Anyone seen this story? Bobby is apparently apoplectic about the Board making no attempt to keep Wadsworth. I know this is speculative and I've no real evidence, but you can't help thinking that there's trouble brewing between the Board and Robson....Anyone else concerned?

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Answers

yes.... concerned that we have no-one to take over when Bobby bins the job in a month's time

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

We only lose managers when we get beaten my Sunderland on the 25th August, so it's lucky they've moved the game to the Sunday

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

I hope it all gets smoothed out and everyones happy.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Geordie, I have a bad feeling about Bobby and whether or not he'll stay. Thing is, he honours his contracts and has a one year rolling contract so theoretically he'd have to give a year's notice to the club, but who knows the terms of his contract? Maybe he thinks the club are in breach of his contract by ditiching one of his staff...

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Wadsworth left for purely finantial reasons.

Southampton offered him a lot more money than he was currently on. Newcastle said they wern't prepared to match it . So he went , simple as that.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Note that Wadsworth said that there is a question over the longterm position of coaching at Newcastle -. bit worrying. Rik, Robson asked them to meet Wadsworth's demands and they didn't. I think he's probably a tad upset about that.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Or perhaps Wadsworth wanted to go to Southampton. I think thats pretty obvious. I can guarantee there won't be many tears shed over this one within SJP.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Thought you lot weren't bothered????????????????

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

We aren't bothered about losing Wadsworth - we're worried that Bobby is upset about losing him.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

BR should be upset as now he's got no-one to hide behind and blame the crap performances and effort on.

I don't think that BR will be with you by Xmas...

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Roly, I hadn't realised that you wern't a Newcastle fan. You're very polite for a maKem.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

originally brought up in Gosforth RiK!!!!!

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Gosforth Mackem.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

And here I was thinking Gossy was a full of elitists!

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Aal fur coats and 'nee 'nickers

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Bobby speaks:

"We've lost a very competent coach who for some reason was subjected to some criticism at the end of last season that was not justified, unfair, not correct and out of order".

"Yes, the team had a blip. We were all involved in that, but that blip was not caused through Mick Wadsworth's coaching ability".

"We've lost a very solid, reliable guy and I'll tell you this - I have an administrative staff, I have a medical staff and I have a technical staff - and every single member of those three departments of this club is sick that Mick Wadsworth has left this club".

"I sat next to Alex Ferguson last Saturday for five hours and we watched a bit of tennis and talked football, and I think so much of Mick Wadsworth that if I had not been manager of Newcastle, and I knew Alex has lost Steve McClaren to Middlesbrough, I would have recommended Alex take him on board."

Robson dismissed suggestions that Wadsworth's departure had driven a wedge between himself and chairman Freddy Shepherd amid rumours of showdown talks. "The chairman and I will not fall out about it." he said. "The chairman and I get on very well. We have no problems. He supports me and I inform him of what I'm doing. I try to squeeze as much out of him as I can; he plays as much ball with me as he can, and there's no problem between the chairman and I about Mick Wadsworth leaving."

Nice to hear the latter statement that will hopefully clear the air on the matter. I have to say I feel sorry for Bobby that his right-hand man has effectively been driven out of the Toon by uninformed criticism - in truth Wadsworth has finished up the fall guy for our poor performances last season. However, he has fallen on his feet in a new job with a salary increase and a good contract, so there is no need to feel sorry for him.

Let's hope we now turn this situation to our advantage, resist resorting to making do with what we've got, and go out and hire a top-class coach to help improve Bobby's effectiveness and ease his work-load.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

I want to believe Bobby, but with all the messing about, and him being well-known 'company man', I can't stop the nagging feeling that all is still not well in Toon-land. Hope I'm wrong.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Hey Roly - where in Gossie?

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

So a big problem next year will be when we play Southampton and Wadsworth has all that inside knowledge on our players strengths and weaknesses.

He'll be able to pull off another tactical coup by getting Southampton to play with nobody at right back and a spare man in mdifield, knowing for sure we'll have no on eon the left. or will it be the other way round. Maybe Southampton selling Kachloul from their left hand side was what attracted Wadsworth in the first place.

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

before my parents moved to Houghton -Le-Spring... it wqas somewhere down Hollywood Avenue.... down where the dog track used to be (now a sainsburys!!!) ; i still have relatives down there...

Dad was from Coxlodge mum from Ponteland...

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

There was an excellent quote on sky text yesterday calling Stuart Gray "That clever bugger down there" and continuing that he would send a telegram to congratulate him on this skuldugerry (sp)

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001