Kinnear keeps Toon upwardly mobile

IT is always best to expect the unexpected at Newcastle United, so perhaps the notion of the club being hauled onto an even keel by Joe Kinnear — frozen out of football for four years, with question marks over his health and whose methods appeared to belong in football’s stone age — is not so surprising.

The 61-year-old Dubliner has been appointed as Newcastle’s manager until the end of the season after dragging the club away from the bottom of the table and, for his players, it is a rare ray of sunshine in a season shrouded in turmoil.

“It’s a great thing for all people concerned with the football side of the club because we know what is going on,” Mark Viduka, the striker, said after the Newcastle revival continued with this scrappy derby draw with Middlesbrough.