Inexplicable and unexplained

I understand the need to project one face to the media/public, and act somehow different behind closed doors, but the way Alan Pardew and NUFC have conducted themselves believes logic and, at times, belief. From April, a little piece in the Chronicle claimed:

"The Toon owner backed Pardew in the January window and is set to do so again this summer with signings already thought to be lined up for next term.

Pardew said: "Mike Ashley is determined for us to push for the Champions League so we are obviously going to go for that.

"He's been very good to us."

(http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/newc...hampions-league-72703-30851654/#ixzz2IJlCSQrO).

Hmmm. What signings were those, then? Vurnon Anita and Romain Amalfwhotano? I thought I'd have a look at the transfers to see what comes out of a like-for-like swap scenario and came up with;

OUT - IN

Guthrie - Amalfitano
Best -
Lovenkrands - Bigirimana
Smith - Anita
Ba -

Hmm. Not looking great. Net players - minus 2. Debuchy has also arrived....at the same time as Danny Simpson hasn't renewed his contract, isn't likely to and - besides all that - fancies heading to London to be nearer Dappy off of N'Dubz. So, realistically, it's just another swap. But if we're generous, we're down one player from what was always considered one of the thinnest squads in the top flight's top half.

The season before, it looked like this

Nolan - Cabaye
Barton - Marveaux
Enrique - Santon
Forster - Elliott
Routledge - Obertan

Cisse in essence replaced Carroll. And we added Ba. So we were net +1 from a squad that had been promoted the season before. One additional player is the reward for a mid-table finish, a cheap-as-chips manager and - ultimately - surviving easily.

This year, our reward for finishing 5th, entering Europe and increasing the demands on that squad was to reduce our strength in depth by 1 to begin with. All smells a little bit like turds. So we then move onto the aspirations of the club. In October, with the Summer net -1 dealings taken care of, Alan Pardew went on record as saying:

"Having signed an eight-year deal and held recent high-profile meetings with Toon tycoon Mike Ashley, Pardew told the Chronicle: “Now it is about building the first team and we’ll never take our eye off that.

“We also have the financial muscle to build the Academy and we have lagged behind a bit on that with some of the senior clubs.”

But when asked if the top four was still a realistic aim in years to come, despite not having the millions of a Manchester City, Manchester United or a Chelsea, Pardew added: “There is no reason why we can’t aim to be one of those clubs, especially on the organisational front. We might not have the funds to buy the best young Brazilian.

(http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/newc...-top-four-place-72703-32001462/#ixzz2IK1iCmRq)

Nothing has changed, save for a few injuries. It's 2012. The game has been in existence for the best part of 150 years or so. In that time, there is not a single record of a team having gone an entire season without an injury. It doesn't ever exist. Seems to me that Pardew et al actually thought they COULD go the entire season without injuries. Why do I think this? Because just 3 months from the date of the above quote, the same manager - who could and should have already improved his squad, but has not - has now come out and said;

"There are better teams than the one I manage who have gone down"

(full story here - http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2013/01/18/61634-32626598/?#ixzz2IK2VSurC)

Yup, that's right. Better teams than the one HE claimed could finish 4th have apparently gone down. So what's happened, Alan? He also goes on to say something about the availability of Cheick Tiote. A man regularly suspended since arriving in English football is, like the injuries, suddenly supposed to be completely available, all the time. No mention of the fact he's been near enough our worst player (save Willo and Jonas). He's at the ACoN. Something we knew about in the Summer of 2012, and something I would imagine the purchase of Anita was supposed to cover - he was brought in as a DM. Thus the comment on Cheick is complete horse doodoo's, because that was actually covered by the club, yet its trotted out as an excuse. He also claims QPR have more strength in depth than Newcastle do - yet, mysteriously, no blame is heading his way for the fact he considers SWP to be a better player than Obertan.

All in all, the club's management seem to have lost it. Lost what? The plot, their integrity, their honesty, their ability to look at themselves and stand up and be counted. But that said, none of this should be a surprise. We are run on a budget, nothing will change that. This clown talks about the financial stability of the club, but where is that stability if £60m+ is suddenly removed from the "in" pile?? As someone else has said, football in the Premier League may be wrong (compared to the prudent and frugal Bundesliga). But it will take more than Mike Ashley to change how it is. They either need to wake up, or simply f off.

