The plight of Newcastle and the Champions League Final

Every Newcastle fan's nightmare was confirmed at the weekend. Even Alan Shearer couldn't stop the Toon Army sliding into the Championship.

I'm devastated for the fans. Loud and colourful, they remind me of the Celtic fans I played in front of. And like them, Newcastle fans happiness is governed by the fortunes of the team.

They've been shortchanged by mismanagement and, in all honesty, they are yet to pay the full price.

I feel their demise can be traced back to the sacking of Sir Bobby Robson. He brought the team to the Champions League and fifth in the league. Letting a man of his background go was a huge mistake.

Will they bounce straight back up next season? It depends who takes the reins as manager. But statistics show that only 40% of teams return to the Premier League at the first time of asking.

And with 15 players on £50k or more, many of whom certainly aren¹t worth that, it¹s a tall order.

The Champions League final will be a contest between two teams easy on the eye. And it should be very, very entertaining.

Barcelona possess so much creativity, not to mention strength of character; to contain Chelsea in the semi final for 90 minutes then nick it at the last demonstrated this.

Messi, Henry, Eto¹o and Iniesta all have mouthwatering ability. But their equally talented full backs, Alves and Abidal, are both out. And I haven¹t been too impressed with the two centre backs either.

It's these failings that I feel Manchester Utd will exploit. My verdict? Fergie's men to win on penalties.

Italian discipline working for England

England stuttered a little on Wednesday and made heavy weather against ordinary opposition. I think the level of expectation may have got to some of the players, resulting in a few nervy moments.

In amongst it all was another cap for David Beckham. With Bobby Moore’s record now beaten, he’s bearing down on Peter Shilton’s magic number of 125 appearances.

There have, however, been one or two dissenting voices, not least from Shilton himself. With Beckham coming on in the dying seconds of a handful of games the view is that many of the caps he’s recently won shouldn’t have been won at all,.

Certainly in Shilton’s era, caps were harder to come by. In modern football, squads boast much larger numbers, and some managers have been generous in awarding caps to players who might not have been in the reckoning in the past. I can see why he felt the need to comment.

Back to last night, and Capello continues to drive the team forward in his own assured way. And a key part of this is a disciplined approach. I experienced this first hand during my time as a player in Italy with Bari and Pisa.

There were no nicknames, cliques or in-jokes. We ate together, trained and travelled together. When we wanted to leave the table, we even had to make eye contact with the coaching staff to ask to be excused. I was only 23 but I enjoyed this kind of management.

My old club Chelsea go to the North East this weekend for one of the most eagerly anticipated games of the season. But the spotlight won’t be on Hiddink and his team. Alan Shearer’s return to Newcastle United as manager means all eyes will be on the home dugout.

It’s an interesting turn of events. He’s a wealthy man with a burgeoning media career. It will please many people, supporters and credible people in the game that he has come out of that zone. And it’s this that may have spurred him on to take the job. The managerial post at St James Park is far from comfortable.

Crucially, it appears he’s taken the job on his own terms. There’s a real sense that the team might go down which will have huge ramifications financially for the club. The chairman, Mike Ashley, is giving him sole responsibility to steer the club to safety. This might explain the departure from St James Park of my old teammate and friend, Dennis Wise.

Dennis is a capable football man. And he’s been instrumental in some of Newcastle’s successful signings this season. The circumstances were very unusual, with him being appointed director of football, particularly bearing in mind his credible managerial career. He was brought in because Mike Ashley wanted knowledgeable people to flank him during his first season as a Premier League chairman.

I think that what was always a tall order and became glaringly evident over time was the strange relationship between Wise and the fans. But ‘Wisey’ has a good pedigree in the game and he’ll be back. There’s a club out there for him, I’m sure of it. And with the ‘contain and counter’ game Chelsea are so good at it, the result tomorrow might not be what Shearer, or Ashley, were hoping for.