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The Dyer need is for a player, not a playboy

Simon Turnbull
Sunday 11 November 2001 01:00 GMT
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Last Sunday morning Bobby Robson took his players off to Marbella, telling the world he was still hopelessly addicted to football management. "I just can't imagine the day I'll be retiring voluntarily," the 68-year-old said – still high on the adrenalin of Newcastle United's thrilling 3-0 win against Aston Villa at St James' Park the previous afternoon. "I don't just enjoy it, I love it. The drug is deep inside me and I have to get more."

A measure of antidote was not long in coming. Accounts vary as to precisely what Kieron Dyer, Craig Bellamy, Carl Cort and Andy Griffin did to warrant being sent home to Tyneside on the first plane from Malaga on Tuesday. What is beyond dispute is that they skipped a dinner in honour of Newcastle's president, Sir John Hall, on Monday night and went out drinking instead. Reports that they became involved in a drunken fracas have been strenuously denied by the players and their representatives. Still, their indiscretion was deemed serious enough for Robson to send the four home packing – and for the club to broadcast news of the matter.

Newcastle managers have been this particular way before, of course. Back in 1994, when Kevin Keegan took his players to Bournemouth for a little mid-season rest and recuperation, three members of his squad – Barry Venison, Steve Howey and Alex Mathie – were disclipined for visiting a wine bar instead of taking part in a ten-pin bowling competition. Keegan wanted to send them home but was persuaded by his directors to issue fines instead. He also stripped Venison of the team captaincy.

Then, in 1998, when Kenny Dalglish sent his team to Dublin for a spring break, Keith Gillespie ended up in hospital after an altercation with Alan Shearer outside a city centre bar. Gardai were also called to an incident in which Stuart Pearce admitted responsibility for a traffic cone being thrown through a car windscreen. The whole squad received a verbal warning from Dalglish on their return to Newcastle.

On this occasion, according to Russell Cushing, Newcastle's chief operating officer, "the matter is now closed". That may be so in the cases of Cort and Bellamy, as first-time transgressors in the matter of club discipline. It is only two weeks ago, however, that Griffin was involved in a training ground punch-up with Laurent Robert. Then there is the question of what the Dyer consequences might be.

Dyer has not played for Newcastle since 24 February but he has been playing on his manager's mind for some time now. Since the first tabloid revelation about his private life, the England midfielder has become some kind of latter-day George Best figure. Last year he was questioned by police after a group of girls fought over him on a night out, one of them suffering a broken arm. He also hit the headlines with Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard after an embarrassing drink-fuelled escapade in Cyprus.

After the latter incident, Dyer was subjected to what his manager described as "a court martialling". Robson told him to "duck and dive and keep a low profile". This year, however, Dyer has been questioned by police after crashing his Mercedes into another car and banned from driving for speeding at 104mph – claiming, in mitigation, that he had been distracted by listening to radio coverage of Tiger Woods in the US Open.

Robson no doubt longs for his trouble-prone midfielder to model himself on his golfing idol and the sexagenarian manager has gone to great lengths to knock the playboy out of the 22-year-old player. He has patiently nursed Dyer on his way back to fitness after shin and ankle injuries, urging him to take a professional approach to his rehab- ilitation. "I have looked at my whole lifestyle, from my diet to how I do my exercises," Dyer said two weeks ago. "I want to make sure I come back in the best possible shape."

That comeback is likely to be within the next month and it is sure to be monitored as closely by Sven Goran Eriksson as it will be by Robson. The England coach sees the former Ipswich player as a prime candidate for the troublesome left-midfield slot in the national side, and it seems Dyer will get the chance to add to his eight caps before the World Cup party is selected. "We all make mistakes," Eriksson said about Dyer on Wednesday.

Whether Robson feels he has made one last summer in spurning offers from Leeds and Manchester United only he could say. At the time Dyer and his agent, Jonathan Barnett, held talks with Freddy Shepherd, Newcastle's chairman, ostensibly about the club's lack of progress in the transfer market. "I was worried that the club's ambitions didn't match my own," Dyer said.

Five months on, he is upset at being "hung out to dry", as Barnett puts it, over the Magpies' mid-season flutter in Marbella. The talk of the Toon is that Dyer will be a Leeds player next season – by which time Bobby Robson might have finally had his fill of the management fix.

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