Les Ferdinand has been discussing Kevin Keegan’s iconic rant as Newcastle United manager and hoe the players felt at the time.
It was the closest Newcastle ever came to winning the Premier League title with a 12-point lead over Man United with 15 games left to go, but they fell at the final hurdle.
Speaking on The Stick To Football podcast, Ferdinand shared how the players at the time really felt about Keegan’s rant which was broadcasted to the nation and would go down in history as one of football’s most iconic moments.
What Newcastle players had been saying in training
Immediately after Keegan had made the speech it was clear that everyone knew they had just watched something that would be remembered for years to come, but whether it was for all the right or wrong reasons was unclear.
Of course, we all know how the story goes looking back, but at the time Ferdinand claims that none of the Newcastle players thought that Keegan had lost it and would go on to lose the title.
In fact, the former Toon striker shared how the players were all joking about it the next day in training, saying ‘I would love it’ to whatever Keegan did.
While most believed that this was a sign of his downfall, the squad knew that Keegan wasn’t someone to hide his true emotions and still had complete faith in him as a manager to see the season through.
Speaking on the rant, Ferdinand said: “I mean, I think you know what the training ground is like, everything he did the next day everyone was going ‘I would love it’. Kevin was one of those guys, the fans want players to wear their heart of their sleeves, Kevin was a manger who did that but as a manager that is seen as a weakness.
“I think most people saw it as Alex Ferguson winning the mind games of Keegan but he just wore his heart on his sleeve. I don’t think any player at the time thought he had lost it.”
Eddie Howe and Keegan are polar opposites
Despite playing quite a similar style of football, Keegan and the current Newcastle boss Eddie Howe have a lot of differences in their personalities, yet both are thought of so highly by the fans.
Keegan was more of a passionate manager who, as Ferdinand claims, would wear his heart on his sleeve and wasn’t afraid to say what he was thinking even in interviews.
However, Newcastle have got the complete opposite to that in Howe who very rarely says anything that could be misconstrued or over analysed, it’s all very well thought out.
Even on the pitch it’s rare that you see big celebrations from the 46-year-old coach unless in a big game, he usually leaves that for Jason Tindall.
Neither is necessarily the right way to lead a football team, but it certainly is interesting to see the different approaches despite both looking to play attacking and exciting football.
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