 

Great article, how can it be so obvious to so many fans but not to the board and managment team? Although i do think they recognise the problem, but thats only half of what needs doing and we need to make a huge push for extra players.

I still feel though that we COULD get at least 2 players through the door and hold to our star players, therefore I'm staying optimistic (call it deluded if you like) till the end of the window but if we dont get the CB and CF in that we have been needing for, like you rightly say, 2 years now I think my patience will finally start wearing thin.

HTL

 

The problem with most criticism at the moment is that it's an answer based on heuristic questions replacing insightful ones. You've replaced "Is this a good management regime?" with the heuristic alternative "How many players have we signed recently?", and "Is Pardew a good manager?" with "Is Pardew consistent in his presentation?".

The penetrating questions we can't actually answer, and I think that'd be a valid conclusion from your analysis. We humble supporters are not "in the loop", is that a good or a bad thing? Probably depends on whether the team is doing well/badly.

If I could tackle the players issue for the last time. Most people have failed to seriously question the players we have brought in, or let go, in recent seasons. The consensus appears that we've traded up in ability, and down in wages, and that that's a good thing. Having Alan Smith or Peter Lovenkrands on the bench isn't really going to turn this team around. The numbers issue is only an issue at all because of the sheer amount of injuries. I believe we've topped or been near the top for a lot of the season, which is pretty hard for any squad, especially when the players that comprise that figure are some of our best players. Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Steven Taylor have been long-term absences, while Krul, Tiote, Obertan, Ryan Taylor, Jonas have had spells on the side-lines too. At one stage we had almost an entire 11 out injured, something I think the board would be stupid to have predicted and planned for (-wages -transfer fees -agent costs -unhappy back-ups not getting game time) . At the start of the season, almost all of our squad was fit, a rarity for the club, so you could excuse Ashley prolonging transfer dealings like Debuchy because waiting til January was, on paper, the smart move. They're trying to replace players with better quality at every stage, and that is a process which has taken time and will continue to do so.

Based on what the papers have said, we've tried to bring players to the club, and it hasn't worked out. Does that mean the regime is a failure? No. Signing players is more difficult than ringing them up and asking if they'll come, because we aren't Top 4. We used to miss out on players all the time before Ashley ever took control, it's not a new phenomenon. The fact the club spends a long time scouting and researching player contracts now is not a bad thing, albeit frustrating in the meantime. Scouting isn't football manager, or Fifa, where you can search for stats and submit a bid. You need to watch them play several times over a decent period, and then there's always the potential that you find a gem who says "piss off" upon official club approach. If we're just going to jump to conclusions that Ashley isn't putting his hand in his pocket because he's greedy or whatever, why aren't we going to jump to possibly more plausible conclusions, such as the scouting team has either not found anybody worth signing, the players they have found are not interested in coming, or the clubs the players belong to are asking unreasonable sums for those players? I'd much rather we signed players we'd scouted well, bought at reasonable prices, and installed on fair wages. Going out and panic signing now is not a good way of doing business, or competing in football.

On the topic of Pardew, your heuristic valuation is more interesting than most. Supporters tend to look at the table (which "doesn't lie" - What tosh. Statistics do not account for human error or fortune, and these things do not "even themselves out". As I've said in previous seasons, it may not be that the three worst teams go down, but the three most unfortunate) as an estimation of their manager's net worth (myself included). In the circumstances of this season, it's true that many manager's would likely have struggled, especially in the recent run of defeats Pardew suffered without key players. However, I, like many, still regard his style of football as uninspiring, and once the results dry up so inevitably does the support and successful brand. But on the topic of his press coherence, Pardew is perhaps not best judged as manager. His ambition in the media is to manage expectation within the supporters and the team. If you were to have addressed the many discrepancies Sir Alex has made in such dealings in the last two years, the list may have been endless!

Overall, I would like good players in, and for our team to play better. I don't expect the former, however, because it depends on factors of which we're unaware. The latter, by sharp contrast, is desperately in need of revamp and is not inherently connected with the signing of players.

