Source: Telegraph
Newcastle's Mike Ashley under pressure to bring in Terry Venables to avoid drop
The sports retail tycoon has so far resisted the temptation to hire the former England manager but now it has emerged that Newcastle players want someone of his stature to Premier League safety.
Ashley has placed Chris Hughton in temporary charge of the Tyneside club following manager Joe Kinnear's heart surgery but now players are calling for a change with the club on the brink of relegation.
Terry Venables backed to safeguard Newcastles Premier League status"The players have all been talking about how they need someone of real authority to sort it out," a club insider said.
"There is no leader since Joe Kinnear took ill. It is not that they don't respect Hughton as a coach because they do, but he is no manager."
Newcastle are currently third-bottom of the table and are two points adrift of safety with just eight games left to salvage their top-flight status this season Venables has already rejected the chance to manage Newcastle this season after Kevin Keegan quit the club last September because Ashley was trying to sell the St James' Park club.
Venables's CV suggests he could be just want Ashley needs because once guided Middlesbrough to safety when he was deployed to fight off relegation.
He turned down the chance to succeed Keegan because he was only offered a short-term deal by Ashley.
Former Newcastle skipper Mick Martin believes Ashley should hire Venables by offering a lucrative deal.
"When Joe had this problem they should have gone out and grabbed someone very quickly and got him in because they don't really have anyone that the players can really look up to," Martin said.
"I'm not being disrespectful to Chris Hughton who has been left in charge with Colin Calderwood but they need someone who has been there and has a record as a manager and been successful.
"They talk about terry Venables. Maybe they could have said to him â listen we need you until the end of the season there's a million and a half quid in it for you if you keep us up. Then we will have a look at the Joe Kinnear thing later on in the year when he is fit and ready to get back." Martin, who played 147 times for Newcastle in the 1970s, believes it will be difficult for his old club to avoid Championship football unless there is a radical change in fortunes.
"It will be tough," Martin told TalkSport. "You wouldn't have thought this was going to happen at the start of the season but they've got to face reality. They face Chelsea next and you're looking at nothing there.
"They played quite well against Arsenal for long periods. They also did well against Manchester United because I felt the players weren't under the pressure they would have been had it been a lesser team.
"When the pressure is on it becomes a different game completely. It just depends on the reaction of the players. Against Arsenal they didn't have the strength in depth to cope with the loss of Steven Taylor and Sebastien Bassong when they went off injured.
"As a captain it would be very difficult to rally the troops right now. You might consider having a chat with the lads without any coach or manager being there and say we're really up against it now and we've got to be strong. It needs one result to give them a bit of confidence which they haven't got at the moment."
