Shearer Nails It

I couldn't see a thread featuring this but apologies if posted in recent couple of days in my absence. A few comments from Sir Al which are pretty accurate for me.

“Newcastle missed a huge opportunity in the summer.” “Having punched above their weight last season and almost made it into the top four, this was the time to spend.” “The club was up and running again after so many years mired in uncertainty.”

“There was once again a feel-good factor and even Mike Ashley was enjoying it, but he needed to put his hand in his pocket and strengthen with two or three quality players.” “The best time to buy is when you are in a position of strength.” “It’s up to Ashley how much he spends, but just look at what Spurs did last summer.”

“They pipped Newcastle to fourth place and went out and spent £57M on six players. Newcastle spent £8.1M on three and got a fourth in on a free.” “Nowadays in the Premier League you need to spend £15m just to stand still.” “Newcastle needed to move forward again, particularly with the demands of the Europa League factored into the equation.”

“They should be knocking on the door of the top four and occasionally getting in it.” “Sadly the momentum built up by Alan Pardew last season has been lost and what is going on at St James’ right now is starting to look worrying.”

While I disagree slightly in that I'm not overly worried I don't think we can pretend its all fantastic. I think the below sums up where we came up a little short.

Summer before we finished 5th we signed:

Yohan Cabaye
Demba Ba
Davide Santon
Sylvain Marveaux
Gabriel Obertan
Papisse Cisse (In January)


Summer before this season:

Romain Amalfitano
Gael Bigirimana
Vurnon Anita
Curtis Good

Now if you had added a centre back, left winger/forward and left back to that second list at a cost of say 12m-15m, I wonder where we'd be right now?

 

Only one place you can look the cast the blame.

 

We all had even known where the problems where, and still are up till now. 4th striker to complement the front three, and most importantly a CB and a RB. And they refuse to stump up an extra 1 or 2 million to get players like Debuchy in. Stingy business man mindset, hope MA learns from this.

 

Think it needs to be a left footed left back personally to balance the side. Santon struggles defensively at times on the left, is targeted because of it and our attacking variety is poorer for it too. On Mr Toontastics thread on crosses I've outlined my reasons for a left back as opposed to a right back.

 

This. Sometimes I struggle to see why people are intent on us signing a right back when Santon is undoubtedly better there.

 

Probably because as of now, we wouldn't want to think of getting Santon out of the team since he's our best full back. Whatever his best position is, LB or RB, get him a counterpart on the other side. We can't outright claim to want a left back since he has really only played sparingly at RB so we can't really say if he's more comfortable there.



But of course, I do agree, it's probably in our best interests to get a LB to play opposite him.

 

Spurs lost Modric and VDV if we're being fair...

 

True but I wasn't really talking about us spending 57m to match Spurs though, just that we stood still transfers wise. Spurs probably still spent the requisite 15m and are probably a poor example to use as they had a freakish bid for a player. As good as Modric is, 33m was hefty!

Don't forget we sold Forster (2m), Best (3m), released Smith, Guthrie, Lovenkrands to pay for ours

Shearer is right. I think we were about 12m-15m short in our investment.

 

Wouldn't argue with Big Al regardless.

 

For me this is the biggest disappointment (failure of the window) seeing in black and white, if you'll pardon the pun the list of signing the club made the summer before we finished 5th and then comparing it to the following summer window, really hits the nail on the head.
Factor in the feel good factor and some long overdue success and we had the perfect opportunity to really push on from such a solid foundation.
The team spirit, togetherness and dressing room harmony was evident for all too see, and resulted in top class players stating their contentment with staying at Newcastle and using the club to realize their ambitions, and not considering it necessary to move away in order to win things and be successful.
Surely at this time other players would have looked at our success, team spirit, our fantastic ground, fan base, European campaign and manager, and thought to themselves, yeah l wouldn't mind a slice of that.
We are not looking such an attractive proposition as we once were. I hope the hierarchy learn from the last window and realise they got it wrong, they have to play their part in putting right by releasing the funds necessary to obtain the key players the squad is crying out for.
Will they want to sign for us,..... Well hopefully they will, but it will be harder than it needed to be to attract them. Will we also lose some of those who previously were contented to stay, highly possible, but then if they are so quick to want away when the going gets tough, they were never really Toon players, who need to be made of sterner stuff to be our saviours and leaders.
So let's enjoy the festive season and see what the window may bring, it's not just Santa who needs to deliver, is it?

