Soccer: A proud club fighting for absolution

Newcastle's season may be trickling away like polluted run-off into the River Tyne but they and their beleaguered manager, Graeme Souness, have one last chance - against Manchester United in tonight's FA Cup semifinal - to stop the rot.

From the disaffected and opinionated striker Craig Bellamy to the ludicrous on-field fighting by midfielders Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer and the 4-1 capitulation against Sporting Lisbon in the UEFA Cup semifinal this week, Newcastle are reeling like a boxer who's taken too many punches.

Add to that the attack on Souness from French winger Laurent Robert, now dropped from the side and liable to be sold in the summer, and it would take a brave punter to bet on Newcastle beating Manchester, even at their fortress St James' Park.

"The biggest week in Newcastle's history", as Souness termed it, now looks like being their biggest week of disappointment.

And yet Manchester United are by no means happy campers themselves. A 0-0 draw with Ryan Nelsen-led Blackburn killed their slim chances of Premier League glory before a horrible 2-0 loss to lowly Norwich sent captain Roy Keane into one of his paroxysms of fury, tongue-lashing his team-mates for not trying hard enough and respecting United traditions.

The club have also come under fire for manager Alex Ferguson's insistence on playing a lone - and out of form - striker in Ruud van Nistelrooy with Wayne Rooney tucked in behind. Former United idols Lou Macari and Paddy Crerand are among those criticising this tactic. There have been ominous rumblings that more than a few players, perhaps including van Nistelrooy, might be in their last season for the Premier League's most famous team.

But it's Newcastle that have really bitten into the poisoned apple lately. Reacting to less than complimentary comments by his manager about recent form, and to his substitution midway through the second half of games, Robert complained: "The manager does not speak to me face to face to tell me why he keeps taking me off. He does not tell me when I am playing well and he does not tell me when I am playing badly and neither does his staff.

"I've read he doesn't feel I do enough but I feel like I proved myself to him last month. The team haven't been playing well and I've not been playing well but it's not just down to Laurent Robert. It's about a team playing badly.

"Are we better this year than last year? No, I don't think so. Are we the same? No, probably worse," Robert said. "I don't think we are playing as well this season as last. We have not played well in the last three games. We have been very, very bad. We were awful against Aston Villa and we lost at Tottenham and weren't playing good football."

Oh dear. Add to that Newcastle's celebrated fan base furious at recent goings-on and you are close to a club in crisis - which may only be solved if they see off United tonight.

Making matters worse is the pouring-oil-on-troubled-waters statements of Newcastle chairman Freddie Shepherd who said Bowyer "should go down on his hands and knees" in gratitude at not being sacked.

Shepherd was set up several years ago in Marbella, with fellow director Douglas Hall, by a tabloid newspaper. Drunk and lured into a brothel, the pair were taped talking of how much they made out of fans for replica shirts, how Geordie women were "dogs" and why Alan Shearer was the Mary Poppins of football. It might have been a set-up but the judgement of the club's leaders was seen to be sadly flawed - and their behaviour was no less reprehensible than the player he is now criticising.

Shepherd also announced this week that the club had agreed compensation of 2.1m with Sir Bobby Robson for the premature termination of his contract. But Robson is being asked to sign a confidentiality agreement which his lawyers are said to be vetoing.

Robson has so far kept a dignified silence even though criticised by Shepherd who said Newcastle would have been relegated under Robson and that Shearer would not have stayed at the club under him.

Robson has a reputation as one of football's finest and the Shepherd statements still grate.

So tonight's clash is not just about the FA Cup - but the health of one of the Premier League's most respected clubs.

- AGENCIES