At the end of one of the most baffling days in Newcastle United's history Kevin Keegan's future as the club's manager looked increasingly untenable last night. As his second stint in charge of the club seemed poised to end in disillusion and no little anger, Keegan is understood to have spent the evening inside a Manchester hotel in the company of his lawyers.
After a day of rumours that Newcastle had sacked their manager, and during which Keegan told friends he had been fired, the club issued a confusing statement shortly before 7pm which stated that the former England coach had not in fact been dismissed but failed to confirm that he would continue in his job.
Although Newcastle claim he is expected at training this morning, Keegan and Mike Ashley, the club's billionaire owner, appear to be wrangling over his severance demands. It is understood that a clause in the manager's contract makes him liable to pay Ashley more than £1m should he resign but Keegan feels he has a strong case for constructive dismissal and believes he should be paid £8m in compensation.
Suggestions that Keegan and Newcastle were parting company less than eight months after he returned to the club began surfacing yesterday morning when, instead of supervising training, he headed for a 10am meeting with board members.
Friends of Keegan were soon insisting that he had been dismissed and a militant, increasingly vocal, crowd began gathering outside St James' Park. Chanting "Ashley out" and hoisting placards in the much-loved manager's honour, their fury was palpable. Meanwhile the silence at St James' Park remained deafening until that 7pm statement was finally released.
It read: "Newcastle United can confirm that meetings between members of the board and Kevin Keegan have been held both yesterday and today. Kevin has raised a number of issues and these have been discussed with him.
"The club wants to keep progressing with its long-term strategy and would like to stress that Kevin is extremely important now and in the future. Newcastle United value the effort and commitment Kevin has shown since his return to St James' Park and want him to continue to play an instrumental role as manager of the club.
"For the avoidance of doubt the club has not sacked Kevin Keegan as manager."
With lawyers representing both parties already heavily involved, the wording is deliberately careful but Ashley will surely have been taken aback by the ferocity of the fans' reaction. However, despite his habit of wearing a replica shirt emblazoned with "King Kev" on the back, the relationship between Newcastle's owner and manager has long been unravelling.
Indeed things have never been quite right between them since late January when, two weeks after Keegan's installation, Dennis Wise was appointed to a director of football role. Relations between that pair have long been strained.
It is understood that this long-festering discontent on Keegan's part came to a head on Monday, with the vexed subjects of Joey Barton's and Michael Owen's futures having a tinderbox effect. The board allegedly tried, but failed, to sell both players behind Keegan's back on deadline day and that move apparently inflamed a manager working with the thinnest of squads.
Just last Friday Keegan - who saw James Milner sold to Aston Villa against his will last week and is unhappy with the way the club have handled negotiations over a new contract for Owen - predicted he would be greeting four new signings before midnight on Monday. He hoped Bayern Munich's midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger would be one.
Instead Newcastle's manager had to be content with two recruits from La Liga he had seemingly never seen play - Xisco, the Spain Under-21 striker, from Deportivo La Coruña in a £5.6m deal and Ignacio González, a Uruguayan midfielder, on loan from Valencia. There was, though, no sign of the specialist left-back that Keegan had been demanding all summer.
Trouble began flaring early on Monday afternoon when Keegan was summoned to a board meeting and heard his managerial style and record heavily criticised by Derek Llambias, Newcastle's managing director. Like Ashley, Llambias had disagreed with Keegan's decision to keep faith with Barton amid the midfielder's myriad problems and it appears that an attempt, not sanctioned by Keegan, to move the midfielder on later on Monday further inflamed matters. By then the manager's future was in the balance and training yesterday was taken by Terry McDermott, his longstanding confidant.
Meanwhile speculation as to the identity of Keegan's likely successor swirled around Tyneside, with the name of the currently unemployed David O'Leary quickly thrust into the frame. Other managers mentioned included David Moyes, Avram Grant and Didier Deschamps along with just about every coach in La Liga.
Wise - who left St James' Park for London late yesterday afternoon - has repeatedly insisted he would not relish a return to frontline management. Nonetheless the former Leeds and Millwall manager could serve as a caretaker and it is not entirely impossible that, longer term, he could reprise the coaching double act he enjoyed with Gus Poyet, now Tottenham Hotspur's assistant manager, at Leeds.
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