevin Keegan: Six of the Best" and simply by looking at the games he chose and the reason he thinks they were his best as a manager at NUFC.

1. Leicester Away 1991-92: chosen for its importance, not for the quality of the game. Staying up due to a bizarre own-goal.

2. Leicester Home 1992-93: chosen for a great scoreline and because it showed how far we had come in one season and how he hadn't let being champions stand in the way of a good performance. Also for Andy Cole taking over the starring role from David Kelly.

3. Royal Antwerp Away 1994-95: chosen since he had insisted on playing the same attacking style we were in the league against all advice to play differently in Europe.

4. Liverpool Away 1995-96: says he would like us to play that way every week and that he would accept the odd 3-4 as going with the territory as it is the way football should be played.

5. Man United Home 1996-97: said it shut the doubters up and proved that we had the bottle and deserved to be considered as one of the top clubs.

6. Ferencvaros Home 1996-97: picked this as the pick of the bunch because he had played the most daring attacking lineup ever and it had worked. He reckons that getting Ginola and Gillespie to play as wing-backs was the key to it and he felt real pleasure from having explained a different system to the players and then watched them sort out how it worked in the first 10 minutes before turning on the class.

This whole thing of needing to prove that he was the difference must surely have stemmed from the amazing amount of hard work he had had to put in to be accepted as a player despite his small stature. Years of working his way to the top by giving it everything he had despite so many other players being recognized as more gifted than he was. Tough little bastard all round.

All the time he was proving everyone wrong about how to play football in the top flight and then in Europe must have been a delight. When Cole was being hailed as the hero and suggestions were bandied about that we were a one-player-team he sold him and reshuffled the pack. From quick interpassing to a new element of the most lethal wingers and header of the ball in the league. Nearly won it all.

Huge pressure now, though. Couldn't claim to be doing it with unknowns since the whole media machine recognized the quality in the side and he either had to deliver or face up to failing to deliver the fairy tale. Enter Shearer and the ultimate stake in the poker game. No excuses now. Best striker in the country. Top signing-on fee in the world. Man that Manchester United had wanted. Shit or bust.

Unable to make it work with the very best is what finished him off. He no longer looked like the difference making a group of relatively unknown players perform like superstars but was instead the guy making the superstars look stupid. Never been good with failure.

Same story was there with the England job. Helplessly romantic. Dyer and Beckham played as wingbacks. The entire country could see that Shearer wasn't fit but he kept playing him in the leadup to Euro- 2000. Why? Wanted to prove everyone wrong. Wanted Al to get some goals against crap opponents to shut them all up. Result: how many games this season?

This is not a crime. Winners probably need to feel infallible, but if the shock of losing doesn't allow you to be more determined the next time then there is no point in going back for more.

p.s. If you substitute miltary tactics for football, this could easily have been about Hitler.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Well I will give him something, he was a master for going forward. Sacrifice the back, but score goals. Live by the sword die by it.....

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Clarky -- We never actually led 3-1 in the 3-4 game at Anfield. We did lead 2-1(Ginola) and 3-2(Asprilla).

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

Keegan wasn't tactically naive he was just learning his job. He, like us, had never been there before he didn't know what to do differently. As someone mentioned he was 10% away from success. I wasn't gutted to see him go as we had started to lose the plot during the December and I had had a long discussion with a pal about his leaving. The thing that upsets me most is that is successor was equally as single minded. Dalglish didn't spenf any money on players between joining and the end of the season. (yes he bought Des Hamilton but that was an investment in the future, allegedly) This was double edged strategy. If Dalglish took us into Europe, or the Champions League even, he did it with Keegan's players but with his nous. If he failed to take us into Europe it was Keegan's failures not his. Fortunatley we got into the Champions League, lots of it on the back of grinding out 0-0 draws at West Ham and Man U something Keegan's side would never have done. Clearly a side finishing 2nd needed tweaking to improve. The manager decided to demolich rather than tweak. Wenger took an aging Arsenal defence and kept it together for far too long while building an attacking team on the front of it. Dalglish took an excellent attack and demolished it on the mantra of defensive percentage football.

