1996-97 Season - July/August

What started as a glorious day out for the Toon Army ended in humiliation and a rare soaking; the electrical storms overhead appearing to provide a metaphor for Keegan's state of mind.

Newcastle were abysmal. After twenty minutes of ineffective sparring two goals in five minutes from Le Eric [25] and Butt [30] effectively ended the game as a contest.

The team was all over the place and if Manchester United hadn't reverted to training mode it could have been a lot worse. Two goals in the last five minutes from Beckam and Keane simply rubbed salt in the wounds.

Keegan was furious and lambasted the players for a full hour after the game. He later revealed in his autobiography how low the performance made him feel and how he had made a bad managerial decision in playing an out-of-form Beardsley because he felt sorry for him

Robert Lee led the team out as new captain and Hislop was preferred to Srnicek in goal. Tino was suspended, Ginola retained his place despite talk of a move to Arsenal and club skipper Beardsley (now 35) found himself warming the bench. There was no place for Barton or Peacock.

Neither was there a fairy tale debut for our new Number 9 as The Magpies slumped to a two goal defeat and Shearer had a goal chalked off for a foul by Albert.

Four minutes after that near miss Watson made a mess of a back header and Ferguson tumbled over the now prone Watson. The referee astounded United by awarding a penalty, duly converted by Unsworth. Twelve minutes later debutant Speed made it two when he ran unmarked into the box .

Everton simply steamrollered past United with Big Dunc causing mayhem in the middle and Kanchelsis giving Beresford a torrid time on the flanks. Only a lack of cutting edge prevented The Toffees scoring more and United finished a well beaten and dejected side.

They were lambasted by the press for displaying all their old "defensive frailties" but in truth nobody played well and the tactic of Ginola and Gillespie playing on the "wrong" wing was a resounding flop. Keegan's after match press conference was uncharacteristically short and far from sweet.

The players were also "gagged" and from outside it appeared that the pressures that had built up during the previous campaign had not subsided.

Srnicek, Elliot and Asprilla were all recalled to the side for the home game against the Dons meaning United were fielding a front three with a combined cost of a cool £28 million .

After only three minutes David Batty scored with a 40 yard shot after Wimbledon's keeper Neil Sullivan's gaffe. Keegan described Batty's strike as "a truly classic goal with a bit of finesse about it"; words rarely used in the same sentence.

Sullivan made amends by making a number of fine saves and The Dons thought they had equalised only for the goal to be controversially disallowed.

It wasn't until three minutes from time that United made the game safe. They were awarded a free-kick twenty yards out and Shearer pulled rank to get the opportunity to mark his debut with a curling shot into the top-left corner.

It was a win but United looked far from convincing against a poor set of Wombles. Undaunted William Hill made us second favorites for the title

Early leaders Sheffield Wednesday were the next visitors to SJP and Keegan retained the same eleven.

Once again they got off to a flying start when Asprilla fell over in the box and Shearer coolly dispatched the spot kick in the 12th minute.

But within minutes the Toon Army was halted in full swing when "horrific defending" [Keegan] allowed Peter Atherton to head home unchallenged for the equaliser.

After that United huffed and puffed without result before a Steve Watson (who was having a nightmare start to the season) inexplicably headed the ball inside, straight to the feet of Whittingham allowing David Pleat's men to leave with all three points

The end of the match was met by a chorus of boos and Kev admitted that "performances so far this season have been poor" and that "the fans have every right to be unhappy". He even went so far as to describe it as the worst home performance in his managerial tenure which was OTT but was a sign of his exasperation