Steve McClaren has revealed he had to ‘deal with all the people’ around Mike Ashley during his stint at Newcastle United because that was the way the billionaire wanted to run the club. The former England boss was named as the Magpies’ new head coach in June, 2015 and was also appointed to the club’s board of directors alongside chief scout Graham Carr and ambassador Bob Moncur. With the black-and-whites in 19th place in the Premier League and out of both domestic cups, McClaren was sacked just nine months later.
McClaren said: “You don’t hear anything about him because you never meet him. You have to deal with all the people around Mike Ashley, which is fine, which is the way he wanted to manage the club. I think I met him 20 minutes before the first game against Southampton. It was just a nice, little, friendly chit-chat and then there was two minutes at Watford to just wish him a Happy New Year and that was it. The rest of the time you deal with the team around him and that’s how he runs his businesses, that’s how he ran Newcastle. For many years, people have been grumbling about it.
