Dembele wouldn't come, neither would Batshuayi. And why are we pursuing this one over others that Rafa clearly put on his list? Wages. Also the reason we're still trying for dubravka when various other keepers would be easier to get hold of.
We won't ever offer 20m in the end, just reported we've upped our bid to 15m. The story of this window is basically we should all be thankful Mike was prepared to buy a 20m player for below his valuation, because when he says 20m will be spent, he really means fannying about with 15m offers with days left of the window until it's all too late and we make some pointlessly low bid for someone else on deadline day. The story of every window under the Ashley regime, nothing changes.
This. We're 7th for shots on target in the league. A better striker would have had a field day with that amount of opportunities created. By the wau we attack we just need someone to stand in the centre and finish those drag back crosses. Doesn't even need pace! Christ we could take Shearer out of retirement, but we couldn't afford his wages!!!!!
Again I hark back to the skeleton crew Ashley goes with. He "saves" money in all the wrong places. Scouts, back office, negotiators, financiers, all of them are absolute peanuts in the football world. I get we can't compete with this **** owning the club, and I understand the need to buy cheap and sell high. Spurs, Southampton, Everton and more have achieved relative success and stability doing exactly that. But how the **** are we supposed to find players when a) the youth/training set up is ****, and b) we only have one exec at the club?? It's utter nonsense. As Keegan said, it's not the man himself so much as the people he's surrounded by. What the **** does Keith Bishop or Justin Barnes know about football? Yet these are the only people he'll listen to. Charnley simply pushes paper around - not even sure the bloke's got a tongue. Think he lost it up Ashley's arse a long time ago. Our CEO is the cheapest in the PL, probably somewhere near Burton Albion's CEO in earnings. But it's ill advised, once again. If he's dead set on having a football club that only sells what it generates, and dead set against coughing up for the advertising space, his only choice would be a decent scouting/youth set up. Both have predictably stagnated on his watch, with refusal to spend a paltry £1.5m revamping the training centre, then he wonders why we can't get players in? He effectively sends a reclusive hermit out to negotiate, then wonders why we don't get good deals. Carr had one remit - find players with crap contracts. Once they disappeared, all Carr could do was say "that Aubameyang's good", at which point Ashley's mob would rock up with a four pack of Stella, ask what they want and offer 60% of that value. Every time. He expects the world to sell at 40% discount. The Lejeune fiasco was the last straw for me. We "haggled" and "bartered" for a player with a £8.6m release clause. Two and a half ****ing months later, we just paid £8.6m and got him. The completely unnecessary attempt to save a few quid was pathetic. What are we even saving these pennies for? In case they're unaware, it's raining fcking hard on NUFC so now's the time to spend everything we possibly can.
I don't think you can lay this solely at Ashley's door. Rafa has taken control of the scouting network since 2017 when we jettisoned Carr. Previously Carr was in place for previous 7 years. Carr wasn't a muppet - he had built a significant reputation in the game at the likes of Spurs and Man C. Ashley's guy in charge Llambias, Mort etc would have selected Carr based on that. It was done with the best intentions. Of course what we don't know is what budget the scouting network is afforded. I assume Rafa knew what the scouting budget was and thought it could work? That said we have bought players from the likes of Germany, France, Holland, Spain etc so we do stretch into Europe certainly. We do seem to miss out on the South American market, maybe Africa too so that would suggest some sort of limitation is in place. I know Ashley has employed them all so he is ultimately responsible for everything. I just think it is very easy to link everything back to him and money. He gave Rafa autonomy as requested, he has allowed him control of transfers, he has given him whatever money he can that is generated as promised. If Rafa ****s up its Mikes fault because he short changed him. Despite Rafa going in with his eyes open. If Rafa does well, there is not mention that Mike ultimately appointed him. I think because Ashley is so easy to loathe, then he can't win. Clearly our scouting network did not operate superbly, and hasn't improved for Rafa taking control. I accept that. I can also accept Ashley engaged Carr and he has clearly missed out on lot. A lot of other clubs networks have too though. I don't think scouting is a perfect science due to opportunity, form, etc. We might have went to watch say Jose and he could have been in a bad trot. We might have scouted him 3 times and he's had 3 stinkers. Doesn't make him a bad player but would certainly mean you wouldn't risk it. Jorgensen is in fine form now but if you watched in any of his 18 Bundesliga appearances, you wouldn't have parted with 3m for him. You would after Copenhagen but you'd look back and think "that's risky given his last step up". Maybe we do need to spend more on scouting and so on. However given we seem to be pumping the money back to Rafa that we generate, and people already think its not enough, maybe Rafa has decided spending more on scouting is not necessary at the expense of other areas, like transfers, youth team or whatever.