If we'd got a Wenger or a Robson when Keegan left they'd have seen the strengths and built on them. They'd have seen the weaknesses and acted on them. Instead we got a man who wanted a team that could be said to be his, not Keegan's but his, and thats where we started spiralling down. If Dalglish rots in hell its too good for him.

Alcohol rules okay

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

I just picke dup Dalglish's autobiography in a shop. didn't buy it [he's had enough from us] but i suspect his biggest problem was that he got confused over the players he wanted:

Ketsbaia - Georgiatos [Inter Milan] - bald headed midfielder

Georgiedos - Georgiatos - when he realised he'd got the wrong bald headed one he got the Greek with a similar name, without the skill.

Lionel [Blair] Perez - Robert Pires

just a few examples but regardless of the situation with the board etc, to carelessly rip up that team and fail ABYSMALLY to build on the foundations of a team that was challenging for the title is a crime i'll never forget or probably forgive him for.

KK dismantled the youth team and KD re-installed it - so what are we crediting KD with exactly? Something that it didn't take a genius to work out needed fixing. As for everything else - the players, the tactics, the attitude to press and fans, well do i have to carry on..?

I'd love to be a pilot. I know all the theory, what it takes, what all the instruments do. The only trouble is i can't fly for toffee....

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001

If you substitute miltary tactics for football, this could easily have been about Hitler.

In the same vein, is there a character from military history you could liken to TSM? I can think of a few who caused terrible devastation but not usually to their own side. Stalin would be a contender but he won. :-)

Do you think a final solution to the Mackem question would be justified? :-)

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

"If you substitute miltary tactics for football, this could easily have been about Hitler." "In the same vein, is there a character from military history you could liken to TSM?"

The same thought occurred to me, after I'd recovered from the breathtaking comparison of K Keegan and A Hitler. It would have to involve the dismantling of a (near) all-conquering outfit and its descent into petty infighting and boring squabbles. Has to be Alexander the Great's successors.

Oh dear, showing me age again then. Look I wasn't actually there, OK?

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Whilst you get your breath back, allow me to support that comparison.

Adolf was born in Bavaria, a region which finds itself the butt of many jokes from the more affluent and less rustic parts of Germany. Their speech, style of dress and regional passtimes were all mocked in popular culture. Kevin was born in Yorkshire, land of flat caps, whippets and Monty Python jokes.

Adolf was short but still managed to win the Iron Cross 2nd class carrying stretchers in WWI and was lucky to survive a gas attack. Kevin was also short but battled hard to win European Footballer of the year and probably played against Middlesbrough.

Adolf was turned down by the Vienna School of fine arts (hence the “house painter” myth) and went on to foster a great resentment against the Impressionists who were in vogue in place of realists like himself, or so he felt, and he proscribed castration as the standard treatment for people who paint the sky green and grass blue. He found himself on the soup queues and working on his masterplan to get his won back. Keegan was dropped from the England squad and nursed a burning resentment for the media and the powers that be in the FA. He went into self-imposed exile with the criminals in Spain and worked on his golf swing.

Adolf rose to prominence after taking the stage at a meeting of the German National Socialist Workers Party, talking for hours and discovering he had a rare knack for winning over an audience. With his input the membership swelled and he was soon made leader of the party and large donations started to come their way from businessmen keen to see a body in place to combat the German Communists who were making life difficult. Kevin came into a club with no leadership and no morale and began to swing things with the team by force of personality. As the ship stabilized promises started coming in from powerful businessmen of large influxes of cash and attendances increased. People were whispering of a rise to take on the Red menace.

Adolf was offered the chance to form a coalition government but cunningly held out to become Chancellor in his own right. Kevin staged a walk out from the club and brokered a 10 year deal after other offers were turned down.

The Germany Adolf took over was dreadfully run down through the reparation repayments to France and the years of hardship during the great depression. He embarked on a massive rebuilding programme, focusing in particular on the autobahns. This rewarded his business supporters with fat contracts and got the unemployed back into work. If you had joined the Brown Shirts you were guaranteed a place in huge rallies and would be able to demonstrate your support for the party whilst the autobahns would coincidentally make the movement of troops a cinch if they decided to assault Europe. Kevin took over at a dreadfully run down club coping with the drain of resources to London and the economic hardships of the Great Tory Recession. Work began on rebuilding SJP, which rewarded his business colleagues who secured the contracts and the Toon Army swelled as folk scambled for black and white shirts to wear to demonstrate their support for the cause. Coincidentally, a revamped SJP would be the ideal starting point for an NUFC assault on Europe.

