Keegan's warning over City ambition

Kevin Keegan was probably feeling a shudder of déjà vu even before he stepped off the Manchester City team bus and strode into the main entrance at St James' Park yesterday. He had been there many times before, of course, but in strikingly similar circumstances on 14 March 1992. That was the afternoon he walked out on his first job as a football manager, just 40 days into it, when the Newcastle board failed to produce the £87,000 he needed to make his first signing. "It's not like it said in the brochure," he famously remarked, after packing his bags and heading for his Hampshire home after a 3-1 home win against Swindon.

He had been promised £1m in spending money by Sir John Hall and only returned to Tyneside when the boardroom power battle which prevented the release of the first instalment was swiftly resolved. Darren McDonough duly arrived from Luton, and while he was hardly an auspicious investment (the injury-plagued midfielder played just three games before being forced to retire) the £60m Keegan spent in four years and 11 months at Newcastle took the Tyneside club from the brink of bankruptcy and the old Third Division to the brink of the Premiership title.

The ultimate prize would have been theirs had Peter Schmeichel not performed goalkeeping miracles on the night the title race of 1995-96 turned with Manchester United's 1-0 win at St James'.

Schmeichel was absent from Keegan's team at Newcastle yesterday. He was suffering from a calf injury. The extent of the damage done to Keegan's relationship with City's chairman, David Bernstein, was not so easily diagnosed. The collapse of the proposed Robbie Fowler transfer has certainly strained an already-weakening bond. Keegan himself had agreed the terms of the £7m deal with Leeds (£2m up front, £2.5m within 12 months, £500,000 after 30 appearances, £500,000 after 60 games and £1.5m relating to City's success). Bernstein wanted to revise the offer to £5m, with no down-payment of cash and strictly appearance-related instalments.

Keegan did, of course, walk out on Newcastle a second and final time. He walked out on England too. It is unlikely in the extreme, though, that he will do the same at City. At his weekly press conference on Friday he maintained: "I'm still totally committed to this club. I really enjoy it here and think we have a real chance to take it where the fans and I want it to be. But I run the club up to a point; after that, other people have to make decisions. And some decisions are made for you that you don't like."

And Keegan made no attempt to conceal the fact that he did not care for Bernstein's decision to amend the Fowler offer. "There are things we have done that haven't been right and which I wouldn't have done myself," he said, "but, hey, I'm not the one who runs this club." Ultimately, Bernstein is – for the time being, at least.

Relations between Keegan and his chairman first soured in November, when the manager complained about the amount of money to be made available for him in the transfer window. He said he would "go back to the North-east" if he suspected the club were not matching his own ambitions. It led to John Wardle, City's deputy chairman and major shareholder, announcing he was to play a more hands-on role liaising between the manager's office at the training ground and the London-based chairman.

Wardle – like fellow-director Dennis Tueart, a former England team-mate and long-time friend of Keegan – shares the manager's grand vision of building a team to take on Europe's élite in the City of Manchester Stadium that will become the club's home next season. Despite Wardle's closer involvement, though, moves to sign Michael Reiziger, David Sommeil and Fowler have all come to nought.

Bernstein, a City of London financier, is already concerned about the £26m that has been borrowed to keep pace with Keegan's aspirations thus far, fearing a headlong rush into the mire that has snared Leeds. Where Keegan saw, in Fowler, an ace in the pack, "the most natural finisher in the country", Bernstein saw an injury-prone potential liability, a £7m, £38,000-a-week risk.

"As a club we have to behave responsibly and act carefully," Bernstein said on Friday. "Kevin may think there are times when I act too carefully but I am just doing my job." Keegan has spent £36.3m on 15 players in his 18 months at Maine Road. The $64,000 question now is where he and his chairman go from here. In the long term, given Keegan's history of free-rein management, it seems unlikely both men will remain in the City fold. In the short term, though, the City manager has a striking vacancy to fill.

Malcolm Christie, it seems, could emerge as the most likely alternative to Fowler. Keegan has made an inquiry about the former England Under-21 international, who is available from Derby for around £2m. The price would be right for City's chairman, although a deal would not be without its pitfalls. When Christie, who has interested Leeds and Middlesbrough, scored the Old Trafford goal that saved Derby from relegation the season before last, he revealed he had been a Manchester United fan since his youth. "My bedroom wall was a shrine to United," he said. It was an innocent confession that may come back to haunt him – and his would-be employers.