What the hell is going on at Newcastle United? An English Premier League club that from afar appears more and more as though it is being run by a group of amateurs. Lack of planning and direction, poor financial decisions, infighting, the list goes on. To make this clear yes I am a proud Newcastle fan, have been for many years, so I have been following these developments for a little while now.
To a degree it all started when Mike Ashley took over as owner of the club in 2007 from Fat Freddy Shepherd . Mike Ashley is a successful businessman in his own right with an estimated wealth of £700mil largely due to his budget sports clothing chain Sports Direct. However I am certain he would now admit buying Newcastle was a mistake. Firstly because when he took over the club he promised to bring them out of debt only to realise they were £100mil more in debt than he originally thought when he bought then. Secondly he took over from Fat Freddy who was first and foremost a Newcastle fan (Mike did not follow football) and would always opt for the big money signing to please the fans rather than the prudent decision. So effectively after buying the club out of his own money he had to then spend a further £100mil of his own coin and then be expected to go out and sign big name players like the last owner who put the club in this debt to begin with. He was on a hiding to nothing.
So he allowed a few low money signings to be made, free transfers, set a maximum wage limit in place and effectively made the club viable. In doing all of this he did however end any hope of Newcastle returning to the Champions League. This did not sit terrible well with the fans, myself included to an extent, who all had delusions of grandeur regarding the status of their club in Europe. So Mike tried to sell the club, however he was intent on getting back what he put into the club which he never did get. All of this led to Newcastle being relegated at the end of the 2008/09. It all honesty was just what the club needed, a reality check at all levels. Management, players and fans. The players that stuck around were committed to the cause and were far too good for the Championship, storming back into the Premier League with a sense of unity and purpose.
Now this brings me to the last twelve months when things were all seemingly going well, hell Mike even felt safe enough to sit back in the stands at the home games.
Before I go any further I would like to point out that up until now I can understand pretty much every decision Mike Ashley had made. I may not agree with them but I am a fan so I want to see Newcastle seal the deal to bring Luka Modric to the club and I will get upset when we don’t agree to pay his wages and then see him sign with the spuds. But essentially I knew that for the good of the club the right decisions were being made through this period. For every Modric we could have signed, we may well have ended up with another Hugo Viana or Xisco or Jean-Alain Boumsong or Michael Owen or Patrick Kluivert. Now I know the likes of Kluivert pumped a fair portion of their wages back into the local kebab industry, but that small sample above above is just a terrible record on big name/money signings. So up until this point in history I am with you Mike.
So where did it all go wrong? Well with Newcastle sitting in 11th place in early December 2010 (not too bad for a promoted team) manager Chris Hughton was sacked!!!! The club released a statement saying that they were after a manager with more experience. Fans media and more importantly the players were shocked and upset. The players expressed their disappointment both in the media and also through twitter. Even expressing, that if anything was to happen regarding Chris that they would have expected him to get a contract extension.
So if they were to sack Chris Hughton then from my perspective (remember I fully trust all decisions) wow they must have a super experienced manager lined up, I myself was thinking if Martin O’Neil signs then all is forgiven and then some. But no Allen Pardew was appointed. ALLEN PARDEW. What has he done? Well he got West Ham promoted and then took them to the FA Cup final, unfortunately that was as good as it got. He got fired the next year. Then at Charlton he got them relegated and looked like he was going to get them relegated from the Championship before they parted company with him. Then he was at Southampton where he achieved nothing and lasted about a year before he was moved on again. What about this career screams better than Chris Hughton? All it did was upset the most settled 18 months in the recent history of Newcastle United.
Then we move into January 2011 and young star striker Andy Carroll is sold to Liverpool for £35mil. Now this in itself will upset a lot of people as he is a local boy and a very good player at that, but personally I don’t have an issue with the sale. Would have been great to keep him, but the nature of the game we love is that if the smaller clubs develop stars then they sell then to bigger clubs, in this case for huge amounts of cash #tss. What the problem is, is that in the wake of the sale Pardew was regularly being quoted in the media saying that Mike Ashley had promised him that all of the £35mil would be reinvested in players. Not some, but ALL. Now in the days and weeks after that, predictably Newcastle were being quoted exorbitant prices for any player they enquired about. So, no further signings were made until this northern summer and only one has been made for a fee, that of Yohan Cabaye for £5mil whilst Kevin Nolan has been sold (we will get to this later) for £3.5mil. My maths tells me that to date that is a net expense of £1.5mil, just £33.5mil shy of what the fans and players were promised. Even if you want to get technical and say the Nolan fee should not get included, why are we still short £30mil? Sure there are still a couple of weeks left before the transfer window shuts but the noises coming from Pardew are that he is “hopeful” of one more signing, hardly sounds like he has access to eight figures. If he never had access to all the £35mil then Ashley should have come out and corrected him right from the start instead of creating false hope in the fans, players and Pardew himself, he has lied to the fans and the players and they are not happy. Interesting to note that Sports Direct who had been struggling of late was able to post a tidy profit in the first quarter of 2011 due to an increase in sales, I’m just saying….
