AS pre-season campaigns go, the managers who come face-to-face at the Riverside today could hardly have enjoyed more contrasting experiences over the summer months.

Steve McClaren returned to the England coaching set-up for Euro 2004, and while Sven-Goran Eriksson found he was publicly pilloried for the national side's meek surrender to the hosts at the quarter-final stage, the Middlesbrough boss returned unhindered by baggage.

Exactly what input McClaren had into the substitutions policy in Portugal is anyone's guess but the mud has stuck to the Swede and him alone, and the Boro boss is now back on international duty leading up to the 2006 World Cup.

Sir Bobby Robson returned from his stint as a TV co-commentator in the summer and has seen baggage piled upon him ever since.

Talk of rifts with his chairman and skipper and dressing room bust-ups have hardly made for good preparations.

The difference between the two men can be summed up by what the respective chairmen have said about them.

Compare "Steve is an ambitious guy and one day I think he will end up as manager of England," with "Bobby has given the club great service and we fervently hope he can bow out with a trophy."

Both Steve Gibson and Freddy Shepherd accept their current managers will be leaving, but while the Teesside man will be reluctant to see his go, whenever he does, the Tyneside man is already planning for his replacement.

In Shepherd's defence he has made Robson aware of his plans since May.

For whatever reason, the Newcastle manager appears to have spent the following two months either not believing his chairman or not wanting to.

Did Robson think he could change Shepherd's mind? A sparkling early-season run with the Magpies 15 points clear of Arsenal, Man. United and Chelsea come January 1 may sway the Newcastle supremo but that is about the only thing that will.

Shepherd would like a Geordie to replace him, with the only real options being Alan Shearer and Steve Bruce.

The Birmingham boss recently signed a new deal at St Andrew's but his appointment wouldn't be as welcome as the chairman may think.

Mud sticks, especially if that mud has made in Manchester stamped through it. Bruce is seen in many quarters as a Geordie Red Devil.

Speaking of Shearer's management potential, Shepherd said recently: "I think he would be a good manager, I hope so. I think he's got that determination, I'd imagine he'd transfer everything from the football field into management. I'm sure he would."

Shepherd is thinking 'future' and that doesn't involve Robson - at management level at least. There is little doubt he has been planning for some time following the failure to build on the club's two Champions League finishes.

The likelihood is that the planning without Robson started when Partizan Belgrade confined Newcastle to the UEFA Cup last August.

Robson and Newcastle "would be in the Guinness Book of Records" if he was manager at 73, Shepherd joked.

Jokes will certainly not have been on Gibson's mind over the last few weeks as revelations about Eriksson's private life threatened to have the Football Association beating a path to the Riverside.

The Boro chairman is a realist and he is aware that McClaren's star is in the ascendancy. He has said publicly this week that he can see McClaren as a future England manager and out of the discussions about the England situation he has seen his way to allowing McClaren a permanent return to national coaching duties.

The summer acquisitions have impressed the man who is bankrolling the club and McClaren is a draw that Middlesbrough are now benefiting from.

"Every target acquired" was Gibson's glowing report of the close season. McClaren has given the chairman the trophy and the European football he desperately wanted and the chairman has returned the favour with the cash to fund a rebuilding programme.

Trophies and Newcastle, however, haven't gone together since 1969. If Robson had delivered silverware then the pre-season discussions about his age and exit from St James' Park would have been kept behind closed doors.

With the 35-year wait in mind, Newcastle have also splashed the cash but where every Boro buy was undoubtedly McClaren's man, the talk on Tyneside is more of chairman Shepherd pulling the strings.

The buying for both clubs is at an end for now and the pre-season is over. The young pup appears to have the bone, but the old dog just might have a few tricks left up his sleeve for the campaign ahead