Fair play to Mike?

http://www.nufcblog.com/2012/09/05/newcastle-turned-down-big-money-offers-for-their-stars/

Alan Pardew revealed yesterday that in the last few weeks of the transfer window, Newcastle had clubs come in for players like Demba Ba, Yohan Cabaye and Cheick Tiote, but the offers made for them were all turned down by owner Mike Ashley.

We’ll probably never know just how big the offers were, but it wouldn’t surprise us if £15M was the figure for either one of those three, although if clubs were interested in Demba Ba, you would have thought they would have moved in before August 1st, when the release clause of £7M in his contract ran out.

And this seems to be consistent with Alan Pardew saying last week that some of his players’ heads were turned by the offers, which may have affected the form of Demba Ba and Yohan Cabaye early in the season – maybe.

This is what Alan said yesterday:

“The fans should realise that we have not done too badly in the transfer window as we have kept our players, added some a few more and head into the campaign with a stronger squad than we had last season.”

“We have had to fend off a few offers in the last few weeks and all credit to my board for turning them away. Now we can concentrate on football, rather than speculation over players and I welcome that.”

“I’m not alone in believing the transfer window should be shut before we start the Premier League season. The current set-up only benefits the top sides, as they have the power to unsettle players and get what they want in the final few days of the window.”

“We will use all of our squad for the European matches and right so because everyone in my squad should be ready to play when called upon.”

“I make no excuses for saying the Premier League has to be our priority if we want to move this club forward in the right manner, but there can be space for Europa League football in our agenda, as well as the domestic cup competitions.”

If Alan wants the transfer window to stop before the season starts, presumably he would also argue there shouldn’t be any January transfer window, which is right in the middle of the season.

It’s good Newcastle kept all their players this summer, and the reports were that clubs would have to go as high as £25M for Newcastle’s top stars, and since Mike Ashley held out until it got to £35M for Andy Carroll, you have to think there’s some truth in that £25M figure.

Mike Ashley is easy to read – when he’s buying he thinks low, sometimes very low, and when he’s selling he thinks high, and sometimes very high.

But it remains to be seen if Newcastle have brought in enough players in the summer, to maintain a position in the top six this season.

 

Keeping Cabaye and Tiote are a bonus and some of the youngster's look promising, but already we have a couple of injuries and we are in for a long hard season. I wait with baited breath to see if we can cope.

 

No, no more than fair play to any other chairman in the League...We've been told our transfer policy is that we won't sell players unless we either a) don't need them anymore (Leon Best/Frazer Forster) or b) get huge bids (Andy Carroll) so now because we didn't sell our top players we're led to believe that Mike stood valiantly in his office fending off offers from invading hordes of frenzied oil-rich chairmen? No, we just didn't get offers that were big enough and we couldn't get the players we wanted for less than they're actually worth...No it hasn't been a 'good' transfer window and I'm sorry, but no, “The fans should NOT realise that we have not done too badly in the transfer window"

 

Have to agree with all of the above, if clubs had started throwing big money onto the table l think we would be having a different conversation about the window. I too feel it was a case of Ashley not being offered "big enough" offers for our players. I have no doubt he would have sold if he could have claimed to have received offers "to good to refuse" obviously he didn't. Could also be a case that other clubs whilst tempted, did not want to do another Liverpool.
Jury is still out as far as l am concerned.

 

Personally I don't see whats wrong with that. No player is bigger than the club, and every player has his price in the market. When a daft offer comes in, way above market value, then we'd be daft not to sell. Just look what we did with the Carroll money. Fat Mike has a responsibility towards the financial running of the club, as well as to the team. In my opinion, selling somebody at a daft price benefits both those considerations.

 

I did not say there was anything wrong with taking advantage of other clubs stupidity if they want to throw money at us like it's going out of fashion. The point l was making is that we are being asked to "thank" MA for not selling our best assets, when the truth is that he would have if the money was right. He did not apparently say "our players are not for sale" rather they are "not for sale for that price" what is there to be thankful for!!!
yes, he does have a responsibility to run the club financially prudently and l am all for that, selling for daft money only benefits the club when we buy low, sell high and have quality contingency players to step into the gap left. My point therefore is, if he had sold let's say any one from, Cabaye, Colo, Bennie, or possibly all of them, who exactly do we have to step into the breach, at the same level, l am not talking about ones for the future. The answer is no one, so we are healthy financially, but going backwards in all other respects.
Also if our past "plan" is to be followed, we may well have **** loads of money, but we always seem to run out of time to spend it. Funny that don't you think.

 

“The fans should realise that we have not done too badly in the transfer window as we have kept our players, added some a few more and head into the campaign with a stronger squad than we had last season.”

“We have had to fend off a few offers in the last few weeks and all credit to my board for turning them away. Now we can concentrate on football, rather than speculation over players and I welcome that.”



we only have his word for that (because the board tell us nothing)
but it seems like we've heard it all before

what we were lead to believe that any offer 7mill would set off a clause for Ba
so how much did Mike turn down ???

we never know, we'll just be spoon fed the bits that they want us to hear

 

The word "Thank" is clearly inappropriate. MA doesn't do anything in order to please the fans so there can be no reason for the fans to thank him for whatever he does or doesn't do. If the question were should the fans be grateful, then the answer is no. Onthe other hand, neither Pardew or the OP suggests that we should be thankful.

