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Joe Kinnear. Director of Football, Newcastle United.

Seven words that have caused a collective gasp for the Toon Army, already engaged in overdrive as they discuss the potential ramifications.

But away from Tyneside, it is the middle three words, the title rather than the individual or the club, that has brought much head-shaking.

In truth, it is a cultural thing. In British football, we have been brought up with the belief that the Manager makes the decisions.

He chooses how to play, who to play, who to sell. Those taking over at clubs, appointed to impose their “fingerprint” - thanks, Jose – believe they will call the shots.

Even those who have been raised on foreign fields, cut their teeth in countries where they are “coaches” or “trainers” - working under the regime of a sporting director or autocratic President - rather than “managers” come to England anticipating they will be in charge.

After all, the bosses' “trade union” is the League Managers Association, not the “League Managers, Directors of Football and Allied Trades Association”. The clue is in the title.

Kinnear is not the first to be hired in the role by a major club yet it is hard to argue that it has been a universally successful concept.

The idea makes some sense, certainly from the view of owners who, aware of the transitory nature of the game, seek stability.

Appoint an older, wiser, head to the role, giving the manager a link to the board, a conduit, who can pass on his experience and knowledge.

If you have a good Director of Football - or Technical Director, or Sporting Director (the exact title is irrelevant) – it should ensure longer-term stability, a grand plan being enacted.

Clubs are not, then, completely subject to the tactical whims of the incoming manager. A pattern, a blue-print, an identity, can be moulded over a number of years.

Certainly, that seems to be the model envisaged at Chelsea, where there is so much talk of actually producing, rather than having to go out and buy, players.

So keen were the Blues to get their production line going that they pinched Frank Arnesen off Spurs - it only cost them £10million in compensation – only for the Dane's scouting network to prove decidedly off-beam.

(Image: getty)

To be fair to Michael Emenalo - not exactly a favourite of the Stamford Bridge fans – even Jose Mourinho, inheriting recent signings including Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Thibaut Courtois (four more famous Belgians, taking the global tally to six after Eddie Merckx and the imaginary Hercule Poirot) appears to have publicly bought into the concept, although it is easy to agree to things on your first day in a job.

Yet there seemed to have been plenty of discussions by Mourinho's inner circle about Emenalo before we came to the current position and, indeed, it is harder to find the examples where it has worked than those where it has not.

Tottenham, of course, have had a few. Not just Arnesen, but David Pleat (although he always seemed more of a caretaker manager in waiting) and Damien Comolli, whose fall-out with Martin Jol became unsustainable.

Comolli, who was singularly unsuccessful when he took up the same role at Liverpool - Kenny Dalglish blamed him for the signings that failed – took credit for Dimitar Berbatov and claims Gareth Bale. Others, within the club, argue differently.

Spurs, though, having ditched the idea when Harry Redknapp was brought in as a latter-day Red Adair, are now returning to the model with former England number two Franco Baldini, with the agreement, clearly, of Andre Villas-Boas. Once bitten, twice bitten, it seems.

Similarly at Newcastle, where Dennis Wise was “Executive Director of Football” in 2008, his relationship with Kevin Keegan seemingly less than fruitful.

The problems come when managers feel they are being second-guessed, undermined, by the men who are supposed to be their link with the board.

(Image: Ross Kinnaird)

Redknapp, remember, was appointed in that role at Portsmouth. I wrote that incumbent boss Graham Rix was in trouble and was confronted by Rix the next morning, denying the very idea. Look up what happened within nine months.

Even now, after more than a decade of the experiment, it feels alien, un-natural.

Alan Pardew will have been entitled to wonder what happens next when he woke yesterday morning to discover the news.

Directors of Football can work. But only in the right circumstances, when egos are left at the door. And how often does that happen in football? Not enough, I would suggest.