You can have the best scouting network in the world but if you are not going to agressively follow deals through it makes no difference. You might occasionally pick up a cheap wonder-kid but you are more likely left with a filing cabinet full of ones we missed out on. Am starting to think like LJ that the problem isn’t with the scouting but with the bargaining.
Scouting: There’s a player at Feyenoord worth £20M and will score goals, link play etc. Ashley/Penfold: Good we’ll bid £14m. Not hard to see the problem area. Or Scouting: There’s a player at Feyenoord worth £20M and will score goals, link play etc. Wants £40,000 pw. Ashley/Penfold: Good we’ll bid £20M and offer £19,000 pw. Not hard to see the problem area. Or most likely Scouting: There’s a player at Feyenoord worth £20M and will score goals, link play etc. Wants £40,000 pw. Ashley/Penfold: Good we’ll bid £14m and offer £19,000 pw. Not hard to see the problem area.
Of course I can lay it at his door. All we can't say it's his purely directly, his fault. But it's entirely his fault, when you consider his direct and indirect impact. We need executive staff. We need better than Charnley. That is entirely down to Ashley, though indirectly as he's not the one failing to negotiate deals. We need direction, stature, competence and something that at least resembles a board. Ashley won't do it because it would involve a) money, b) people not from his inner sanctum and c) ambition for the football club. We're fcked, plain and simple. Kind of why it's not worth pointing a finger at Charnley - he should in no way, shape or form be in charge of a football club. At Newcastle, he's in charge of fcking everything. Well, unless he's answering to Ashley or Justin Barnes - and who do we blame for that? Rafa?! We need better scouting and youth set ups. I've been typing about this stupid club for 15 years or so and have long complained about Ashley's lack of staff. We have less staff at this club than any other club of similar size. We make low-rent, low-cost decisions on employment. We show no attempt to better ourselves. I mean, we had a "board" of Lee Charnley, Bob Moncur and Schteve McLaren for ****s sake - how can you possibly utter one word of Ashley defence with that in our history!!!! It's embarrassing. John Irving (CFO) fcked off for Newcastle Airport about two months after this joke of a cast were assembled.....and wasn't fcking replaced. How does any business with £150m of revenue operate without an FD, CFO or similar?? It's frankly unfathomable. You have my blessing to blame Rafa if we sign this Jorgensen and he's a crock of ****. I'll be doing the same. I think he's completely the wrong player and, like Murphy, a completely inappropriate use of limited funds. My concern, which I do share with you, is things like Jacob Murphy - clearly an unnecessary and wrong player for what we needed, but the feeling I got (and many got) was that Rafa went for him believing he had more money. Who's telling him that? Is he making it up? Is he assuming? I'd hope not.
Most will already have seen it; what KK says - and this harks back to when he was in charge - was basically: Keegan - "Get Sami Hyppia. He's really interested, will cost £1.25m in wages to come" Wise/Jimenez/Llambias - "Sure, wait here". ring ring WJL - "We'll give you £600k a year" Hyppia - "Er. No. £1.25m? Wasn't it discussed" WJL - "No dice." ring ring KK - "How did it go?" WJL - "Couldn't get him for £600k." KK - "I know. He wanted £1.25m." WJL - "No dice." Then goes on to say about Modric, was at SJP, excited to join because his agent was a KK superfan. In the room, Jimenez says straight to Modric and his agent "nah, you're not good enough for this league, son". It's these fcking morons - and by extension, directly, Mike Ashley - that have killed the club. All fcked, all fans shat on, the history of the club shat on, purely because the fat ****er recognised an advertising/marketing opportunity when he saw one and somehow personal wealth of £3bn wasn't enough. Capitalism at its ****ing monstrous worst.