Next we come to sale of Kevin Nolan. Club captain and leading goal scorer for the past season, which is all the more relevant given the sale of Carroll and lack of replacement. Nolan had two years to run on his contract and wanted assurances he would be able to remain at the club beyond that. The club would not give him those assurances and decided to get rid of him whilst they could still get some value out of him. Surely for the sake of £3.5mil you are better off with a player you know to be a proven goal scorer and a great leader loved by all his team mates. Half the battle is identifying these players and convincing them to sign for your club. Once you have them it should be easy to keep them there. Anyway the players weren’t happy and took to the media and twitter again.
Now comes the clubs pre-season tour of the USA. I could not believe that for a variety of reasons only about half a squad was making the tour. Joey Barton and Nile Ranger were denied Visas for criminal records, Yohan Cabaye was denied a Visa for some other reason. Williamson and Routledge stayed in the UK and throw in a few injuries and this left the squad far too thin. As a result there were not enough fully fit players to field a full side resulting in Ryan Taylor aggregating an existing injury. Surely a professional club would have sent some reserve team players over to prevent such debacles. To make the whole situation even more laughable, on returning to the UK Chiek Tioté was refused a Visa. How can this happen? He has played there for the last twelve months yet he has been forced back to the Ivory Coast to sort this out while the rest of the club finishes the preseason. Who are these amateurs that are in charge?
It was at about this time that the twitter rants started, first it was Jose Enrique. Recently linked with a move to the likes of both Arsenal and Liverpool, Enrique was committed to the cause at Newcastle but was frustrated with the lack of ambition should by the club, especially in the transfer market. Firstly claiming that the club is letting all of the major players leave, and that is not the fault of the players. Then stating that the club will never again fight to be amongst the top six sides with this policy. Apparently the fans deserve the best not what they are doing with the club. He then finished by talking about how they lie all the time and they don’t want to spend any money on bringing quality players in, that’s why everyone is going. Jose was fined a massive £100k by the club for this and the assumption is that he will now also be sold, although Pardew thinks he will stay. I can’t see why he would though.
Pretty soon after this occurred Joey Barton started to let loose on twitter also. I had been reading about it in the media but I decided to read a few of his tweets myself and now follow him. I suggest if you have any interest in this and if it is all still unfolding you should follow him yourself, @Joey7Barton. If for no other reason you will get the truth from his perspective, for better or worse he will not be gagged. It started when he was linked with a move to Man U and came out and made it clear that it was nice but he was not interested and wanted to stay. Then he said he would have to leave Newcastle at the end of the year as the club and he could not agree on a contract, he wants to stay but it appears it won’t be possible. Then only a day or two ago after a friendly loss to Leeds United he tweeted “If only we as players could tell the fans exactly how it is, without them above fining us lots of money. There will be a time and a place.” Followed by “If it wouldn't effect team morale and cause unrest within the dressing room, am certain Jose's comments would be the tip of the iceberg.....” then “And again it would be left to those magnificent fans to pick up the remnants of their once great football club. #hadenoughofcertainpeople” and “If I wanted to leave, I'd just come out and say "I want to leave" Things need addressing as am not prepared to go through a relegation again”.
He followed this by getting involved in a back and forth with a supposed fan. As a result of all of this, Joey Barton was transfer listed yesterday. Whilst to a degree I can understand this as he is proving to be a disruptive figure, it is disappointing as it is yet another quality footballer out the door. But what the truly astounding thing is, the club is prepared to let Barton leave on a free transfer despite him having a year to run on his contract. This is absolutely unheard of and defies logic. Little more than a week ago he was drawing interest from top clubs in the Premier League and now we are willing to let him go free of charge. Seriously all of these issues come back to fact that we are letting our better players go and are not prepared to spend money on good players, now we are letting are better players go for free, this is ridiculous. The whole club is a rabble and the only players that are happy about the way things are going are the reserve and youth team players because they will all be experienced Premier League players in ten months time.
I have never seen a professional sports team so poorly managed in all facets of the business (except maybe Port Adelaide). I don’t know what needs to be done, but its becoming clear that Mike Ashley really does have no idea what he is doing and he is just rubbing everyone at the club the wrong way. Until there is unity off the pitch I find it impossible to believe there will be unity on the pitch. With that in mind, matchday 1 at St James Park against Arsenal in just undertow weeks I see as an absolute lock for the gunners. Newcastle Really has four very poor strikers to choose from in Best, Ameobi, Lovekrands and Ba (maybe Ranger too) so I don’t know where the goals are coming from. Add the fact the Nolan won’t be scoring any and Barton won’t be supplying any and you have to doubt the threat they pose. Cabaye and Tioté will work hard in the midfield but I am not sure how creative they are. Hatem Ben Arfa will miss due to injury. There has to be some doubt over Enrique playing given the uncertainty surrounding his future and the club does not have another recognised left back. Now Arsenal has not had the perfect preseason either but they are poles apart in comparison. Whether both Fabregas and Nasri play I doubt it, but Gervinho is a huge inclusion. I can’t see any other result but an Arsenal win. $1.80 Centrebet, $1.75 Sportingbet. Get on.
@Mal68Au
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