Keegan resigns, Wise implicated

Kevin Keegan resigned as Newcastle manager last night blaming his inability to control transfer activity at St. James' Park. In words which echoed Alan Curbishley's this week, the only key difference was the implication of the poisonous Dennis Wise.

The appointment of Wise as Director of Football mid-way through last season was, for me, a complete mystery. Apart from a fluky F A Cup final appearance with Millwall where they were ultimately mismatched, Wise has done nothing in management. Displaying mercenary qualities that Mark McGhee and Steve Bruce would have been proud of, he deserted Millwall as soon as a better offer came from Leeds and they in turn got a taste of their own medicine last year when he left a promotion looking season for a lower profile but higher paid job at the Toon. Those closer to the Leeds situation assure me that the brains behind the Leeds success had already left with Gus Poyet and Wise knew he would struggle on his own. That may be but I think Wise is too conceited and far too obvious a character not to let money dictate his decision making.

Keegan's frustration was with the scarcity of and quality of the Summer signings just as much as his lack of input in the decision-making process. He was defending the situation as recently as two weeks ago saying that he would rather the club took their time and got better quality players than they are replacing rather than buying willy-nilly. Wise is directly responsible for the buying activity as Director of Football, so must carry a large slice of responsibility for perceived failure to strengthen. Whether or not Mike Ashley has made the finds available is up for debate and the sale of Milner questions that, but they did get good money at £12m for him and had laid out more on Coloccini and Xisco.

Ashley will rightly feel the Geordie heat but he will be confident of being able to handle it as he really sees himself as one of the rank and file Toon army. I hope he hasn't misjudged this because there can be nothing worse than becoming a pariah amongst the fans of the club you love.

There has been talk of Wise being lined-up as Keegan's replacement. David Ginola said as much on Radio Five yesterday. If the Newcastle Board fall into that trap, I would seriously fear for Wise's life.