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Manchester United and Chelsea are separated by only goal difference as the Premier League heads toward a final weekend that will determine the title. Kevin Keegan is bored by it all.
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The Newcastle United manager is concerned that no team can muscle into the “Big Four,” which also includes Arsenal and Liverpool.
Monday’s 2-0 defeat to Chelsea was further evidence of the gulf.
In a frank critique, the 57-year-old Keegan said there’s no hope of European Champions League qualification for his club.
“We are a million miles away from that,” he told reporters in a 13-minute monologue. “This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring, but great leagues in the world. The top four next year will be the same top four as this year.
“We will be trying to get fifth, and we will be trying to win the other league that’s going on within the Premier League. It would be a hell of an achievement from where we are now, but it’s possible.”
Keegan managed Newcastle during a memorable 1996 season when the club squandered a 12-point advantage to Manchester United, prompting an emotional finger-jabbing rant against Alex Ferguson.
“No manager is going to say what I said 12 years, ‘Watch out, Alex, we are after your title,”‘ Keegan said. “If they do, they will think they have been drinking something or they are on something, and I am sure they are not.
“It’s a realisation for everybody.”
Keegan was lured back into management in January after two years to revitalize Newcastle. He took 10 matches to deliver three points, a 2-0 victory over Fulham on March 22, but had been unbeaten in seven until the loss to Chelsea.
Newcastle hasn’t won the English league title since 1927, the FA Cup since 1955 or any other major trophy in 39 years.
“I don’t see what we can do about it, do you? If you know, tell me,” he said. “I felt this way before I came back into the game, but being back in now just underlines what I thought.”
Keegan lamented that clubs like his in northern England it has a near impossible task of attracting name players in competition with the Big Four.
“Even if someone gives you a barrow-load of money, you have got to be honest and say you are not going to get the very best players,” said Keegan, who played for Newcastle from 1982 to 1984. “There is a pecking order, isn’t there? If I am a player and I get the chance to go to Chelsea or Newcastle, if I go to Newcastle, you guys would slaughter me.
“All the great players, the big players, the top players potentially, will go for where the honors are, and then if they don’t make it there, they will drop down to a Newcastle or any of those other clubs.”
Keegan is bewildered by the talent at Avram Grant’s disposal – funded by Chelsea’s billionaire owners Roman Abramovich.
“Chelsea bring (Andrei) Shevchenko off the bench – (worth) STG28 million ($A58.36 million) – they bring Frank Lampard off the bench, they have got Joe Cole, they have got Shaun Wright-Phillips … and I could go on.
“With the greatest respect, I can’t say to the Newcastle fans that I have got any firepower like that, so over a season, they are going to have you.”
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