 

Shearer Nails It

I thought this was going to be a thread about Gabby Logan...

 

Oh Jim, you are awful!

 

whilst he speaks some sense, Shearer seems to think throwing money at transfers in general is the way forward.
I seem to remember him spitting his dummy out when MA wouldn't give him £20m.
The truth is somewhere in the middle I think and the Carr method gets my vote all day long.... but then again you need at least SOME money to go down that route too....

Pards has said the priority was keeping his squad together, something MA let him do and the same players struggled to achieve the results of last season.

Other clubs like spuds can spank rake loads of cash on players... doesn't make them better than cheaper ones out there. Michu at Swansea is an example of getting cheap quality.... the flip side of course being Torres....

 

We have to not get above our station or expect to match the top boys. To be fair though I don't think Shearer is expecting us to spend 57m. He's just pointing out what other clubs did.

Swansea is another good example. They sold Sinclair for 8m but went out and spent 6m on Ki, 6m on Pablo, 2m on Michu, 2m on Chico, 1m on Bartley, and probably around 500k on De Guzmans loan. So they spent a good deal more than us but I'd say our budget should have been slightly better based on our finish, revenues etc.

We aren't in the market for three 10m-15m boys or a couple of 25m guys. Its not realistic and could cripple the club. The days of a 15m Shearer buy (probably 25M in todays money) is long gone. We have to look at getting 3 players for the 15m. Three players who are maybe a bit younger who we can develop.

Overall I think we definitely fell short. Like Pardew, Ashley I had hoped maybe one or two youngsters would step up to fill the holes. Its now about accepting that we got it wrong and releasing that money. In the summer they will probably ship Tiote and try to have the free transfer of Sissoko lined up. That should provide the 15m to keep us moving forward through next . That would mean they only have to find the agents fees etc.

 

What shearer doesn't mention is that Spurs and Arsenal sold to buy. If Ashley sold first out fans would turn on him so quickly, while the press whipped it up even further it wouldn't matter who we bought.

It was a gamble in the summer, and one that failed, but it annoys me endlessly when people say that he never spends, we had two excellent windows prior to the summer whether genuinely strengthened throughout. Hopefully we will get more of the same this January, if not we will be in trouble. Also I don't agree necessarily that Ashley's lack of investment is to blame for our dip in form after losing both Cabaye and Ben Arfa. Some players can't be replaced, if Liverpool lost Suarez and Gerrard, spurs Bale and Dembele or arsenal Cazorla and Podolski, they don't have anything like the same quality to replace them. We've suffered because Pardew has made the wrong calls in replacing them on the pitch. We saw in 15 minutes yesterday the impact that positive players like Obertan and Marveuax made, as opposed to say, Jonas, who never even attempts to beat his man any more. So we're replacing our best ball carrier with a man who plays like a startled animal. Not great management.

 

It annoys me endlessly when people try to lay it all at Pardews door......................

The single biggest factor in our poor form is the lack of strength in depth. Nobody is saying they haven't invested money, nor is Shearer. He and everyone is saying we got it wrong in the summer. We did.

 

I don't think it's fair we blame anyone singularly for this season's performance, it's been a collective shambles, and to be honest I think Al would take any opportunity to bash Mike Ashley he could, and that this is a bit of a lazy arm-chair critique, the only thing Shearer is good for these days.

We made room in our squad for transfers that never happened, it was unfortunate, but I don't see it as Ashley's fault for being cheap. Clubs like to create bidding wars and over-price their attributes, something that means our current policy will lose out from time to time. When we buy, we get value for money and work towards well scouted targets all the time. I can't believe some people would chuck Mike off the roof if they had the chance, yet will give Pardew all the time in the world to change his tactics? Double-standards in my books. The next window actually, in-spite of conceived wisdom, offers value for money due to expiring contracts, let's see what it brings.

The majority of the squad has kept together, they just haven't performed as well as last year. That's where any criticism should be focused in my opinion.

 

And Allen for 15...