you couldn't make it up...

you couldn't make it up...

from bbc.co.uk/news:

Joe Kinnear claims Newcastle owner Mike Ashley offered him a two-year deal to return as manager, which he rejected as he continues to recover from surgery.

Kinnear, 62, has been sidelined since a triple heart bypass operation in February and in his absence Newcastle were relegated from the Premier League.

"I told him I'm not going back to football until at least another three months," Kinnear told BBC Radio 5 live.

"If Newcastle feel they need to get another manager, then so be it."

As Kinnear recuperated, former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer took over as manager until the end of the season but he could not save the club from dropping into the Championship.

To add to the air of confusion, Ashley is trying to sell the club and until Newcastle's future is sorted out, Chris Hughton and Colin Calderwood will be in charge of the first team.

Shearer has admitted he has no idea if he will be appointed Newcastle boss on a full-time basis while uncertainty over the club's ownership persists.

He is likely to be at Newcastle's Championship opener at West Brom on Saturday - but working for the BBC as part of its live coverage.

Meanwhile, Kinnear said he had been given the all-clear by the specialist and planned to return to management "as soon as I get the opportunity," but he wants to pace himself.

"I've been offered a two year contract - it's something I'm mulling over at the present time." he added.

"It was about two weeks ago - I was due to go back for pre-season friendlies as manager but I told him I wasn't up to it for medical reasons.

"I need to take time out and reassess the situation, then take it from there. In another three months the picture might be completely different."

A spokesman for the club said Ashley had no comment to make at this stage.

kinnear's full of shit imo, trying to raise his profile for other clubs.

If we'd offered him a job, why would he come out in the papers a few weeks ago and say we had delusions of grandeur etc ?

Why would Shearer be at the game as part of the BBCs live coverage? I didnt think MOTD covered the Championship?

they're covering the football league this season. plus the bbc have the rights to ten live championship games this year (of which saturday is the first).

Nothing surprises me anymore.

In the Chronicle tonight it states that if we cant sell the club within the next few weeks that Ashley will keep it - God help us. I dont even want to bgin to imagine the players we'd sell to those that we'd bring in.

To boot, I cant believe Shearer has had so much patience? he's been totally fucked around & embarrased along the way.

I cant think of another club that been so mis-managed in all my years of following football?

I mean, we were relegated over 70 days ago! still no manager appointed, it's unheard of!

Out of all the clubs that have been taken over in recent times, there is only us I can think of where the shit has hit the fan this badly

Man City were taken over by a wanted man, Liverpool & Man Utd are owned by Americans in millions of pounds of debt & the likes of Villa & even the mackems are coming along nicely

And we get the fucking useless one! Typical

kinnear was helping advertise championship manager when he was interviewed on sky about this the other day

barry moat.

Bassong now gone to Spurs for about £8m according to the Ronny Gill.

£8m is amazing considering we paid 500k for him

when you look at it like that then yeh, it looks like good business.

However he's just as good as Lescott & Everton have rejected 2 bids from city for £15m & then for £18m. They only bought him from Wolves for about £5m.

Lets call it half the money made back from the Michael Owen catastrophe.

include the martins money and were sorted

tbf we should have held out and started a bidding war if City didnt get Lescott.

I hate the way you all go on like your club has never wasted any money.

we should have at least asked for £10m. arsenal wanted him but we asked for £15m so they bought vermaelen. if we'd dropped that a bit it might have been interesting to see what arsenal, spurs and city would have offered.

i'm really sick of this whole michael owen crack as well. you're forgetting that we never actually handed £16m over to real madrid, a lot of it was just the writing off of debts they owed us for woodgate (£13.4m)!

craig gordon