To go from the expansive brilliance of Kevin Keegan's football, and the near-miss of almost winning the Premier League to the dour, boring football of Kenny Dalglish was a shock to the system. Dalglish may claim that getting to the FA Cup final and coming second were big deals for Newcastle, but he made some stunningly poor decisions, both on the pitch and away from it. And while his time as boss was hampered by some key injuries - to Alan Shearer more than anyone else - his style of play was mostly horrible to watch, and better transfer dealings might have protected the club a bit more. He is after all the man responsible for the signings of Des Hamilton, Alessandro Pistone, Ian Rush, George Georgiadis, Stephane Guivarc'h and his own son. And that's just a few of them. He was never going to compare to the man he replaced, but Kenny wasn't the King he was apparently destined to be, and when he left it was something of a relief, even if it merely opened the door for Ruud Gullit's deeply unsexy football.
