Phil Brown is in bother with the FA again. This time, he and Newcastle United manager Joe Kinnear have been jointly summoned for 'improper conduct' after the two managers indulged in a few tasty verbals at the FA Cup replay last week.
Brown was, rightly, seething that no foul was given when Daniel Cousin took a painful slicing through his ankles from the Whitesnake-haired defender Fabio Coloccini. Kinnear stepped in and the two did some savage eyeballing before the fourth official stepped in. Each went to the stands, though whether they were ordered to or just chose to do so is not clear.
Kinnear cuts a sympathetic character with the awful slagging he took when he accepted his troubleshooting job at St James' Park back in September, but he has a right gob on him too and is his own worst enemy. However, Brown has shown of late he too is capable of losing his composure a little too much, especially when you consider his frequent complaints about refereeing decisions of late to the waiting media. Those who say such complaints are justified are forgetting that they don't get decisions altered, nor do they get referees demoted or reprimanded. They do, however, earn managers ill-needed reputations for moaning.
With City's star waning and sequence of results looking deeply unimpressive, the manager needs to be cooler in public. As the players strive to return to form and flavour, the last thing they need is their manager absent from the improvement process. 'Improper conduct' may, like the last incident, result in just a fine and a wrist-slapping, but eventually a touchline ban will be imminent if Brown can't keep his counsel. Part of Kinnear's shtick has always been to rile the opposition anyway.
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