Newcastle manager’s job is a poisoned chalice and Steven Gerrard is already at a bigger club, says Paul Parker
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Updated 13/10/2021 at 16:11 GMT
Paul Parker discusses Newcastle United’s takeover, and says his former Manchester United teammate Steve Bruce would much rather stay on at the club but has suffered since day one. Parker looks at Bruce’s possible replacements, including Frank Lampard, Brendan Rodgers and Steven Gerrard, and warns Newcastle fans trophies may take a while to arrive.
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You can't feel too sorry for Steve Bruce to be perfectly honest because Bruce is probably going to walk away soon, and with a lovely wheelbarrow full of money. However, I do think he's been treated badly from day one.
Steve Bruce is a heart and soul man, and he absolutely loves where he's from. That's Newcastle. He managed Sunderland because it was a football job. It shouldn’t be taken that seriously that you can't go back to where you're from – then you go home and you're being called a traitor.
Was his heart and soul 100 per cent when at Sunderland? He was 100 per cent in doing a professional job, yes, but was he always inside a Newcastle man? Of course he was.
That hasn't helped him. People talk about results, people talk about performances, and you have to live with that as manager, but when you look at it a lot of the bias comes against Brucey because of that.
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It will hurt him, as much as it’s hurting him now when he's having to read what he's reading. He knows what's going to happen, everyone knows what's going to happen. People take over football clubs now and bring in whoever they want – players, managers.
Bruce will be looked after grandly, as he knows, but inside he would still rather be manager of Newcastle United and have an opportunity to go and give everything he can to do that job.
I think everyone knows already, it’s no different to when Mark Hughes was manager of Manchester City. And I think Sparky always knew at the end, the owners want to get who they want, and someone's advising them because they’ve got so much money.
There's no guarantees. It took City a long time and they’re still paying a lot of money to get what they want. Even then they're still not happy because it doesn't matter how much money City have got, they haven’t won a Champions League, and they haven't looked like a side that should have won the Champions League.
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Lampard linked, but what about Gerrard?
They go into it going for big names. Frank’s a big name. That's the problem. Frank Lampard is a headline. That says a lot really because that's the way people are thinking, and maybe the press are pushing it because the press like him.
However, a lot of the press did also say he wasn't good enough to do that Chelsea job at that moment in time, he wasn't prepared to do that job, and his choice of backroom staff wasn't right for someone with his inexperience of being a manager.
If they turn around and suddenly mention Steven Gerrard, who is a big name delivering at a big club, that makes more sense. People will say he's not in a great league, and it’s not, but he’s still managing a big club and big players.
If you look at Rangers as a football club, everyone knows Rangers are a lot bigger than Newcastle.
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Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard of England
Image credit: Getty Images
If you're going to do something at Newcastle, you want to bring someone in who's going to do it with heart and soul and for all for the right reasons. You would talk about Steven Gerrard, his name would be mentioned.
Or Leicester’s Rodgers?
Rodgers would because he's going to believe it would give him the best opportunity to go out and get the best players and try and win something.
He's desperate to win a league, desperate to win a Champions League. Leicester are decent, and will maybe be just as good with a different manager because they're in a better place now.
There's a lot of people that will want to play for Leicester and they have maybe the best training facilities in the country now. So maybe Rodgers is looking at that. He had an opportunity at Liverpool and it never worked out. I think everyone's seen he’s had opportunities at Leicester.
He might believe that the opportunity might come at Newcastle, but being that first man through the door after this situation is a poisoned chalice.
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Brendan Rodgers
Image credit: Getty Images
Careful what you wish for, Newcastle fans
Newcastle fans are looking at money, they're not thinking about anything else, all they're doing is jumping up and down looking at the money – but I think you've got to be careful what you wish for.
I think there are many clubs, we saw what happened with Liverpool when their first American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks came in and the problems they had.
We're seeing a situation with Manchester United’s owners, the problems and how it's affecting the club, so Newcastle fans have to be careful.
As much as Newcastle fans and the people there think they own their football club – they don't. They have never done and never will do, and in the current climate the people who are coming in have got a lot of money for a reason – one being they don't give it away cheaply.
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Newcastle fans celebrate the club's takeover
Image credit: Getty Images
They’ve got a lot of wise people telling them where they should be spending money and how they should spend it, but the one thing they're not going to go and do is completely throw everything into a football club when they know that returns are minimal.
So you can talk about winning leagues, getting back to where you believe you should be, but the problem is Newcastle have never been a club that have been winning lately.
So what exactly are you looking for? What exactly are you expecting? And what do you think you deserve? Overall, every football club deserves to be run in the right manner, by the right people, but a in a sense some English football clubs have now sold out.
I've recently seen my local team six, seven league games in and they’re sacking managers. It used to last 30 games and over but now people will be sacked after six games, and the old saying ‘it's a marathon not a sprint’ is gone now. All of a sudden this Real Madrid mentality has come to the UK – this ruthlessness.
Football clubs are affected by greed, and kids are being brought up in football in the wrong manner, not really understanding what it's about.
Football was a working class game, now it's a middle class game, and it's not played with heart and passion.
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