Keegan finds title race a bore

BEIJING, May 7 -- Kevin Keegan is bored by it all. The Newcastle United manager is concerned that no team can muscle into the "Big Four," which includes Arsenal and Liverpool besides Manchester United and Chelsea.

Monday's 0-2 defeat to Chelsea was further evidence of the gulf.

The 57-year-old Keegan said there's no hope of European Champions League qualification for his club.

"We are a million miles away from that," he told reporters in a 13-minute monologue. His league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring, but great leagues in the world. The top four next year will be the same top four as this year.

"We will be trying to get fifth, and we will be trying to win the other league that's going on within the Premier League. It would be a hell of an achievement from where we are now, but it' s possible."

Keegan managed Newcastle during a memorable 1996 season when the club squandered a 12-point advantage to Manchester United, prompting an emotional finger-jabbing rant against Alex Ferguson.

"No manager is going to say what I said 12 years," Watch out, Alex, we are after your title, Keegan said. "If they do, they will think they have been drinking something or they are on something, and I am sure they are not. It's a realization for everybody."

Keegan lamented that clubs like his in northern England it has a near impossible task of attracting name players in competition with the Big Four. "There is a pecking order, isn't there? If I am a player and I get the chance to go to Chelsea or Newcastle, if I go to Newcastle, you guys would slaughter me.

Keegan is bewildered by the talent at Avram Grant's disposal, funded by Chelsea's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich.

"Chelsea bring (Andrei) Shevchenko off the bench (worth) 28 million pounds (US$56 million) ... they bring Frank Lampard off the bench, they have got Joe Cole, they have got Shaun Wright-Phillips ... and I could go on.

"With the greatest respect, I can't say to the Newcastle fans that I have got any firepower like that, so over a season, they are going to have you."

(Source: Shanghai Daily/Agencies)