Darren McDonough duly arrived from Luton, and while he was hardly an auspicious investment (the injury-plagued midfielder played just three games before being forced to retire) the £60m Keegan spent in four years and 11 months at Newcastle took the Tyneside club from the brink of bankruptcy and the old Third Division to the brink of the Premiership title.The ultimate prize would have been theirs had Peter Schmeichel not performed goalkeeping miracles on the night the title race of 1995-96 turned with Manchester United’s 1-0 win at St James’.Schmeichel was absent from Keegan’s team at Newcastle yesterday He was suffering from a calf injury. The extent of the damage done to Keegan’s relationship with City’s chairman, David Bernstein, was not so easily diagnosed. The collapse of the proposed Robbie Fowler transfer has certainly strained an already-weakening bond. Keegan himself had agreed the terms of the £7m deal with Leeds (£2m up front, £2.5m within 12 months, £500,000 after 30 appearances, £500,000 after 60 games and £1.5m relating to City’s success). Bernstein wanted to revise the offer to £5m, with no down-payment of cash and strictly appearance-related instalments.Keegan did, of course, walk out on Newcastle a second and final time He walked out on England too. It is unlikely in the extreme, though, that he will do the same at City. At his weekly press conference on Friday he maintained: “I’m still totally committed to this club.

I really enjoy it here and think we have a real chance to take it where the fans and I want it to be. But I run the club up to a point; after that, other people have to make decisions. And some decisions are made for you that you don’t like.”And Keegan made no attempt to conceal the fact that he did not care for Bernstein’s decision to amend the Fowler offer. “There are things we have done that haven’t been right and which I wouldn’t have done myself,” he said, “but, hey, I’m not the one who runs this club.” Ultimately, Bernstein is – for the time being, at least.Relations between Keegan and his chairman first soured in November, when the manager complained about the amount of money to be made available for him in the transfer window.

He said he would “go back to the North-east” if he suspected the club were not matching his own ambitions. It led to John Wardle, City’s deputy chairman and major shareholder, announcing he was to play a more hands-on role liaising between the manager’s office at the training ground and the London-based chairman.Wardle – like fellow-director Dennis Tueart, a former England team-mate and long-time friend of Keegan – shares the manager’s grand vision of building a team to take on Europe’s ?te in the City of Manchester Stadium that will become the club’s home next season. Despite Wardle’s closer involvement, though, moves to sign Michael Reiziger, David Sommeil and Fowler have all come to nought.Bernstein, a City of London financier, is already concerned about the £26m that has been borrowed to keep pace with Keegan’s aspirations thus far, fearing a headlong rush into the mire that has snared Leeds. Where Keegan saw, in Fowler, an ace in the pack, “the most natural finisher in the country”, Bernstein saw an injury-prone potential liability, a £7m, £38,000-a-week risk.”As a club we have to behave responsibly and act carefully,” Bernstein said on Friday.