When Adolf began pushing the newly confident Germany towards war, he did so at a time when the defensive stalemate of WWI still haunted everyone and it was felt that enormous fortifications with massed artillery would annihilate any attacking force so any future war would be conducted by armies secure in their own fortifications and remaining at a stand still with mobile forces held in reserve to counterattack and crush anyone foolish enough to bludgeon themselves against the fortifications. War would be static with the big guns shelling one another from afar. Kevin pushed NUFC towards Premiership domination at a time when dour, miserable footballing philosophies still held sway. Great blocks of players would barricade the goal with a lone striker waiting to counterattack if the other side was foolish enough to attack. The game was a stalemate as each side bombarded one another with high balls.

Adolf turned to Manstein and Guderian who had discovered that if you concentrated all your armoured forces at one point and supported them with artillery and air power, you could punch a hole through the fortifications and then run riot behind the enemy’s lines. So long as you kept upsetting communications and didn’t give the enemy time to recover you could shatter his armies with little risk as he was forced to keep reacting to your moves and never got the chance to call the shots. The old guard in the General Staff thought that this was an unacceptably risky venture but Adolf got his way….to such an extent that he began to believe it had been his won idea. Kevin had turned to Derek Fazackerley who had been working on some extraordinary tactics with the young players under Ardiles. He felt that if you swarmed into the opponents’ half and kept the ball moving and away from their players you could really hold onto the initiative and get ample chances to score since their only involvement would be attempts to break up your attacks rather than moves in themselves. Naturally this system was greeted with scepticism by the old guard but Keegan loved it…..possibly overlooking the fact that the system was not all his own work.

The unqualified success of these tactics carried all before the Wehrmacht and Adolf called for more and more Panzer divisions to be formed so that he could defeat the Red menace he saw as Germany’s natural enemy. Perhaps more pause for thought should have been taken as to what would happen now the tactics of Blitzkrieg had been revealed. As it was, the enemy turned out to have far better tanks and seemingly inexhaustible manpower so that it was only superior flexibility and inter-arms co-ordination that allowed the Germans to hold their own. Unfortunately Adolf was so sure that all-out-attack was the answer that any setbacks were blamed on his generals. Guderian was sacked and some were even executed. Kevin was so pleased with his all-out-attack policy that he bought more and more gifted attacking players and when things started going wrong he blamed personnel. Cole was sold, Beresford was sidelined for voicing concerns and Fazackerley was allowed to leave.

Adolf had managed to regain the initiative but insisted on winning the war with style. He felt that capturing Stalin’s own city would show everyone who was boss and even managed to justify it to himself on strategic grounds by choosing to believe that all the rail traffic from the Caucasian oil fields had to come through Stalingrad whilst there was really another line through Astrakhan further down the Volga. All the experts said that he should calm it down and box clever. Even the attacking tacticians had pointed out that panzers would be absolutely useless attacking cities. Adolf felt he knew best and went for the huge victory at Stalingrad but instead saw his army ripped to pieces by a powerful counter attack after they had worn themselves out through constant attack. Morale was ruined as the feeling of invincibility evaporated and his army learned that they could be beaten. Kevin took NUFC to Anfield and convinced himself that to slow down the tempo would affect morale, but how much did it have to do with showing Anfield who was boss? The feeling was that there were other fixtures coming up where attack would be rewarded but that Liverpool were capable of matching us so the risk was too great. Our team tired themselves out with constant attack and were torn apart by a massive counter-attack. Morale never recovered.

Adolf had overseen the rise of the Waffen SS who were selected from the pick of the Hitler Youth and the young men of captured territories. The feeling was that time spent square-bashing was a waste of time and no substitute for learning what to do under fire. All training was carried out with live ammunition and 10% casualties were seen as being acceptable during training. His young soldiers would be fighting from the word go. Kevin scrapped the reserves partly because he felt that reserve football could never be as competetive as the real thing, and his young players would learn more in 30 mins of a real game than a whole season in the reserves.

