Negotiations for incoming transfers have not gone smoothly for Gullit. He has missed out on a lot more players than he has signed, among them Ibrahim Ba, Taribo West, Matt Jansen and Dion Dublin. Six weeks into his new job, he was horrified by his team’s performance at Highbury in October They were lucky to escape with a 3-0 defeat. “I was pleased we lost in the way that we did,” Gullit said before he made his departure, “because it confirmed everything to me I must go through the team like a battering ram. It was a measure of the progress he has made that Newcastle won so impressively at Blackburn without Ferguson, Domi, Alan Shearer, Stephen Glass, Andy Griffin and Robert Lee, and with Maric still waiting for a work permit. Shearer and Ferguson have only played one and a half games together, though the former has recovered from flu and is expected to lead the forward line today and the latter may return, after a groin operation, in the FA Cup tie against Everton next Sunday.Arsenal’s visit to St James’ Park, though, should tell Gullit how far he still has to go.
As yet, only three new men – Ferguson, Maric and Didier Domi – have moved in.Gullit has been proving his coaching worth by getting the best out of the players Dalglish left at his disposal, in particular Hamann, Howey and Gary Speed. There may have been a lot of movement on the playing side at St James’ of late but it has been mainly in the outward direction. Eleven of the players Gullit inherited have moved out, either permanently or on extended loan. And the 20-year-old Frenchman, who struck the winner from Hamann’s sublime crossfield pass, is, for the time being at least, merely on loan from Metz as cover for Duncan Ferguson and Alan Shearer. Now, no one is complaining about his Dutch bungalow approach: living in Amsterdam and working on Tyneside.The Toon Army are simply happy to see the colour returning to their beloved black and whites.
They never turned against Kenny Dalglish, not openly at any rate, but the negativity of the team he built stretched their loyalty to the limit. They very nearly snapped on FA Cup final day, when Newcastle went backwards from the kick-off After five seconds the ball was in Shay Given’s arms. Twelve months previously it took Gullit’s Chelsea all of 42 seconds to score.The irony at Blackburn on Wednesday night was that Gullit took Newcastle within two ties of a Wembley return with eight of Dalglish’s players Of the starting XI, only Louis Saha was a Ruud boy. I really do.”Even the formerly disgruntled members of the Toon Army have had a change of mind. When the Magpies’ form took a mid-winter dive, with successive Premiership defeats against Leeds, Liverpool and Chelsea, there were rumblings about Gullit’s “semi-detached” style of management. “He’s just starting to build a team the fans can be proud of Everyone talks about the Keegan years But I honestly believe we can go on to another level.
