David Ornstein has been speaking on the latest edition of The Athletic’s The Ornstein & Chapman Podcast about various topics from the world of football.
One of the topics that he spent some time on was the news that Patrick Vieira has been sacked by Nice in France.
While he was talking about this, he mentioned the fact that Newcastle United have been linked with a move for Vieira in the past and that there had been a couple of approaches.
He said: “He’s been linked with a couple of jobs in England.
“Newcastle was one of them; I think there was an approach to him maybe once or even twice over the last few years.”
Fellow Athletic reporter Dominic Fifield then revealed that Vieira was indeed once interviewed for the Newcastle job, saying: “You’re right; he apparently was interviewed for the Newcastle job in 2015 just before Steve McClaren got the role.”
Do you think Newcastle should have appointed Vieira?
Yes, he would have done better than McClaren
No, then we might never have got Rafa
TIF Thoughts on Patrick Vieira and Newcastle…
McClaren was a dreadful appointment for Newcastle as he spent just under £100m on transfers, and when he was sacked, the club were in the relegation zone.
Rafael Benitez came in, but he couldn’t save the club from relegation.
So, would the Toon have been better off going for Vieira?
We guess we will never know, but given the money that McClaren spent and the fact that the squad contained the likes of Ayoze Perez, Moussa Sissoko and Georginio Wijnaldum, we think that he should have done a better job.
Vieira, while he was with Nice, averaged 1.42 points per game and achieved respective finishes of seventh and sixth in Ligue 1, so he did a pretty decent job, and if you compare that with McClaren’s Newcastle record, then we think the Toon might have made the wrong call in 2015.