 

Superb article my friend, not that the lemmings would agree to busy up Ashley's arse

 

Fairly objective stuff.

Your last owners put you in a position where you needed rescuing and luckily, and I mean ****ing luckily (what's the odds on a billionaire acquiring a major asset without due diligence? You think City are lucky to have Sheiks with more money than sense?) you got bailed out months, weeks, days, hours? before your club was FUBAR.

If Everton for example, have a bad year and finish bottom 3, they're looking at certain financial meltdown, their owner hasn't got the financial bollocks to bail them out.

If you finish 17th, you learn from this season and move on, you can't blame your owner every time things start looking a bit gloomy up there, that's why the rest of the country give you guys **** for being deluded. If you go down, you'll still have a club to support in 2014 - Can Villa say the same? Can Villa get asset stripped to cover their losses? their squad is worth about £6.50

 

The issue of having enough quality players at Newcastle United is not in doubt - we simply don't have enough.

Even if everybody was fully fit, we wouldn't be able to field strong enough sides in all the competitions.

We knew we had qualified for the Europa League and eleven departures swiftly followed - I realise Pardew wants to have the squad he wants so those players were released/sold. No problem with any of that.

The problem arises when the quality of player is not brought in - add to this the pure farce of expecting to compete in the PL, League Cup, FA Cup and Europa League with the amount of players we have, and you have some idea as to why a thread like this appears.

I'm not a Mike Ashley fan, never will be. Some of the truly disgraceful behaviour by him and his administration over the years convinced me to accept a job offer in Devon! After Hughton was sacked in December 2010, I swore I wouldn't return... so far I haven't, not while Mike Ashley continues to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

His heart is really not in Newcastle United football club - he's tried to sell us on more than once and simply cannot get the money he wants for our club.

The lack of genuine ambition compared to what NUFC can comfortably afford is quite clear to anyone with half a brain. Mike Ashley is not interested in us playing European football... he just wants the Toon to stay in the Premier League and keep the money rolling in.

Do you honestly think we'd have made even half the signings we have, if Liverpool (via Chelski), hadn't stumped up £35m for Andy Carroll?
Not a chance.

I'm sure there are many who will be quick to defend Mike Ashley, but I will never trust a man who has made this once proud club a laughing stock.

We had one good season and suddenly everyone is on board? Hmm, interesting.

It escapes everyones notice of course that the success cannot be sustained without continued investment - until we get a massive bid for another of our players, it will not be forthcoming.

Enjoy.

 

Gandalf - I would understand it better if Liverpool hadn't so easily taken Enrique, or so quickly sealed the deal with Sturridge. I could file NUFC transfer dealings under 'f' for 'fathomable' if it didn't take Chelsea a day to sign Ba. As I said elsewhere, I think there's a wider problem in that our current board - Llambias, Charnley - do not have whatever it takes. I look at the remit of the scouts - is it to specifically find certain types of player, or is it wider than that, perhaps to identify untapped, unheard of talent on petty wages we can easily better or on poor contracts we can exploit? I agree there are deeper questions that seem unanswerable; asking a club to specifically tell us why it's so impossible to find a better CB than Mike Williamson is akin to asking the MD of HMV why he didn't reduce prices or introduce MP3 to his stores. There's no direct answer, because they don't want you to see what they (don't) do. Instead it's all hidden behind agents, and counter offers, and so on. Personally, I don't really buy a lot of it, maybe I'm too cynical. But why is it so easy for one club and so difficult for ours?

Now I do agree that we have 'traded up'. But that isn't enough, is it? I don't pine for Best, Guthrie, Lovenkrands to pull on the jersey - I was at the head of the queue asking for better, for sure. But I did not expect this club to finish top 5 and continue with that policy. That was our time, our chance to jump a rung or two on the social ladder. We could have added more players, not to break the bank, but the same who come now but arrive in August. So we could be lining up with Douglas stepping in when Taylor pulls up with his shoulder/hamstring/calf/girlfriend issues, or have Debuchy and not Danny Scared Of Closing Down Simpson as 1st choice, or Aubameyang ready for the big stage when Ba called time on his career - something, I might add, that may not have happened had we invested properly in the squad. I understand your issue with Pardew in playing the right way, and I agree. I've posted before about doubts as to whether he's actually ever been capable, or whether we simply blindsided (which Sir Alex eluded to) the opposition last year and profited from freak showings from Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal. 8th was probably our highest aim, but we got a bit lucky to get higher. Still, to even finish 8th was an excellent achievement and should have come with reward, not frugal punishment.

