Carragher in accurate appraisal

From the chronicle website..



Jamie Carragher launched a blistering attack on Mike Ashley, saying he has turned Newcastle United into a ‘boring’ club.

Carragher was working as a pundit for Sky Sports during the Magpies’ 3-1 home defeat to Spurs and prior to the game had not held backin giving his thoughts on Ashley and his lack of ambition. And after the game his views were very much the same.

Asked if he could understand the fans’ frustrations, he said: “I can. It’s getting to the stage now, football is so big, there’s that much money coming in to the game with the new TV deal, and I am sick of owners coming in who are successful business people wherever they’ve been. They think ‘where else can I make money? Oh a football club’.

“I’ve had it at my own club Liverpool with George Gillett and Tom Hicks and it’s the same at Newcastle.

“People will say as supporters you’ve got to come back, you’ve got to get behind your team. But what are the owners doing for supporters?

“Since Mike Ashley’s been here they’ve been relegated once, they could be relegated once again, and I’m sure under Alan Pardew they come close once before.

“So he’s balanced the books - he’s made money because he’s a businessman - but I think of these people and wonder: Don’t you want to be excited yourself? I’m getting bored by Newcastle, but when you watched them over the years there was madness, there was excitement, stupid goals going in one end and then the other, but it was exciting.

“Now it’s boring. Why does Mike Ashley want the club if there’s nothing happening? There’s no cup run, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why he wants to own a football club.”

Former Sunderland player Niall Quinn was also working as a pundit for Sky today.

As well as a playing career on Wearside he was also chairman of Newcastle’s rivals for a period too.

Offering insight, he said: “I think you’ve got to get the balance right. It’s not just about making money.

“Early on in his tenure here he was getting criticism and he made his mind up he was doing it his way and he didn’t care what the fans thought. And that is something that just doesn’t work.

“Sunderland fans will resent me for saying this, but the Geordie fans have been through everything with this football club, and for them to stay away and not watch a game of football at this club - that hurts. It tells of the disconnect and it has to be resolved.”

Quinn continued: “The connection [between owner and fans] is broken like it was at Liverpool for instance, but Liverpool had a difference.

“They had a group who were able to come in and do something about it. It ended up in the courts and Fenway ended up getting the club.

“You don’t see anybody coming out and saying: ‘I’m going to take this from Mike Ashley’. Newcastle fans are protesting but they don’t have anyone to come in instead of Mike Ashley and that could be the problem.

“To reconnect has to be the best way forward.”

 

It's the most (possibly the only) sense I've ever come out of Carragher's mouth.

 

All credit to Carragher for his honesty. We are boring and it's all gone beyond boring now.
His criticism of Ashley and the way he runs NUFC was spot on and bravely expressed.
Our club is a pale shadow of the Entertainers everyone loved to watch.
Mad as March Hares at times, but never ever boring.
Carragher questioned why Ashley even bothers to own our club, it's obvious to all that he has no passion or love for it. It's money and business simple as, but a football club whilst being a business is not your normal retail outlet, and therefore cannot be run like one of his scuzzy stores.
Quinn was right when he said the connection between Ashley and the fans was broken, if in fact it ever existed in the first place.
When asked if it could be redeemed, he said no, and he was right, it's all gone past the point of no return in this particular loveless marriage. Time to divorce if only we could.

 

Carragher was perhaps issuing a veiled warning. Boring to watch so why show you live. Could that impact on tv money?

 

It would but the current TV deal, and I assume the new one, is split into 3 parts IIRC. Each club gets an equal base amount for starters; there is then a payment for league position (around £400k per place I think at present); there is then a fee paid per live televised game. Don't shoot down me if this wrong as it's from memory but basically, yes, there will be less money if we don't have as many live Sky/BT games, but it won't be that much of an impact.

 

Yes, but only very very minimally. GL is right about he 3-way split. The live TV section is divided out based on how many times each team is in a live game. However, to keep the deal fairer for the small teams and/or boring teams there is a minimum payment of (I think 12 but might be 10) games that everyone gets as a minimum, regardless of whether they appear that many times. We are usually 2 or 3 games above the minimum, but not far. We are already miles behind the top teams in terms of live games. Even if the TV companies decided to never show another game we were in it would make very little difference to the club.

Where it would hurt Ashley is that his SD banners wouldn't be on TV, but that is harder to put a monetary value on.

 

I'm gonna show my age here. My first game was Mcdonalds debut. My Dad chucked me on top of the turnstiles in the paddock and some guy caught me as I jumped down. Free entry! I sat on the cinder track by the pitch. running on the pitch as every goal went in. I was hooked, it was amazing, all the noise and smells and rude language. As a 6 year old nipper it was heaven. I remember it like it was yesterday. We graduated to a season ticket in the new stand as time went on, as the football got progressively worse, but still we went. I got older, started going by myself with my mates, train from Durham, walk to the stadium, into the corner at the Gallowgate, WHAT a PLACE!! Shiiite football but still I went, evry other week, and loads of away games as well. Relegation, Promotion, it was all good even though it was really bad some seasons. Fast forward to the present day....! I now do not give a feck anymore about our results, I revel in our defeats, I really hope we get relegated, in the hope that Ashley sells up and fecks off. I know so many fans like me that have just given up on our club. Just waiting for the day that I read in some newspaper that we have been sold to somebody. I dont care who buys us, if anyone ever does, I just want fatty to pack up and feck off. My real concern is he will never ever do that, he is rich enough and vindictive enough to be able to perpetuate a grudge against fans for a very long time.

HEARTBREAKING!!!!!!

 

All true what he says. However the reason the guy wants own a football club is because it is very profitable for his main business.

 

What Carragher said makes total sense to me. Glad he called it as he saw it too. It's really mind-boggling to get such an owner as MA himself, the sheer audacity to run a football club as a business and make profits for himself!

How do you expect to win anything without any investment at all? Then the club had the cheek to try to add the fact that the club still owes millions in debt (to the owner himself) when the fact of the matter is that the club is second behind Manure in pre-tax profits among all EPL clubs! Debt? Debt: £129m , Chelsea has debt of 958m but that's the difference between an owner who couldn't care less and one who wants success. And obviously Roman doesn't expect to gain a single cent back.

Feel like I'm beating a dead horse here. MA needs to seriously gtfo from the club. With him at the helm, there is never going to be any progress made, we will never again challenge for Europe. There is no continuity in the team to build on, with star players going off when they have developed and incoming players seeing us as a stepping stone to further heights.