David Ginola was a wonderful crosser. At first some people doubted
if he was better than Scott Sellars, but they needed just one training
session to realise he was and we were lucky to have him at Newcastle.
It was like one of those kaleidoscopes – you move a piece and then
it all comes into focus. We won nine of our opening 10 league games
at the start of 1995-96 to go top of the league, where we stayed for
the next eight months.
We played some wonderful attacking football, and I loved to sit back
and watch them from the bench. In many ways this team was an act
of selfishness, because I’d created a team I wanted to watch. I could
never set up a team to get a 0-0 draw, that’s not football.
The players were enjoying it. There was a positivity flowing through
the club, because we knew we could beat anyone.
My team talks were quite simple. I never argue with people who say
I wasn’t that into tactics, as it’s true. We had all these great players,
so I didn’t want to restrict them – my mantra was just let them play.
We looked at how we could cause problems for the opposition – that
was my coaching style. We gave them freedom, a licence to play and
be themselves. I would just say, ‘We’ve got so much ability, if we lose
against this lot today, the game’s gone!’
Our attitude was it was all about us – it was about attacking. When
I played for Liverpool, Bill Shankly was a huge inspiration for me and
said, ‘Go out and drop hand grenades all over the place.’
I played a 4-4-2 formation with two strikers. We didn’t go anywhere
with a defensive mindset. It might sound a little bit gung-ho, and not
all the players were happy – my centre-back Darren Peacock even said
to me, ‘Gaffer, is there any chance you could sign another defender?!’
By the middle of January we were 12 points ahead of Man United in
2nd place, and inevitably started to believe that we could win the title.
Everyone wanted us to win the league, too, and we got clapped on and
off the field at many grounds.
On March 4, 1996, when United came to St James’ Park on a Monday
night, our lead was down to four points after losing 2-0 at West Ham
and drawing 3-3 at Manchester City. That meant a victory at home to
United would give us a lovely seven-point cushion, but defeat would
cut our lead to a single point. It was a huge game.
In the first half we absolutely battered them, ripped them to bits,
but couldn’t find a way past Peter Schmeichel, who saved everything
we threw at him. We couldn’t believe it was still 0-0 at half-time. Six
months later we’d thrash them 5-0 at St James’ Park, but I honestly
think we played better in this game but just couldn’t score, and in the
second half Eric Cantona knocked one in to secure a 1-0 win [right].
That hurt so much.
It was a stark reminder that United knew how to win high-pressure
games, and we didn’t. Until you’ve won something you’re never sure
you can finish the job, and they’d already done it over and over again,
so they didn’t panic. We didn’t have that quality. If you look through
our team, what had they won between them? Not much at all.
We beat West Ham 3-0 at home in our next game, before losing 2-0
at Arsenal and then suffering the heartache of the 4-3 defeat against
Liverpool on that famous night. On a terrible pitch, we should have
won it twice over, but came away with nothing.
Stan Collymore scored Liverpool’s last-gasp winner by beating Pavel
Srnicek at his near post, which I felt he should have saved. Pavel never
thought I completely trusted him, and he was probably right.
I always felt I could have had a better goalkeeper at Newcastle, but
never got one. We didn’t ever have a truly great goalkeeper during my
time there. That’s not an insult to Pavel Srnicek, Shaka Hislop or any of
the others, it’s just the way it was. If we had Peter Schmeichel in goal
we would have won the league, even though he might have been a bit
busier playing for us.
There’s no use pretending we didn’t mentally collapse towards the
end of the season. We played under incredible tension. Chances were
dropping to players you’d expect to finish them, but we were snatching
at them and missing them.SIR ALEX CROSSED A LInE, AnD THAT’S THE DIFFEREnCE BETWEEn US
What would I have done differently? I can honestly say nothing. I’m
often told I should have been more defensive in the run-in, but I didn’t
have the players to play another way. We were built to attack and
had done that for three years.
What did people expect me to say to my players, ‘OK guys, we’re 12
points clear and playing fantastic football, but do you know what? I’m
going to change our style, leave David Ginola out and just pick another
defender.’ I mean, come on! That was never going to happen.
Of course, if someone said to me now I could turn the clock back, put
two more defenders in and play a few shit games, then you probably
would just to win a trophy for Newcastle.
We had one way of playing that had got us to there, and were stuck
with it. We were the entertainers. Maybe history will judge that we did
too much entertaining and should have shut up shop more often, but
I didn’t have the players to do that.“MAYBE WE DID TOO MUCH EnTERTAInInG
AnD SHOULD HAVE SHUT UP SHOP MORE,
BUT I DIDn’T HAVE THE PLAYERS FOR IT”
90 The Managers FourFourTwo.com
KEVIn
KEEGAn