So I agree with Bespoke, that this is not the management of a board or a team intent on achieving in the Premier League. Alan Pardew is firstly a PR man, brought in for his charisma and connection with the dross. Llambias is a balance sheet man, there to make sure an Ashley business is profitable. And Ashley is an investor - not in the Tony Fernandes or Roman Abramovic sense, but in the Lehman Bros sense, a man intent on turning over a profit at all costs. It's not as if Ashley bailed NUFC out - NUFC still owe him. How much could Chelsea owe Abramovic? 3 or 4 times as much, but that's not his goal. This is not really about a football club, is it? This is about profit and loss with the ultimate aim of selling at a profit. And here we are, typing our life away, paying for matchdays when the guy at the top couldn't give a flying fck. When does it stop?

 

First, we weren't privately owned at the time. Ashley bought up shares in NUFC PLC, so in terms of 'going under', it wasn't quite as 'black & white' as that.

When Everton get relegated, I am sure we can talk again. Like Arsenal/Spurs, that doesn't look likely. Why not? Investment, at the right time, to keep the club going. I posted elsewhere about Everton's finishes. One season aside, they have been top 8 for about 10 of the last 11 seasons. And I believe they've been in the top flight...for ever...

It's not about things looking gloomy. It's about opportunity and motivation. If your club got to Europe and essentially had one less player the next season for an additional competition, you'd wonder why. You'd wonder why an escape clause existed and was allowed in your top scorer. You'd wonder how a team with a 5th place finish in the richest league in the World still relies on Mike Williamson when ONE centre back gets injured. You'd wonder why £20m of Carroll money doesn't get invested.

 

I think the point is, that like any other business he is not obliged to explain. Its his business to run as he sees fit. Its an uncomfortable truth and sad reality of modern football but all these questions about investment and re-investment of transfer funds baffle me. Its nothing to do with us as supporters these days. We just have to support the 11 on the field. There was a time when football clubs were run as a flagship of the area, for the people/supporters. Surely no one still thinks that fairytale still exists regardless of what the owners/managers say in the press? They run it to make money or as a plaything and if we are lucky, they get over exuberant with the use of their funds. We are run tight and as a result will have tricky periods because of footballs unpredictable nature.

 

^^This all the way.^^

If you want guaranteed success, support one of the big 3 along with lots of other plastics across the UK (or even across the world). But if you want to maintain your love for NUFC then you have to accept we are where we are. We are a selling club and so will bounce around from good times to bad. This situation will not change overnight. We do not have the squad to consistently compete at the top - hence the long standing lack of silverware.

If you want to support NUFC then you save to accept it is a roller coaster ride with some great thrills and also some moments where you might want to cover your eyes and pray.

 

^^ This.

We could be back in 1992, with the club bottom of the old second division having lost 5-2 to Oxford United and looking certain to drop into the third division and obscurity. I think, the subsequent relative success that we have had since then (relative in terms of being promoted twice, Champions League football, the UEFA Cup, FA Cup finals) has muddied the waters somewhat. Yes we spent big during the 90's and early 00's, but the fact is we have been a selling club for years with little success in terms of trophies. We have also been a mid table top flight side for much of the last 50 years or so. Not good enough to win things, but too good to go down in most cases. After the above purple patch we have returned to this position now. Sad but true.

Mike Ashley is a pariah that is a fact. But he's also a businessman who is intent on running a tight ship to make a profit. Football is a business now and the fans or rather 'customers' are provided with a profit that makes a lot of money for club owners. Premier League survival is all that Ashley wants for the benefit of his business. He's smart enough to know that we cannot compete with the likes of Man Utd so won't pay out big money for players. But that doesn't mean he can't make a tidy profit. As long as Newcastle United pulls in the money for him he's happy.