Newcastle fans' Kinnear fury

Newcastle United have appointed Joe Kinnear as the club's new Director of Football on a three-year deal.

Joe will report directly to the club's Board as the senior executive in charge of all football-related matters. Chief scout Graham Carr and manager Alan Pardew will report into Joe.

The board are pleased to welcome Joe back to the club. Joe has many years of experience working within the game, and this experience will be of great benefit to the club in achieving our objectives over the coming seasons."

Joe Kinnear first arrived at United in September 2008, initially as Interim Manager, following the departure of Kevin Keegan. Joe had previously had a successful seven-year management spell with Wimbledon and as a player enjoyed a fine ten-year career with Tottenham, during which time he won 26 Republic of Ireland caps.

There’s no doubt that the appointment of Joe Kinnear could have been handled far better. He should also be instructed to only comment through official club channels rather than give unsolicited interviews that have created this storm in the first place.

As we’ve seen already, getting him to be ‘on-message’ is a tall order. He’s proud of speaking his mind and has clashed with the media in the past.

But he should have been under strict instructions not to speak to the media before the club made an official announcement.

That way, the club could have controlled the message and ensured that the right things were said and that manager Alan Pardew was supportive.

His comments about Geordies have been less than helpful at building bridges.

The best thing Newcastle’s PR department can do now is hold a press conference where Kinnear, Pardew and a director such as Derek Llambias discuss the strategy to move the club forward and move the discussion on from Kinnear’s appointment.

And the best way to prove that Kinnear’s appointment is worthwhile would be to bring back the prodigal son Andy Carroll to Newcastle, which along with plenty of positive and sincere messaging about his respect for the Newcastle fans, would go some way to alleviating the communication challenges in the short term.