Is Newcastle United unmanageable?
Maybe yes, at present, but surely that can change. Few football clubs are the object of such intense passion but, ever since grown men cried openly outside St James’ Park when Kevin Keegan left as manager (the first time), the Magpies have been mired in a quagmire of soap opera-style emotionalism.

This sits very uncomfortably with the megabucks business that top-flight football has become; the fans’ defiant devotion is mixed with a suspicion that, while they shell out hard-earned cash to be regularly disappointed, some club executives and players who have cost, and are paid, fortunes, have no particular loyalty to the club (or possibly any other), nor to its home area.