Redknapp Says No, Ashley Now In Desperate To Deliver

Posted by: Clarky · January 12, 2008

The whole things about who is the next United manager is getting hotter as today’s Chronicle report the man from Pompey has stunned the football world when he turned down the chance to manage Newcastle United to stay at Portsmouth.

Mike Ashley is no mug. I seriously doubt he would have fired Allardyce if he hadn’t received assurances that Redknapp would be favourably disposed to taking the job.

What Ashley couldn’t control was the response of the Pompey owners - who are also mega-rich. Again, I feel certain that these guys will have offered Harry Redknapp a serious sweetener to get him to stay.

And about Jose Mourinho, he has a proven international record of playing ‘winning football’ almost from Day-One. Allardyce was “losing ugly”, and his team showed no signs whatsoever of getting onto the same wavelength.

That is not to say he couldn’t have improved things if he was about to given time, but his reputation and track record was such that the best we could expect was to improve from “losing ugly” to “winning a little more often, but still ugly”.

These things happen, and I don’t believe we should write Ashley off as a doughnut because of it. However, having been dropped in the clag by Redknapp, he is now under serious pressure to fill the job, and I genuinely believe his next move is the most critical. It will perhaps show us his real mettle.

Tags: Harry Redknapp, Mike Ashley, Newcastle United

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2008 at 6:48 am and is filed under Mike Ashley, Newcastle United, Toon Army Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, or trackback from your own site.