PAUL INCE looms large on Newcastle United's three-man shortlist to fill the managerial vacancy created by Kevin Keegan's resignation. The other two contenders are understood to be Gus Poyet and Didier Deschamps, who, like Ince, both remain close to Dennis Wise, Newcastle's highly influential director of football.
When Ince's potential candidacy for the St James' hot seat first surfaced this week, a senior figure at Blackburn Rovers dismissed the idea as mere fanciful rumour, but John Williams, the Rovers chairman, could now face a fight to keep the manager he hired from MK Dons only in July.
Ince, who played alongside Wise for England and briefly served as player-coach during his managerial tenure at Swindon, is on a four-year contract at Ewood Park and the Rovers board will demand "substantial" compensation should he defect to Tyneside.
Significantly, Ince refused to rule out that possibility during his weekly media conference yesterday. "It's flattering to be linked with any club," he said. "But it is speculation and I do not comment on speculation."
Although Poyet remains very much in contention, the Uruguayan, who served as Wise's assistant at Leeds United and is now Juande Ramos's number two at Tottenham Hotspur, is believed to harbour real reservations not only about leaving London, where his family are settled, but also about working at Newcastle.
With a relationship with Wise proving the common denominator between all three men, the inclusion of Deschamps is hardly surprising. Arguably the strongest candidate of the trio, the former France captain - who, like Poyet, played alongside Newcastle's director of football in Chelsea's midfield - has managed Monaco and Juventus and is widely regarded as a future coach of Les Bleus. Yet despite being instantly available owing to his current lack of a job, Deschamps, is, for the moment at least, regarded as the outside bet.
Keegan's succession is scheduled to be discussed at a Newcastle board meeting on Monday, when it is hoped Mike Ashley, the club's owner - who spent part of this week sifting through 38 serious applications for the post - will reach a final decision. In the interim Chris Hughton will act as caretaker manager when Hull City visit St James' Park this afternoon.
Michael Owen will be around to captain Newcastle and the striker has stressed that talk of the team revolting against the club's hierarchy is ill-founded. Though senior players are upset by Keegan's exit and enraged at the club's apparent readiness to sell all of them during the last transfer window they are not about to surrender to Hull and will restrict any dissension to non-compliance with certain voluntary off-field activities.
"Whatever the events of the past couple of weeks off the field, the players here are proper professionals," Owen insisted. "We are all paid to do a job and we have to go out and continue to do that job. We all have to pull together and we all want the best for this football club."
Roy Keane believes that, with Keegan's departure, the Premier League has lost some of its allure.
"Football is definitely a lesser game without Kevin Keegan," said Sunderland's manager yesterday. "His Newcastle team of the 90s was bloody brilliant and a bit unlucky. He entertained people, you can't forget that.
"I was out with one of Newcastle's players last week and he spoke very highly of Kevin Keegan. Personally, I always found him to be a bloody good, honest bloke. Not all managers are like that."
Guardian Service
