Transfer Rumours Richard Keogh

When I think of Charnley and Carr I get an image in my mind of two dithering morons who are trying desperately to cover their a$$es rather than fix the issues. This is mainly because I don't think they CAN fix the issues. Here's where I think it's fallen down:

- Carr has "identified" around 3 players. Because he's so fcking dithering in "getting it right" (in spite of constantly getting it wrong regardless) we only have a shortlist of 3.
- Charnley is then employed to "encourage" players to join this toxic mess, whilst still doing so with "value for money". These are terms he understands when buying a telly, or reviewing a balance sheet, but in terms of footballers I don't think he has a fcking clue.
- It then becomes alarmingly apparent that Carr has "identified" Danny Ings, Charlie Austin and Bas Dost. Quite what amount of scouting goes into deciding these players are ok is beyond me. However, that leads to the problem - neither Ings, Austin or Dost actually want to join Newcastle. Inexplicably our scouting doesn't appear to stretch to knowing if a player wants to come or not. Look for a Chron article from Don Hutchison about transfers, he said clearly that most clubs will have already asked about whether a player wants to come and will have this stuff lined up months in advance. This is why I am particularly negative about our non-existent start to this window.
- Subsequently we don't have a list of 15-20 talented footballers to enquire about, because Carr works a very certain, overly-detailed and methodical way. We have exhausted all options before the Summer has even begun and we have nowhere near enough knowledge, staff or clout to then go and find other players.

I think they know full well they won't deliver and I can just picture Charnley chewing nails in his office playing Solitaire saying "ah, I'll take care of this mess tomorrow", knowing full well tomorrow never comes. Graham Carr in the meantime is desperately waiting for someone to call and tell him that this player, or that player, have a Cabaye-style release clause. This call also never comes as most clubs tend to move forward and make sure their players are ted down properly. Due diligence tends to take place as clubs don't want to be robbed, least of all by our band of fcking cowboys. So we're completely stuck. Charnley doesn't know what to do, he can't negotiate for sh!t, is completely out-played by professional clubs and we will be sat there with another bunch of injury-prone players who are simply not equipped to deal with the PL. There's a very simple way of telling whether that player you've not heard of is up to PL standard or not - if they move to Newcastle ahead of other clubs, they're not.

Again, caveat is I may well be proved wrong. Charnley may be far more competent than the last TWO YEARS SOLID have shown. I doubt it. Carr may act like a 50 year old scout in touch with the modern game instead of a 71 year old grandad reminiscing about John Tudor. I doubt it. I don't even know how we can structure finance deals without a Finance Director. I might be wrong. And I know of no-one in the modern world who is on less than 4 weeks notice period, meaning we probably won't have an FD until the season has already begun.

It's so deeply, utterly fcked.

 

Please don't buy him. I'm counting on him to **** up Derby's promotion bid.

Absolute clutz of a centre-half.

Isn't Lascelles playing for you next season?

 

wasn't he the guy that made that awful mistake in the play final against qpr ..felt a bit sorry for him like ...but he aint prem class

 

We can cross another defender off our list, Tyrone Mings , Ipswich have accepted a sizable offer from BOURNEMOUTH for his services.

 

Disappointed with Mings. That's a real sign of intent from Bournemouth. I suppose he is from down that way so might have been difficult to compete anyway, but I'd imagine 8m was too rich for us. Fearing the Willo.

 

I don't think we could afford to take a chance on Mings. Any mention of a young CB from Ipswich still leaves me shaking with fear to this day....

Rumours about that Vlaar is under consideration.

 

Would both have been criminal?

 

Good point, but haven't we got Lascelles already? £8m would give Charnley a nose bleed and probably mean we were after Franny Jeffers as our lead striker.

Vlaar would be a good addition for sure.

 

Interesting conversation with Neil Warnock on Talksport today. Said he tried to sign Mings 2 years ago but didn't rate him at more than 3 million. Stated he was a good defender going forward but lacked defensive qualities for someone with a price tag of over £4 million. ( Price Ipswich wanted )
Think we've dodged a bullet there especially as we'd have had to pay over £8 Million

 

To be fair though, it is Neil Warnock.

Mings has plenty to learn, but at 22 few are the finished article. He has all the attributes, and seems to have a rock solid character. Very level headed and being dumped by Saints has probably been the making of him. We didn't worry that the likes of Jenas, Dyer, Milner etc had loads to learn when we shelled out big money. We were thinking more along the lines of we could develop them.

I think he'll be a great signing for Bournemouth and prove very good value. He'll have one the best young coaches in the country too.

 

My problem is that if we sign a defender I want him to be a good defender 1st anything else is a bonus. In our team we definitely need defenders not wingers.

 

Anyone else alarmed at the sheer lack of any public appearances by our new manager. And the incredible lack of any appointments. It's scary to think that we don't have a new backroom team. We don't actually officially have an assistant manager yet. It's all gone a bit too quiet at the club and it feels remarkably the same as last pre season. McLaren may be assessing his squad to see what he needs. But ffs we are so thin as a squad it's beyond a joke.

 

Problem is is that the squad isn't thin it is just full of ****e! I would be hoping that SM can weed out the fully grown ****e and look at the just becoming ****e lot and think which of them he can use as fertilizer for the squad and which he realises is just rocks and clay!

 

I thought this, but then I also considered how many times I've seen the other 19 managers of the PL.

If I had been in charge of NUFC, however, I'd have been on a mission once the season ended to win fans back, sign the players we need and ensure we're well prepared. Sadly, the key factor in all of this is having a competent Chief Exec; we don't. It's more than a touch obvious Charnley is not up to the job, but there's fck all we can do about it. Ashley's method is give him the rope, but he never 'hangs' anyone until it's too late; affirmative action is not in Ashley's make-up. So we're stuck with blundering penfold and, eventually, we'll get to Sept 1st and depending on what's happened he might, if we're stupidly lucky, get sacked then so we don't have to suffer him through January as well.

 

If nobody has arrived by the back end of next week then that'll be the time to worry. For all we know we could have 5-6 players in by Friday and then everyone might just calm the **** down.

 

2-3 decent players with the prospect of more to come would settle me. A statement of intent for the summer, to reassure those considering coming to us that they will have an actual team to play in.

 

We just have to wait and see. If by the 10th or 17th July, we have no one or only managed a couple then you'd have to question our method. However they have got the assistant in the day before pre season starts so you'd have to imagine that McClaren has a clear idea of preparing properly. It will all come down to the whether the board handicap him like they have all the other managers.