Robson lectures on tactics to put Newcastle on 'credibility train'

The most experienced manager in Europe came to the press room at St James' Park armed with felt-tip pens and a flip chart, his mission to demonstrate to his critics that he knew more about football tactics than they did. For someone who first took charge of a club in 1967, this was not difficult.

For an hour Sir Bobby Robson explained how the 3-5-2 system that failed at Maine Road on Saturday could and should have worked and how the wheels of football strategy spin. Once he stops managing Newcastle United, Robson could charge £500 an hour on the lecture circuit for performances like that.

Tonight, Robson will put those tactics to more practical use in Newcastle's most important game under his charge. They will probably line up in a more conventional 4-4-2 formation, but should Newcastle hold on to the 1-0 first-leg lead won in Sarajevo against the Bosnian champions, Zeljeznicar, they will be through to the monied uplands of the Champions' League, three years after Robson found them careering towards bankruptcy and relegation.

"It will get us on the credibility train," Robson said when asked to contemplate what victory would mean. "And we could all do with the money, nobody has very much at the moment." Robson talked passionately of educating the club, its supporters and its journalists. His first lesson when he arrived on Tyneside in September 1999 was to "salvage and save" Newcastle United. "We have got into the Champions' League in three years which I think is quite remarkable. We had begun last season hoping for a Uefa Cup spot."

Having come through an intensely intimidating atmosphere in Sarajevo two weeks ago with a very young side on a dreadful pitch, the second leg at St James' Park should be more straightforward. The Zeljeznicar coach, Amar Osim, gave his side only a "one per cent chance" of winning once the first leg was settled by Kieron Dyer's goal.

Asked if he thought Newcastle might have cracked in Bosnia, Robson replied: "I said to John Carver [Newcastle's assistant manager]: 'We'll see whether they are boys or men tonight. We don't pay them boys' wages so they'll have to get out there and be men."

His teenagers, Jermaine Jenas and Hugo Viana, demonstrated enormous resilience in Sarajevo although it is likely the former will make way for the experience and nous of Gary Speed tonight. The game is too important to run too many risks.

Newcastle's board have every reason to be grateful to the man who first came to St James' Park as a boy to watch Jackie Milburn play. Sir John Hall, who retired as Newcastle chairman on the night of their opening Champions' League fixture, against Barcelona in September 1997, said: "I sometimes think of what might have been if he had come when we first wanted him [to replace Kevin Keegan].

"Here we have a man who in football terms has done it all. To me, he is the first pan-European English manager. Alex Ferguson has done it on the English stage but he has never taken the risk of going abroad. Bobby is not immortal and everyone has to ask the question how long have we got him for? I get the feeling he will stay until he has won some silverware."

Should Newcastle qualify, they will enter the Champions' League without making further additions to their squad. Robson had hoped to bring in the Australian midfielder, Brett Emerton, from Feyenoord but with the Rotterdam club sticking to its £12m valuation, he accepts there will probably be no new faces before the transfer window reopens in January.

However, since Robson is confident Laurent Robert and Craig Bellamy will be fit within two weeks, the pressure to spend the money the Champions' League will create for a still debt-laden club is no longer overwhelming.

Newcastle United (probable 4-4-2): Given; Hughes, Dabizas, Bramble, Bernard; Solano, Dyer, Viana, Speed; LuaLua, Shearer.

Zeljeznicar (probable 4-4-2): Hasagic; Jahic, Mulalic, Alihodzic, Mulaosmanovic; Biscevic, Karic, Gredic, Mesic; Guvo, Cosic.