Michael Walker discovers why Gary Speed is so confidentNewcastle United can win the Premiership
Madonna was warbling on in the background about a beautiful stranger. The obligatory coffee machine was hissing and whistling. The marble and steel gleamed. The cafe at St James' - ever so modern - was bathed in winter sunlight yesterday. It seemed an appropriate location for a club feeling morning fresh and renewed. Gary Speed sat on the edge of this scene and reflected that it also felt a long way from Wrexham.
That was where Speed and football first met, on the terraces, before the game's cappuccino revolution. It is 14 years since he signed as a professional for Leeds United, earning £90 a week, and today that figure is more likely to be £90 an hour. Understandably, Speed is not disappointed by the change. "There's nothing nostalgic about that," he said. "I was on £25 a week in my first year as an apprentice." His first pay rise was a fiver.
He is 32 now, and has said goodbye to all that, yet there remains something old-fashioned, thrillingly black and white about Newcastle United's title challenge. It has an element of pure sport about it and tonight the country will pay to view its latest instalment, when Arsenal visit St James' Park. Next Wednesday it is Newcastle at Anfield. The season swings on another big hinge. "Lose one, win one is better than two draws," Speed said. "At the start of the season you might prefer to be unbeaten, but I'd take the points now."
It is an indication of Newcastle's intense involvement that one of their senior players is thinking this way - as is the fact Speed's broken toe has still not healed and yet he continues to play. Forty games ago, mid-July last year, and Newcastle were playing in the InterToto Cup. Until November they were, as Speed said, "a win one, lose one" outfit. A home defeat by Spurs left them 10th and the InterToto seemed about Newcastle's size. But in the 18 Premiership matches since Spurs, Newcastle have lost just three.
Searching for explanations for this sudden upturn, Speed identified two things: the art of defending, and Bobby Robson.
"We were giving away silly goals, from set-pieces and so on," he says. "Not just the defenders but the whole team. All the lads looked at themselves and said we can't afford this. We have tightened up, sharpened our concentration. That's a credit to the lads, we've looked at where we can improve and we've done it. We'd had enough of win one, lose one. I think in the Aston Villa game [won 3-0] we set a standard and said we had to keep to it. They were top at the time.
"Then there is the manager, his will to win eventually rubs off on you. When he arrived he was a breath of fresh air anyway, because of what had gone on before. In the four years I've been here a lot has happened. It's been very educational. The departures of Kenny Dalglish and Ruud Gullit, it's been very disruptive for the club and the players, you don't get stability.
"What we're seeing is the culmination of a period of stability, that's why we're being successful. In the scheme of things, if a manager is sacked after 12 months, you think: 'That's not really the way.' You've got to give people more time. Alex Ferguson is the prime example." Robson (69), has taken only 2½ years to create that stability. There is no reign of terror behind it but Speed says Robson's vehemence should not be underestimated. "He's not the type you're scared of or intimidated by, but he is very hard in that he doesn't let you get away with things. He's very nice and a great fella to work for but he has got so much respect, you listen. Invariably he's right. He doesn't complicate things, maybe that's his big secret." Robson's example is one of the reasons why Speed said he has managerial ambitions. He has two years left on his contract and hopes "to squeeze another year out of the chairman", but after that he is considering coaching. Speed certainly has sufficient experience. Like Robson abroad, and Shearer with Blackburn Rovers, he has won a league championship, with Leeds, albeit back in the different-era days.
"We'd come up from the old second division the year before, and immediately finished third," Speed recalled. "Maybe we surprised others but we didn't surprise ourselves. But the game has changed so much, just the quality of players. You've got four or five teams going for it this season and they are all brilliant teams. The great thing about that Leeds team was its never-say-die attitude but, talent-wise, this \ team would definitely be better."
Good enough to win the Premiership? "I think we can win it," he replied. "Last year we would have gone into this game feeling apprehensive but we've beaten Arsenal at Arsenal, Leeds at Leeds, Man United here.
"Arsenal are probably the best team we have played this season. For 30 minutes at Highbury we couldn't get the ball off them. It was like when you were a kid playing with the older boys. Thierry Henry was frightening. But we stuck at it, we might have collapsed a year or two ago. We ended up winning \. There is no apprehension at all."
Guardian Service.
