Newcastle-bound McClaren deserves more respect than he receives

Prior to news of Vieira’s brief candidature breaking on Saturday night, most Newcastle supporters had grudgingly accepted that McClaren was an improvement on John Carver, whose elevation to a permanent position was still a distinct possibility in the final weeks of the season.

Now, though, with Vieira’s installation into the St James’ Park hot seat having been floated as a tantalising possibility, the former Middlesbrough and England boss feels like a retrograde step. From a French World Cup winner to the ‘Wally with the Brolly’ in the space of a couple of days. Framed like that, it is little wonder that confirmation of McClaren’s appointment is unlikely to be met with too much approval if, as expected, it arrives at the start of next week.

Posited against Vieira, and even the likes of Remi Garde, Michael Laudrup and Ronald de Boer, who have also been linked with the Newcastle job, McClaren feels like yet another uninspired decision from the Newcastle board. It should not be catastrophic, in the way that the unfathomable appointment of Joe Kinnear was, but it has already been portrayed as both safe and uninspiring.

McClaren was a disaster during his time in charge of England, failed in the Bundesliga with Wolfsburg and was unable to lead either Nottingham Forest or Derby County to promotion from the second tier. Yet to suggest that he is an unappealing candidate is unfair. For all that his career has contained its low moments, it has also scaled some extremely notable heights. If nothing else, it can certainly be claimed that he has achieved far more than Newcastle in the last decade or so.

Unfortunately, his England experience will always cast a long shadow. He is one of only two England managers not to have led their side in a major tournament, and the chaotic manner of his side’s decisive defeat to Croatia in the final game of the qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 caused his reputation an immense amount of damage.

He is hardly the only talented manager to have failed with England though, and for all that the memories of that wet night at Wembley continue to torment, it is worth remembering that a raft of injuries meant McClaren was forced to play an untried Scott Carson in goal, with a creaking Sol Campbell and an inexperienced Joleon Lescott forming the heart of the back four.

Prior to his spell with the national team, however, McClaren’s career had followed a largely uninterrupted upward curve. He established his reputation as the assistant manager at Manchester United during a time when the Old Trafford club won the treble and a further two league titles.

At the time, he was regarded as something of a visionary, and while the use of video analysis, nutritional data and external sports psychologists might be regarded as unremarkable now, a decade-and-a-half ago it was a long way removed from the norm.

“Steve was fantastic,” said former Manchester United striker Teddy Sheringham. “He was ready to learn from other clubs, other countries and other sports. And his interest in video analysis and sports psychology gave us another dimension.”

Having gained a reputation as one of the most innovative coaches in the land, McClaren was offered the chance to step out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s shadow by taking over at Middlesbrough.

His time on Teesside is hard to sum up. He is the most successful manager in Middlesbrough’s history thanks to a two-year spell that saw the club win the Carling Cup and reach the UEFA Cup final in Eindhoven, yet his departure was hardly mourned and the final months of his reign were accompanied by mounting supporters’ discontent.

The chief criticism levelled at McClaren was that he adopted an overly negative approach, yet a decade or so on, and Boro’s subsequent struggles have led to at least a partial reassessment of his reign. Yes, he received substantial financial support from Steve Gibson. But his achievements stand out like a beacon in a wider North-East region that is hardly accustomed to success.

Significantly, McClaren was always admired by the players working under him, and again, it is the 54-year-old’s coaching abilities that are repeatedly cited as his biggest strength.

“He was the best coach I ever had,” said former Middlesbrough midfielder George Boateng. “His coaching was amazing. He would do sessions that made you think twice, rather than go through the motions without engaging your brain.

“Once, I’d been away all week with Holland, I came back and Steve did a session, and I said, ‘Hey, we just did this with the national team!’ He looked at me and said, ‘Do you think I just turn up and do any old thing?’ He knew every drill, every training method.”

It is that kind of testimony that has persuaded Newcastle that McClaren is the ideal candidate for their head coach role. They don’t want a manager – Lee Charnley could hardly have been more explicit about that – they want someone to extract the very maximum from the first-team squad on the training ground, and McClaren’s history contains plenty of examples where he has improved the players under his control and achieved a level of team success that did not appear likely when he took over.

That was certainly the case with FC Twente, where McClaren set about restoring his reputation after his unplanned exit from England. It was a brave, if somewhat enforced, move to head to the continent in order to start again, and while Twente had never previously won the Eredivisie title prior to his arrival, McClaren guided the unfashionable Dutch side to the championship in his second season in Holland, after finishing as runner-up in his first.

As a result, he is revered in Enschede, and while he is unlikely to receive the same adoration when he is formally confirmed as Newcastle’s new head coach next week, perhaps in time his standing will alter. Having won silverware with Middlesbrough and Twente, it is hard to think of too many available contenders better placed to achieve similar success with the Magpies.