Always The Best Dressed

Crisis at Newcastle. Isn't that a bit like saying drama at the FA. Its obvious. Its redudant. But the growing readership at Azzurri Dreams just needs the information. So here it is. The funny thing is that I Ineed a new a secretary at Azzurri Dreams to answer the onslaught of supermodels wanting to hang out with me, designers wanting me to wear their designer suits for all my 'outings,' and to help me priortize the media requests from the worldly soccer press that want to know how I get my information before anyone else. Quick call Sam Allardyce. He is the answer to all our problems. Seriously, the problem with success is that everyone wants you. Now I know how it feels to be Big Sam. At least, no one wants me for the vacant coaching position at Newcastle, at least not yet. And seriously why would you leave the blossiming offices of Azzurri Dreams or Bolton for the mess that is Newcastle. But so we must continue to kindly say that we are not interested. I cannot speak for Sam, but I would venture to say he is not interested. I think the only people thinking Grahame Souness was going to survive this season were living under a rock, maybe Souey himself. Lets do a quick recap of this glorious 16 months at St. James park:

He spent a record fee of €25M for England striker Michael Owen. If being duped once was not enough, he went ahead and spent more than €29.4M on defender Jean-Alain Boumsong, midfielders Scott Parker and Emre Belozoglu and forward Albert Luque. Smart moves.

But maybe Grahame Souness was under a rock himself or least should have been put under one for some of his decisions. Almost like a time-out for children acting infantile. No need to rehash, but here it goes:

Letting go of Craig Bellamy to Celtic on Loan and then losing him to Blackburn. Big Mistake. He was the only striker you could count on. True he had a huge amount of injuries but this team was inept from the top down, and no matter how much fun we like to poke at Grahame Souness(second only to the Swedish-Savant) here at Azzurri Dreams, he isn't alone for the annual Newcastle meltdown. There is no accountability at this team, this starts from their Chairman Freddy Shepard who funded this team well knowing that Souey was not going to make it(but I wonder if the acquisitions were also brought to Alan Shearer?) since we all knew he was eventually going to take over. So why fork out the money? Secondly, the ex-coach, what can you say, known as a disciplinarian, let one of his players Lee Bowyer try to bludgeon another, Kieron Dyer last season; and if anyone has seen a Newcastle match lately, you know what it is like to be bludgeoned.

We cannot fault Grahame Souness for trying but it was agnozing watching him on the touchlines. He tried, we will give him that and his suits were impeccable. But once. Just once, as I have pleaded before on Azzurri Dreams, I would like to see someone have the courage to say, 'No, you can't buy another player,' This asks questions of Newcastle, primarily, what the hell are you doing with your youth academy and alas, what the hell are you doing with Shepard as your Chairman. Look at the other top teams in England with Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal who could go young if they chose (Chelsea excluded for obvious reasons since they can buy anyone they want and do not need to build from within) and you have to start from the ground up. Newcastle has what they wanted now in a player-coach in Alan Shearer splitting duties with Glenn Roeder. But they have no real prospects for ending their trophy drought. My first solution, bring back James Milner, the kid can flat-out play. Additonally try not to stress out about Europe; the only way into Europe next year is via the Intertoto Cup and that would be a stretch.

I have not turned on the news today, but I can see at least one effigagy being burnt outside St. James Park and it might be the wrong one. Now Newcastle has the daunting task of rebuilding, re-selling and dealing with outraged and loyal fans and the firing Grahame Souness might not be the solution. And you know you have an ordeal when you know somewhere the Swedish-Savant is laughing, thinking that this is one job he actually does not want. This picture says as much but you can decide for yourself.

Azzurri Dreams