Adolf felt that the reason for the slow progress was that the Reds had caught him out with the superior T34 and so he rushed the production of the Mark V Panther to complement the Mark VI Tiger which was already being turned out. The answer was obvious: attack was everything so bigger and heavier tanks were the answer to the pesky setbacks. Kevin felt that attack was everything and so brought in the bigger, heavier strikers. Shearer was purchased as the final piece of the attacking jigsaw to complement the power of Ferdinand.

Adolf kept plugging away and managed a miraculous counterstroke against the Allies in the Ardennes. He caught his opponent out completely by seemingly retreating on all fronts but had secretly assembled a powerful force in reserve. Despite spectacular gains and the old songs of glory being sung by his troops again, it was really just the death-throws and merely accelerated the end. Despite swearing that he was going to lead Germany to glory or die fighting, Adolf took his own life rather than fight to the nd or face the ignominity of public trial. Kevin delivered a stunning 5-0 defeat of Manchester United but couldn’t disguise the fact that we were drawing with the likes of Sheffield Wednesday and losing to West Ham. Despite swearing that he would take us to the pinnacle of Europe he tamely resigned rather than see it through to the end or face up to public ridicule in the media.

Of course, public ridicule can still be administered to the departed, and generations have laughed about Adolf’s peculiar hairstyle and moustache They have also mocked his detestable entourage of the weasely Himmler hiding behind his spectacles, the ratlike Goebbells and his outrageous propaganda and the obese Goering and his grotesque sexual habits. Clearly no parallels could ever be drawn with Keegan’s bubble-perm and Terry Mac’s tache. Let alone cast aspersions about the bespectacled Freddie Fletcher, the outrageous propaganda of the ratlike Douggie Hall or the sexual proclivities of fat Freddie Shepherd :-)

p.s. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing...

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Yeah, all of that's great stuff but who was Hitler's Tino ?

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

And when will we get another posting from Bader and Meinhoff and their pals

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Oh no, not another military history debate - I can hear the sound of PCs being shut down across the globe....

Softie, for the avoidance of doubt, breathtaking is in no way an expression of doubt or disagreement in my vocabulary. I thought it was a fascinating allusion and quite saw where you were coming from (without being able to fill in all of the details as you have inimitably done above). It was breathtaking in its daringness, nothing else.

I see you've avoided Alexander then. Whereas skipping forward the odd couple of millennia but sticking to vaguely the same part of the world, current events have an awful feel of the retreat from Kabul, General 'My Lads Were Unlucky' Robson o/c.

Best not go on though, or Buff will pop up to remind us not to mention the war...

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Thanks boys - sent me off to work with a smile. The Yanks will wonder what I've been up to ;-)

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Dr. Bill and Softie, making history fun! :-)

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

So long as it's not Count Ludendorff reviewing the march-past of the German Army's torchlight parade. He was under the impression that they were Russian prisoners taken in 1916...

Tino is of course the remarkable Me262, a twin engined jet-fighter the like of which the world had never seen. This incredible piece of technology ripped into the previously impervious US bomber stream, knocking down 43 in their first week. They joined the fight too late to change the course of the war, and necessitated a change in training and tactics for their introduction to be successful. The Allies had considered their production to be too costly to be worth trying to use them and many Germans felt that the money would have been wiser spent on anti-aircraft gun production.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

"...who was Hitler's Tino?"

Well, we're looking for somebody brilliant but flawed. Scared the opposition to bits, but also didn't half worry his own side. Prone to irrational over-reaction that got him into trouble (Curle at Man City). Hell of a performer (Barcelona and many others), but we never felt completely comfortable with him. Brought in when all was probably lost, for one last desperate throw of the dice. Misused. Exiled from the Toon and apparently pining for the old days.

Peiper J, Ardennes Campaign 44-45. Subsequently lived as a recluse in Paris, shot in retribution for atrocities, 1968ish.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Simultaneous postings!

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001

Softie,

That was superb, simply superb. Your talent was truly destined for better things - seriously.

-- Anonymous, March 28, 2001