SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO TAKE a few steps backwards to take a giant leap forwards. This must be the way that the Newcastle United board are consoling themselves as they stare at a table which tells them that, with three games to go, they are in fourteenth place and 48 points away from Chelsea, the champions. Last season Newcastle finished fifth, which at the time seemed a little bit disappointing after the previous season ’s third, which, incidentally, was a place above Chelsea. How the good folk of Tyneside would love to trade places with Bolton Wanderers or even Birmingham City right now.
Four days in April were the difference between papering over the cracks and exposing a football club and the manager to an entirely different end of season review. The Uefa Cup exit to Sporting Lisbon at the quarter-final stage summed up a pretty depressing season, to be up 2-0 on aggregate on the night in the second leg and lose the tie 4-2 is more than unlucky.
The previous week Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer fought on the pitch at St James’ Park. The day before the Sporting match, Laurent Robert openly criticised the manager’s tactics and selection. Robert was not banished to the gallows as most expected; instead he lined up four days later in Cardiff for an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United. Four more goals were scored and Newcastle’s season was over.
Fourteenth in the league would be forgiven if Newcastle had made just one of those finals. Living and working in the city in the mid-1990s, there was an optimism and hope around everything that Sir John Hall touched. His rugby team won the league, the ice hockey team made cup finals, it was only a matter of time before the People’s Republic of Newcastle broke away from the rest of England. It’s difficult to understand how important the team’s success is to the city until you spend some time there. The black and white stripes of Newcastle are worn every day with pride, not just on alternate Saturdays and not just by men and boys.
The kind of spending that Kevin Keegan was able to indulge in as he took Newcastle 12 points clear at the top of the Premiership in January 1996 appears small change compared to the funds at José Mourinho’s disposal. But back in the mid-Nineties the jealous few levelled the same kind of charges at Kevin Keegan; that he was attempting to buy success. Sir Jack Walker had done it with Blackburn Rovers so why not Hall at Newcastle?
Hours after Chelsea had secured their first title in 50 years, with victory away to Bolton on Saturday, the radio phone-in shows were requesting calls on the topic “Call us and tell us if you think Chelsea have bought success?”, a leading question perhaps, and a request that sadly says more about the psyche of our nation than the state of Chelsea’s finances. I really wanted the first caller on the line to be Alex from Manchester speaking in a thick Glaswegian accent: “Yeah, I would just like to say it’s hard work winning that league title and nobody should belittle the achievements of any team which lifts that trophy. Money can buy players but it can’t buy team spirit and tactics.” But Alex never called; I hope he’s rung José.
Leeds United spent like there was no tomorrow in the late Nineties and there almost wasn’t one when the accountants finally caught up with them. Newcastle’s spending didn’t come to much in the end but they managed things more sensibly and, while they fell from grace on the pitch, they didn’t fall out with the tax man. The money for both clubs was coming from local sources, not exotic Russian offshore bank accounts, but does that make a difference? Perhaps there’s an element of xenophobia surrounding the Russian influence at the Bridge.
Whether Roman Abramovich is responsible for cherry picking Mourinho or he has a team of advisers who guided him in that direction doesn’t matter; he got the right man at the right time and that man has a group of players who, in spite of their millions in the bank and their gargantuan transfer fees, made Saturday’s win look as fresh and as desired as any group of young lads in the country. Abramovich may have shown them the Promised Land but they had to do the hard work to get there.
Mourinho has played games with the media all season and in doing so has given his players huge respect and space to be the best. Long gone are the days when Eidur Gudjohnsen and Frank Lampard are pulled up by the tabloids for being drunk and badly behaved in a bowling arcade in the middle of the afternoon. John Terry has become a model citizen and Joe Cole finally delivered the promises that Harry Redknapp made about him when he was a 14-year-old at West Ham United’s academy.
As a fan of Newcastle United, where Fight Club is obviously the only DVD on the team bus, one can’t help but admire the team spirit at Chelsea. “We are like brothers,” Lampard romantically explained on Saturday. “It’s easy to have team spirit when you’re winning,” the husband interjected, and it was hard to argue against a man with 70 caps for his country and a few league titles. But the husband played rugby where team bonding is given as much importance as the lineout or the scrum; in football we have grown weary of players moving clubs on a whim and their regular displays of selfishness.
It is not all down to cash and being rich isn’t always a recipe for happiness, ask the Osbourne or Onassis families, or even the Ranieri family — Claudio was rich for a season and it didn’t buy him success. Mourinho has been rich for less than a season and he has made sure that, first and foremost, Chelsea are a unit, there are no factions and the weaker members have been protected. When Mateja Kezman finally scored a league goal after months of drought his team-mates were ecstatic for him.
They didn’t need the goal to win that day against Newcastle — they were already 3-0 up — but they knew that Kezman needed it. If Mourinho can’t mould players into what he needs them to be then they will be off in the summer. More strength will be added and it won’t be 50 years until the next title, closer to 50 games. Well done Chelsea.
