Glenn Roeder Casually Shifts The Blame

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Glenn Roeder is a shifty looking bloke – beady little eyes, wiry mouth, hooked nose – but the Newcastle boss is proving he’s not afraid to get right to the point when it comes to diverting blame away from himself for the club’s poor recent results,

“In our last two games in Alkmaar and at The Valley, I was disappointed with the attitude of two or three of our players – not all of them – when we went a goal behind,” said Roeder.

“That is something I will not accept. I know who these players are and it will not matter to me whether they have contracts or not, they will not feature in my long-term plans.

“I have been in football all my life and one thing I have learned is that as far as motivation is concerned, 99 percent of the time, it comes from within.

“It is something you are born with, so in some cases, it does not matter who the manager is.”

He’s does make a good point, of course, there are players – Laurent Robert – who seemed impervious to coaching or management, preferring to doddle about at their own pace when they felt like it. But while Roeder may prove to be a massive success once he’s working with a squad he put together, we’d like to see more managers stand by their abilities as, well, managers rather than join the likes of Manchester City boss Stuart Pearce in the “If You Buy Me All The Players I Want Then I Can Win” club.