John Carver has finally spoken out about his torrid time as Newcastle manager and vows to return to his boyhood club in the future.
The 50-year-old was promoted to interim boss last January when Alan Pardew departed for Crystal Palace and Newcastle were in a strong position – mid table and a long way from the relegation zone. Though some fans did voice their concerns, many accepted his appointment in hope of the club appointing someone like Frank de Boer or Thomas Tuchel in the summer. However, what happened next, no footballing fan (let alone a Newcastle fan) could have predicted.
Just 23 points in 18 games saw Newcastle needing a win on the final day of the season, at home to West Ham, in order to secure Premier League safety. Luckily, Jonas Gutierrez turned in one of his best performances in a black and white jersey to secure the club’s survival, despite the treatment he had received by Alan Pardew & Co. when he was diagnosed with cancer.
Carver was then sacked, and Steve McClaren replaced him, but since then, he has disappeared from our Twitter feeds and newspapers. A man once on the back page of every paper in England for referring to himself as the ‘best coach in the Premier League’ had suddenly vanished. The first sighting of Carver was on Sunday – during Newcastle’s 2-2 draw with Sheffield United.
But he has since been tracked down and has undergone an interview with The Telegraph, where he spoke about the ‘best coach in the Premier League’ comment; Williamson’s sending off and potentially returning to St James’ Park one day.
To start off, he was questioned about the ‘best coach’ comment, which he replied: “The best coach in the Premier League comment is something that has stuck.
“When I went on holiday and somebody shouted ‘Best coach in the Premier League’ I had just lost my job, but I waved and laughed. I know I’m going to get that from now on for a while and if that’s the worst stick I get, then I’ll accept it.
“I had to try everything I could. I brought in a motivational speaker, the guy from the Newcastle basketball team. I tried all the different team bonding things and I actually went to see someone myself, a psychologist, and this person was making me feel so important.
“I had never done it in my life before, never. I knew the person quite well. I went to him just after the Leicester game – probably the lowest time of my spell in charge.
“I had good people around me but I felt like I needed something different. We had a number of conversations which will not be repeated and I will never tell anybody who it was, but it put me in this positive frame of mind about how we could achieve the goal.
“Everybody outside Newcastle wanted us to be the big club that went down and I had to find a way of keeping a clear head. I only said I was the best coach in the Premier League to find a way for the players and myself to believe we could get over the line. If I’m asking the players to believe in themselves, then I had to show I believed in myself. If we hadn’t been in the situation we were in, I would have never said it. It helped me achieve what I wanted to do, which was to get the team over the line.”
He went on to discuss Williamson’s “deliberate” sending off against Leicester City: “I thought he meant it,” Carver said.
“I don’t know why he would do it. It was just my thought, ‘He’s meant that’. I’ve told him that. I’ve said it to his face. I don’t want to go into what he said.
“Do you know what? Ninety-nine per cent of managers would love to do it. It was for a reaction. I wouldn’t have done it, but I needed a reaction, I needed something to stimulate the group of players.
“I embarrassed Mike Williamson and I embarrassed myself, but I still believe I did it for the right reasons and I embarrassed him into performing the next time he played. I apologised to Mike for going public. I had to go and find him to go through it.
“I was at the football club when Ruud Gullit left Alan Shearer and Duncan Ferguson out of the derby game and Shearer was in at 8am to see Ruud. Duncan was in even earlier. That’s the difference.
“But Mike was fine and after the two-match suspension, he actually played well.”
Finally, he discussed what’s next for him in football and whether he would return to St James’ Park. “It’s amazing how quickly your reputation can be tarnished,” he said.
“The biggest thing is me being able to get in a room with an owner or a chairman and convince them I am the right person for the job by showing them what my preparation is, how I work with the players, what I’m about, what my personality is all about and for them to find out a bit more about be as the person, rather than the perception.
“If I didn’t have any confidence in what I was trying to do, then I would probably settle for being a coach or in the background. But I do. I do have the confidence. I don’t want to take the easy way out and be somebody’s assistant unless I have to. I want to get into a football club and build a football club.
“I’ve got a point to prove, to myself and to the fans of Newcastle. Not all of them because the majority have been very, very good, but to the people who were critical. I’m a winner, I’m not a quitter. Why can’t, in the future, I go away, be successful and return to Newcastle as manager under different circumstances? I’ve been back to the football club a few times and it would be a great story to do so again.”
