Rob Lee wasn't the only player to be cast of when Ruud Gullit took over at Newcastle: having been injured towards the end of Kenny Dalglish's tenure, Alessandro Pistone returned to fitness to find he wasn't wanted by the Scotsman's replacement:
"Ruud Gullit was very different, very arrogant. When he started here he already had a fixed idea about me and, whatever I did, I could not change it. It did not matter if you were a good player; if he did not like you, you had no chance. Look what he did to Rob Lee."
He was frozen out, and blanked by the manager and wasn't given a squad number, as the manager flatly refused to tell him why he had been dropped.
"Then I was told to train with the reserves. Gullit knew that in Italy you only go with the reserves if you have done something wrong; it is a disciplinary measure. I had done nothing wrong."
But then against the odds, when Gullit walked out, Pistone was restored to the first team by Bobby Robson and became a first-team regular. He wasn't the best player, but he didn't deserve the treatment he endured at Gullit's hands.