I think the question posed by the OP is should the fans regard MA as having done a reasonable job in this transfer window. On that basis, I think the answer should be "just about".

No one he let go is a particular loss. Everyone he has brought it looks promising. All our star assets are still here. We still have money to spend.

Nothing he has done has been wrong. There is widespread frustraiton that not enough was done at all.

Pardew statement is that "we have not done too badly in the transfer window". I would go along with that, though I would not go much further.

 

Well one could argue that its been Fat Mike's financial prudency which has put NUFC in the position of not being desperate for money, so therefore able to turn down anything but stupid offers.

 

**** sake guys, why is everyone so ****ing pessimistic, especially as some people have been saying we'll sell them for 10mill.

 

Fair points...But we have to remember that the transfer window is a 2 way thing. Whilst yes, we didn't sell anyone MAJORLY important, we didn't buy enough at all...

Trying to think of analogy that might work, its like Labour not winning any new seats in the next election but not losing any either. Whilst that may be enough to build on for further elections, it certainly won't be enough to get them into power and whilst its not a 'bad' job, they shouldn't be considered 'stronger than last time'

 

Those people were eitheer stupid or trying to wind us up. Whatever you may say about MA, he doesn't let merchandise go for less than it's worth.

Oddly, I have a good deal of trust in MA: I trust him to generally (not always but generally) strike a very good bargain for the club. I am beginning totrust him not to start repaying the loans owing to him as soon as there is money in the club's account. I trust him to follow his plan for the club.

Following his plan for the club means he will pass up opportunities to take the club forward by purchasing excellent players, that he will gamble on players not being injured, on youngster's coming good and on Pardew being able to cope with the resources that are made available to him.

He is not an ideal owner. He is not a fool. Like the transfer window gone by, it could be much worse.

 

I don't know if its pessimism particularly...We were all here when we relegated, we know how far we've come, we're in Europe FFS - that's brilliant. BUT that doesn't mean we can't recognise weaknesses and mistakes. I fail to see how anyone can suggest we didn't need defensive reinforcements. If Senegal beat Ivory Coast, our only 1st team striker will be Ameobi (Xisco doesn't count, regardless of the fact he's in the 22 man squad). Is it pessimism to say that this is worrying? I don't think so personally!

 

This is the point I was making when folk got a bit upset and unsettled by the non arrival of Debuchy and a centre back. The board have done a good job in the summer and we are certainly a stronger unit heading into this season. I'll be honest I think some of that came off the back of Sunderland spending big. Everyone suddenly thought "hey this is not on, we need to make a move". The point is they had a massive chasm to try and bridge between us and them in quality. The've closed it but we still have a stronger team and squad IMO.

The main thing this summer was to retain players. Especially the lieks of Santon, Cabaye and Benni who will improve massively for the experience of last season. Benni is one the best talents in the league for me now. We need to enjoy him while we can because he will end up at a Man U, Real Madrid or Barca. He's that ****ing good!

And lets not forget the development of the youngsters either. We need to give them opportunity and make sure they are our squad depth. You can't just buy buy buy all the time.

 

This.

 

I don't believe any serious bids came in for anyone. Big clubs don't play fair anymore and if they seriously wanted any of our players there would have used the press to turn their heads.

 

I am unaware of Pardew having lied to us so far. While we can't know, if he says bids came in I will beleive him until the contrary is shown

 

I think your probably right, depending on your definition of 'serious' bid of course...

We put in a bid of £7m for Andy Carroll. Depending on what spin the Liverpool board were potentially wanting to put on it, its fair to say that 'they turned down the derisory offer' OR 'fended off a bid' - its all semantics and I reckon its the same case here.

Pardew is clearly trying to put a positive spin on a transfer window I think even he will be a little disappointed about. Lets say that Arsenal bid of £8m for Cabaye WAS accurate, of course we would 'turn down that derisory offer' but when trying to appease to the fans this soon becomes 'fending off bids for him'.

Of course this is all speculation on my part, but it certainly wouldn't come as a surprise!

 

To be fair we'll know by mid October whether we'll be losing Tiote or the strikers. In all likelihood it will be Tiote. However if it is the strikers we'll have between mid October and January to fix up a replacement striker to supplement the ranks. Given we will already have a list to work from as we were looking, I wouldn't worry on this front. The tournament starts on January 19th so they'll probably leave 2 weeks beforehand meaning we will need to have a plan. I have faith they do. We have scope there to secure what we need. Its just not a priority whichever way we look at it.

In an ideal world we'd have replaced Willo with someone better. We have two first class options in Colo and Saylor. I'd now rate Perch as ample back up to Colo. Willo is slightly below the level I'd like us to be at but we are not overly desperate as he is solid enough. A full back would have been preferable I have to admit and it was the one area we've maybe been a bit slack. However I wouldn't have paid the extra 1m for Debuchy, I'd have stuck to the policies which have taken us this far. We don't rush things now and its likely they didn't have other deals far enough down the line to make them realistic to pursue. We preferred to wait out Lille and it didn't come off. We still have good cover and it affords opportunities to the likes of Fergie and Tav.

Basically I can't see any reason why people would be concerned, we're a very good side and squad relative to the rest of the league.

 

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!! agree with the rest of ur post WP but the last sentance is exactly the way I'm looking at it. REP!