http://www.football365.com/f365-says/7007553/If-I-Were-A-Newcastle-Fan.. Just found this, some very positive points were brought up, I personaly believe in every word that has been said. do you agree with this article?
'#whatgoinonatthetoonffs' was Joey Barton's eloquent response to Newcastle's sale of Kevin Nolan. #somethingprettyexcitingandforwardthinking would be my reply if I had the time or inclination to waste away my days on Twitter. What Newcastle have done in selling Nolan is offload a high-earning player whose value is depreciating every year. They have replaced him with a highly-rated lower-paid 25-year-old French international in Yohan Cabaye who could have a stinker of a first season at Newcastle and still be worth the best part of the reported £4.4m they paid Lille for his services. Alternatively, he could turn out to be brilliant - as was the case with £3.5m bargain Cheik Tioté - and Newcastle then have the option of rewarding him with a longer-term contract designed to push up his value further. It's practically a no-lose transfer policy and one which has recently served Arsenal admirably. Financially at least. It's not the kind of transfer policy that goes down well with the likes of Barton and Nolan, who can demand high wages simply because they offer the premium of Premier League experience. And it doesn't go down too well with Newcastle fans who want recognisable names that will lure them to St James' Park to act like loons on Sky Sports News. But signing recognisable names is what left Newcastle with a wage bill higher than their turnover and Mike Ashley's money men have quite rightly devised a new strategy. Added to the canny capture of Cabaye (who scored 15 goals from midfield in 2009/10) has come the (almost) free signings of Demba Ba and Sylvain Marveaux. The former scored seven goals in ten Premier League starts for relegated West Ham last season. While Robbie Keane floundered and flopped for his £65,000 a week, Ba delivered for basic (in football terms) wages as he tried desperately to prove he was fit to play in the Premier League. Ba may have commanded a sizeable signing-on fee and his wages no longer come cheap, but a goal every 134 minutes of PL football (considering that Andy Carroll managed a goal every 160 minutes with better service) suggests - at the age of 26 - Ba is a pretty economical replacement for a £35m striker. Like Cabaye, he will have sell-on value. He would automatically become a £10m-plus striker if he scored 15 goals in his first full season. The impact he made at West Ham - and his previous record in French and German football - would suggest that is more than possible. There are question marks about the fitness of Marveaux, just as there were surrounding Ba in January, but this is a player who delivered ten goals and eight assists in his last full season for Rennes. While Aston Villa are asking £19m for Stewart Downing, winger Marveaux is available for a signing-on fee and average Premier League wages. At the risk of repetition, he is again the right age to offer the tantalising possibility of profit. It may not suit Newcastle fans to be talking of players as investments but the financial folk at the club have little choice after relegation with a wage bill born of short-termism. Buying foreign 25/26-year-old players with decent experience in other leagues is the sensible option for a club that cannot afford the young English players currently costing ridiculous sums. One of those players might turn out to be a bona fide Newcastle hero. If I were a Toon fan, I would be far more excited about signing Ba for a £2m signing-on fee than Cameron Jerome for £8m, or signing Cabaye for £4.4m rather than Craig Gardner for £6m. They might be unknown quantities, but the thing about the unknown is that you could get something wonderful. See Tioté; Cheik.
Good read and I agree totally (except for one little bit of accounting pedantry on my part - all players depreciate every year not just Nolan, she should have said that he de-values). That this has come from a Sunderland fan as well is very interesting as it shows that our approach is approved of by somebody who deep down would like to feel the opposite way. That is praise indeed! Just wish a few more of the doom and gloom merchants on here would see it the same way.
