NEWCASTLE chairman Freddy Shepherd will hold showdown talks with the Premier League next week after deciding Glenn Roeder is the man he wants as his manager next season.

With Martin O'Neill having been removed from the race to succeed Graeme Souness, Roeder has emerged as the unanimous choice of the Magpies board.

The current caretaker has won ten of his 15 games at the helm, leading Newcastle to the brink of a UEFA Cup place and winning over players and supporters alike.

But, while Shepherd is keen to install Roeder on a permanent basis as quickly as possible, he must first clear up the current confusion surrounding the former West Ham manager's lack of the coaching credentials needed to manage in the top-flight.

He is unable to do that until the start of next week, with Premier League chairman Dave Richards currently unavailable thanks to his role on the six-man Nominations Panel charged with appointing England's next manager.

Despite previously insisting they would not shift the goalposts, the Premier League board last week granted Roeder a two-game exemption that allows him to continue in his current caretaker capacity for the remainder of the season.

And, with Shepherd ready to cite the 50-year-old's extensive Premiership experience and UEFA 'A' Licence as evidence of his managerial ability, the Premier League hierarchy is expected to reach a compromise agreement that would see Roeder installed before Newcastle host Chelsea on the final day of the season.

"At this moment in time, Glenn Roeder could not take the job under Premier League rules," said a spokesman for the top-flight's governing body. "He does not fulfil the requirements.

"But if Newcastle want to put a case to us, we would be happy to listen and the situation would be considered by the Premier League Board.

"That is what the Board is there for. We have already granted the one extension which was requested."

Currently, Roeder holds the UEFA 'A' Licence after completing a practical coaching course in 1999 alongside current Crystal Palace boss Ian Dowie.

Premier League regulations require all new managers to possess a UEFA 'Pro Licence', something Roeder was about to begin studying for when he was struck down by a brain tumour in April 2003.

The process to convert one into the other is a drawn-out affair, with applicants expected to attend a seven-day residential course at Warwick University in June before completing a year of continuous assessment, distance learning lectures and overseas training and coaching visits. There will then be a final residential component in the summer of 2007.

Clearly, Roeder will not complete the course in time to take over at St James' Park before the start of next season, but the Premier League's guidelines are vague when it comes to distinguishing between a completed course and ongoing study.

Even a Premier League spokesman was unable to deliver a definitive verdict yesterday, and Shepherd is expected to argue that enrolling on this year's course should be enough to earn Roeder a dispensation that will allow him to take overall control of the Magpies.

Shepherd is also likely to highlight the anomalous situation whereby Roeder, a manager with more than two years Premiership experience, is barred from managing in the top-flight because he does own a UEFA Pro Licence, whereas O'Neill, who does not boast the relevant qualification either, is free to take over the reins on Tyneside.

When the current rules were introduced three years ago, a select number of managers boasting "significant years of top-level managerial service" were given an exemption to 2010 provided they undertook a five-day refresher course to gain the newly-created FA Coaching Diploma.

Despite being in charge of Scottish Premier League side Celtic, O'Neill was granted such an exemption, as was former Magpies manager Graeme Souness. Roeder, on the other hand, was not.

"We realised it was ridiculous that managers of the quality of Sir Alex Ferguson and Martin O'Neill who did not have the pro licence and were not studying for it, might be barred from the Premiership," admitted Frank Clark of the League Managers Association. "So we helped arrange the FA coaching diploma."

After bending the rules once, Shepherd will argue it is unfair of the Premier League to refuse to do so again.

As a last resort, the Newcastle board are willing to give Roeder a director of football role, something that would not require any new qualifications, and install current reserve-team coach Tommy Craig, a Pro Licence holder, as manager. It remains extremely unlikely, however, that the current impasse would not be resolved before it came to that.

Either way, O'Neill has been permanently excluded from the race to succeed Souness.

The Ulsterman, who was originally Newcastle's first choice for the post, has shown little desire to move to Tyneside.

He is understood to have harboured grave reservations about retaining Roeder as a key member of his backroom staff - something Shepherd insisted was a minimum requirement of any new manager - and was unhappy at recent promises guaranteeing Alan Shearer an ambassadorial role at St James' next season.

He could yet arrive in the North-East this summer, though, with possible vacancies at both Middlesbrough and Sunderland commanding his attention.

Boro chairman Steve Gibson is a known admirer of O'Neill and the former Wycombe and Leicester boss is certain to be included on any shortlist at the Riverside should Steve McClaren be appointed as manager of England.

He will also figure in the race to be Sunderland boss should the current Niall Quinn led consortium, said to include JP McManus and Dermot Desmond, seize control at the Stadium of Light

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