Leicester defeat ramps up Head Coach rumors

It has been a full 5 months since Alan Pardew left a sinking Newcastle United ship.  5 months in which Mike Ashley has once again demonstrated his complete lack of knowledge regarding how to effectively run a Premier League football club.  5 months in which Working Class John Carver™ has once again (allegedly) offered to fight fans, has been Alan Pardew in disguise, and has now taken a run (finally) at his players who have been repeatedly scheduling late-season vacations.

Almost half of those 5 months have been spent losing.  8 matches in a row have been lost by the club, which represents a club record for futility.  Never has Newcastle United lost 8 matches in a row of any form, and the club now sit 2 matches away from potentially tying their record for number of league matches in a row lost.  It has been 5 months of dropping from a terrible goal difference to an abysmal one.  It has been 5 months of Mike Ashley and his agents looking at the club and saying "I wouldn't take this shit at my cut-rate sporting goods stores, but yeah... this is pretty alright."

Newcastle fans are left hoping that recent reports which suggest that John Carvers minutes are numbered as the top man at NUFC are in fact finally true.  If you support the Toon, it is hard to root against a Geordie.  It has, however, been clear for months that WCJC™ is way out of his element and in over his head.  His comments to the press (read about them here) not only suggest this, but also belie the fact that the relationship between coach and players is now irretrievably fractured.  The squad which Carver has been patently unable to motivate for brutal months has been taken to the woodshed in the public forum of the press and it is impossible to see him getting anything by way of effort moving forward.

It is born from this that the rumblings have started.  They are very low rumblings (although they scream at the top of their head that CHANGE IS IMMINENT!) that have started in a place from which everything you know tells you to be skeptical.  The Sunday People, part of The Mirror stable, are insisting that Derby County boss Steve McClaren (read about him here!), he of the failed promotion bid thanks to a 2-wins-in-13 run to close out the Championship season, is to be named new Toon boss WITHIN 24 HOURS! (As of time of publishing, we're now 10 hours into that time frame, so we're effectively 14 hours away from the end of the reported time frame closing)  There is so much to question regarding this report, but there is so much bad happening aroudn the club currently that it seems like such a lovely dream - a gallant knight riding in on his gallant steed.  At this point, it could be ANY white knight on ANY steed and it would seem better than where we are at with the Sancho Panza-esque figure of John Carver.

Is McClaren the sexiest name in the frame to come in to Newcastle United on a permanent basis?  By no means.  Is he the worst of all possible options?  Certainly not.  The last 5 months have shown us that definitively.  At this point, it is down to "Anyone but John Carver" if Newcastle United are to have any hope of salvaging this lost season-come relegation battle.  Because of this, even if it does mean Steve McClaren ultimately being "the man", Newcastle fans are left hoping that the Mirror and Sunday People have this one right.  It likely won't be pretty, but in our current situation, Machiavellian machinations may be all we have upon which to hang our hopes and dreams of Premier League football for 2015-16.