Football: Dyer's answer to dire outlook

EVEN AT knockdown prices, the surplus stock is taking some shifting at St James' Park. Reduced from pounds 1.50 to 30p, the greetings cards depicting Jon Dahl Tomasson, Darren Peacock and Steve Watson in black and white were attracting nothing but bemused passing interest from lunchtime shoppers in the club store. The players surplus to Ruud Gullit's requirements are proving difficult to shift too. Philippe Albert has moved on to Charleroi but that still leaves 11 members of the so-called "dirty dozen", the senior players who do not figure in the first-team plans of the Newcastle manager.

Upstairs from the club shop, workmen were hammering away at the back of the roof-less Milburn Stand. St James' Park is being rebuilt and so is the team that plays there. "I've never been here before," Kieron Dyer said, surveying the scene from the balcony of the Magpie Restaurant. "I've only seen it on television. It's a fantastic setting. I can't wait for the first game of the season - if selected, that is."

The touch of modesty was to be commended, particularly coming from a member of the Premiership's nouveau riche, but there is about as much chance of Gullit willingly overlooking his highest-priced summer signing as there is of Newcastle lining up for their opening day fixture at home to Aston Villa next Saturday wearing red and white stripes.

Dyer was absent from the Newcastle team that lost 2-0 at Celtic on Tuesday night but only because of a muscle twinge. "We decided not to risk him," Gullit said. The Newcastle manager has already taken one risk with Dyer, of course. There is no guarantee that the pounds 6m he has staked on a 20-year- old with no previous top-flight experience will pay off in the Premiership this season.

Not that the dreadlocked Dutchman considers he has taken a gamble. He sees it more as an investment. "Kieron's a promising boy," Gullit said. "He's already in the national squad and he can only get better. He's coming here to play with good players and he's coming to play in the Premiership. That can only make him better and better."

The hope, among the Toon Army, is that Dyer will make Newcastle United better and better because they have been dire enough for two years now. Since their two seasons as runners-up to Manchester United, Newcastle have twice finished 13th in the Premiership table. Their goal difference has gone from +29 and +33 to -11 and -6. Kevin Keegan's team of 1995-96 may have been deemed too cavalier but they conceded just 37 goals. The figure in the goals-against column last season was 54.

Conceding goals has become the most glaringly evident of Newcastle's problems and Gullit has duly addressed the matter. With Steve Howey injured and Nicos Dabizas and Laurent Charvet deemed not up to the mark, the Newcastle manager has spent pounds 10.25m on a trio of central defenders - the Spaniard Elena Marcelino from Real Mallorca, and the Frenchmen Alain Goma from Paris St-Germain and Franck Dumas from Monaco.

It is the pounds 6m investment in East Anglian talent, though, that could provide the key to the success of Gullit's team this season. Newcastle have been lacking a creative force since the demise of Peter Beardsley. Silvio Maric having so conspicuously failed to make an impression since his pounds 3.5m move from Croatia Zagreb, Dyer could be the man to provide the missing spark.

His livewire displays as an attacking midfielder for Ipswich last season were good enough to attract the attention of Keegan - who elevated him from the England Under-21 team to senior England bench duty in Sofia in May. They were good enough to attract the attention of Juventus too, though Dyer is happy to be wearing the black and white of Newcastle.

"As soon as Newcastle came in for me, I had no hesitation in signing for them," he said. "They're a massive, massive club and hopefully they'll go from strength to strength and be up there where they deserve to be. Ruud Gullit was a major factor in my coming here. He's always been a hero of mine. He's a winner. He transformed Chelsea into one of the best teams in the country and I'm sure he'll do the same to Newcastle."

That much remains to be seen. Though Dyer has signed to stay at Newcastle for five years, Gullit has yet to commit himself even to a contract that will tie him to St James' Park, at a basic fee of pounds 1m, for the entirety of the coming season. It is impossible to escape the feeling that the job is neither as high profile nor as easy as Gullit would like it to be. He has been on Tyneside 11 months already and he is still overburdened by players he doesn't want. He is also struggling to field his pounds 23m strikeforce - Alan Shearer and Duncan Ferguson, who started just two games together last season, have both been hampered by pre-season injuries. And he has lost his best player, the disaffected Dietmar Hamann having left for Liverpool in the wake of a dressing- room spat on FA Cup final day at Wembley.

The talk of the Toon is that Gullit, barring a miraculous transformation, will be gone by this time next year and that Shearer will be leading from the front as head coach-cum- captain. Whoever happens to be guiding the Magpies 12 months hence will have a more battle-hardened Dyer.

Even before August is out, the young midfielder will have not only experienced Premiership football for the first time but also endured the red (and white) hot pressure of a Tyne-Wear derby and a trip to Old Trafford. "I'm a confident lad," he said. "Hopefully, playing on the big stage, I can show what I can do. Basically, my game's based on my energy. I can get round the pitch well and that should stand me in good stead in the Premiership. I don't score enough goals from the positions I get into. But I'm still young and learning the game. We've got great coaches here and I'm sure they'll help me to improve."

The latest arrival at St James' Park is certainly a far from finished article. Unlike the piling stock in the club shop, and in the reserves, his sell-by date is some way off yet.