Ballon D’Or winner reveals Newcastle United ‘begged’ him to stay after Sunderland defeat
.jpg?width=96&crop=1:1,smart)
Ruud Gullit has revealed why he wasn’t a success at Newcastle United and his relationship with star striker Alan Shearer.
Gullit took over from Kenny Dalglish as Newcastle United manager in 1998, following a successful two-year spell as Chelsea’s player-manager. However, the former Ballon D’Or winner would last just one year at St James’ Park before being replaced by Sir Bobby Robson.
Gullit’s time on Tyneside ended with him leaving after a defeat to Sunderland - as the Magpies fell to a 2-1 loss on a rain-soaked night at St James’ Park. Gullit’s decision to start with both Shearer and Duncan Ferguson on the bench was a bold call, but didn’t pay off as goals from Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips sealed victory for the Black Cats.
Having led Newcastle to their second FA Cup final in as many seasons just a few months prior, one they would taste defeat in against eventual treble winners Manchester United, Gullit became the latest in a long list of managers that had failed to lift silverware during his time in the north east.
Ruud Gullit on Newcastle United exit and Alan Shearer relationship
Speaking on the Overlap, the 62-year-old revealed that he was simply unable to change the culture at Newcastle United before, surprisingly, being begged to stay after offering his resignation following that defeat to Sunderland: “Then you feel, that maybe this is not for me,” Gullit said.
“I [wasn’t in] trouble, but I said to the board, ‘look, I don’t think this is for me’ and they begged me to stay. They begged me to stay. We became friends after that.
“I said to him ‘I don’t need the money, I just want to end the contract. I’m very thankful for what I had and could do, but this is not for me, this is not the club where you can do it’.
“I knew that I could not change the environment from that moment. Players wise, the way of playing, I could not change that. Years later I was right because they were relegated. I knew exactly what was going on, but I had not the power to change that.”
Whilst they have now buried the hatchet and have become friends, Gullit’s time on Tyneside will forever be intertwined with the relationship between himself and Shearer. The latter would go on to become the club’s all-time record goalscorer, playing for another seven years before hanging up his boots at the end of the 2005/06 season.
Asked about his relationship with Shearer, Gullit admitted that he ‘needed’ the striker, but only if he was willing to adapt his style of play: “You get always these little arguments, if you want to play in a way that is the best for the team. I needed Alan, but in the way he was playing - not so much as I didn’t have the players that played the way he wanted to play.”
He continued: “He was not doing, at that moment, the things we needed to do in order to play. I think he understood that as well.”