Newcastle Reportedly Won't Replace Joe Kinnear During This Season

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Newcastle United aren't in any rush to appoint a new director of football, it's emerged, following Monday evening's announcement that Joe Kinnear had stepped down from the position.

The former Magpies manager wasn't even a third of the way into his three-year contract in the role, but Sky Sports now says that a successor won't be lined up this season.

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Kinnear's duties as director of football were understood to be identifying new talent for manager Alan Pardew, and acting as a form of liaison between the playing staff and some of the club's hierarchy.
The Sky Sports report goes on to mention that former managing director Derek Llambias could be reinstated.
Daniel Storey of Football365 says that 4,000 Newcastle fans are reported to have canceled their season tickets in the wake of last weekend's 3-0 home loss to bitter rivals Sunderland:

Reports that 4,000 NUFC fans cancelled season tickets, and hours later Kinnear goes. Proof that way to make a difference is with your feet.
— Daniel Storey (@danielstorey85) February 4, 2014

One could hardly call the past eight months a success in terms of Kinnear accomplishing the goals that were put before him upon his return to St James' Park.

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Luuk De Jong and Loic Remy were the only two high-profile signings made by the north-east outfit during the 67-year-old's time as director, and even then both players have only joined on temporary terms.
What's more, the sale of Pardew's midfield talisman Yohan Cabaye to Paris Saint-Germain, per BBC Sport, will not have gone down well with all those on Tyneside.
And it was Cabaye who was perhaps partly responsible for one of Kinnear's greatest gaffes of late, where he referred to the playmaker on talkSPORT radio as "Yohan Kebab."
Who Ate All The Pies made a not entirely serious compilation of the official's biggest achievements in recent months:

Joe Kinnear’s Top 10 Finest Accomplishments As Newcastle #NUFC Director Of Football http://t.co/olGIlY6N5u via @waatpies
— Who Ate All The Pies (@waatpies) February 4, 2014

Directorial positions are something to have come under criticism from some in recent years, with a host of clubs opting to delegate certain responsibilities among various staff members while others prefer to keep the amount of positions more refined.
The tactic is of some debate in Europe's other leagues, too, where it's more common to have such roles at the top level in Germany and Italy, for example.

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Newcastle legend Alan Shearer has commented on the debacle, per Sky Sports, saying:

I shouldn't say I'm surprised but I was surprised in the first place when he was announced director, particularly the way the news was broken when Joe himself announced it on the radio when he got some of the players' names wrong.
What has he been there now, about seven months? And two players have come in, albeit both players on loan. Maybe it's Newcastle's way of trying to say that the performance on Saturday wasn't good enough and why they didn't get any new players in, maybe that's one of the reasons.
But they can only get players in if there's one man prepared to sign a chequebook.

The Magpies at least have no more transfer business to be concerned with between now and the end of the campaign.
That being said, it remains unclear as to whether the club will opt to appoint a new director of football at all for the 2014-15 season.

50 Best Transfer Deals of the January Window

 

The transfer window has slammed shut! If you haven't signed the players you want, tough luck; this is your lot for the rest of the 2013-14 season.
With an entertaining deadline day culminating in a number of cut-price deals and Liverpool's failure to sign Yevhen Konoplyanka, we've allowed the dust to settle for just 24 hours before recapping the entire month of chaos.
Here lies the 50 best deals of the January transfer window. Read on to see how your club fared in the market!
The deals are ranked by considering a cocktail of factors: skill level, impact, need, value and fee paid are all weighed.

All transfer fees are via Transfermarkt.co.uk unless stated otherwise. Potential loan fees have not been included due to them being unclear.

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