Thursday, February 5, 2009

Shay needs a publicist

In an interview with the BBC, Shay Given now of Manchester City, expressed his displeasure with Newcastle:

“There are a couple of things they could have done to keep me, but I think in the end they just wanted to take the money.

“I just felt that after the service I gave the club, then the regime at Newcastle could have handled the whole thing a bit better.”

“They made me do things I didn’t want to do and this was an opportunity to further my career and pick up more silverware.

“In the last six months it has been fizzling out. It has not been enjoyable going into training.

“Maybe it’s myself just being selfish, but I think I deserved a little bit better than that.”

“The Liverpool match was a low point in my career.

“It was one of those points where if I had left the pitch and never seen a football again I would have been happy, I was that low.

“I didn’t know if I was going to leave but a lot of people said I was happy and settled, which I was in a way, but I wasn’t comfortable.

“I wasn’t comfortable with the way the club was going. I wanted to be challenging for honours.

“By coming here (Man City) I thought I could be at a club that is challenging for honours. I didn’t want to finish my career regretting not taking up this offer.”

I’m not sure how to take this and question what benefit Mr. Given thinks his comments will provide. Quite obviously the events surrounding Newcastle is extremely problematic and likely a number of other clubs in the Premier League, not only are they threatened with relegation but are dealing with financial turmoil. There is not a soul around St James’ that would have wanted the Republic of Ireland ‘keeper leave if the club wasn’t pressed into a move to help finance acquisitions and his commentaries reflect a myopic vision of the situation. Unfortunately, he chose to air is displeasure publicly as opposed to simply acknowledging his long service to the club and moving forward.