Surely part of the dossier that your scout/team puts together in respect of any player would include a valuation and possible wage level demands etc. This coupled with his current teams likelyhood regarding selling him at all and a realistic opinion as to wether or not the player would countanence a move to your club in the first place. So why oh why do we baulk at the parent clubs asking price, the players wages or target players who would rather have their balls cut off with rusty scissors than move to Newcastle. If Rafa has submitted a list of players he wants, then this info must have been available, so why submit unrealistic bids which are destined to fail and insult the parent club at the same time. Ashley got pissed off by Staveley wasting his time, but our club are the biggest tyre kickers going.
Astounding that all these little savings will be totally written off by relegation. I guess though then we'll sell all our good players and reinvest only half the money to offset the loss. We like to say Ashley takes risks but he actually does the opposite, keeping us perfectly within means that are now easily stripped back depending on relegation. This is the whole reason I've been banging on about wages, because ours bill is now akin to about 5/6 in the championship (i.e. we couldn't afford Anita's wage demands but Leeds could and they also have Lasogga and others) He hasn't taken risks, instead he's planned for failure.
This, this and this. Keegan hadn't been in the game for a decade, yet knew Hyppia's salary, interest level and who to call. We then fcked it up. Stands to reason Rafa does all this and more. So why does Charnley get the fax machine out and fck it up so badly?
He could have spent....no, wait, wrong terminology. He and/or Charnley could have designated parts of our revenue towards funding an appropriate back office team, scouting network and youth set up. In the grand scheme of things, you're talking around £5m or so, perhaps a little more. Instead, he loses £100m fcking about with cost-savings and getting relegated. That's then offset by a loan he wants back and player sales. As you rightly say, he plans for failure. He - like many moronic senior execs - makes decisions based on saving money by any means necessary. In other walks of life, it sometimes works. It's hideously unfair, stripping staff back, redundancies, etc., but that's capitalism. This stupid piece of filth does it at a football club where investing the right resource and effort can have HUGE rewards. I'll never, ever understand how he became so rich.
Rafa today asked about Jorgensen bids: "I don't deal with that. We have given a list with A, B & C options". Who's to blame? Charnley. Why? Ashley. End of.
Come on Rafa had his eyes open. We say what we want about Ashley he has been consistent in his message. He can spend what we generate. I can't buy the idea they have said to Rafa at the start of the summer "Look you've got 60m". So he has went and spent 45m and they've turned round and said "you're not having the other 15m hahaha" We would have heard about this from Rafa, Pardew or McClaren by now. Rafa himself intimated from the off that if he was lied to he'd be off. He's still here. I think Rafa would like more money. I think he'd like us to have beaten other to clubs to the signings of the likes of Abraham. I think he'd like the loan of Kenedy to have gone through. I suspect he fully understands the reasons all that didn't happen. He may be frustrated but he doesn't strike me as a guy who has been led down the garden path. If he has and Pardew, McClaren have before him, then they are just Ashleys well paid puppets Personally I think Rafa just finds the job of running a PL club with limited resources very tough and frustrating. I think Graham Carr was on that board actually for the football knowledge along with McClaren. I wouldn't defend Ashley at all. Some of the decision making and his knowledge of football, and how to run a club is shocking. He has owned up to that himself. I think he went for Rafa to help with that. I think Rafa will be trying his best. However if the money and resource isn't there it is really difficult. So I blame Shepherd, Hall and co. They appointed Charnley all those years ago which allowed him to rise through the ranks.
I don't think there is any doubt of this either. We don't have great deal makers. Again though Rafa went in with his eyes open about this. He felt it could work.
It appears to me that you're only argument left is saying Rafa should have known the inner workings of a club that he's never managed, despite that being way above his job title. This also discounts that he has been lied to and has only stuck around, I think, because he sees the possibility of a takeover. If you remember it was "what rafa wants, rafa gets" not "what rafa wants, he gets for a season, then he gets jack **** and we revert back to low-ballimg offers so we can go back to using the club how we always did"
The rest of the line was: “I have had meetings with Lee Charnley every day, Mike Ashley gave us the green light to go forward. “It’s positive, you have to be positive during the window.” Looks to me like Rafa is defending Ashley saying he has given the green light to spend. He is trying to get it done. Clearly Charnley and his team is struggling to get who Rafa wants. I'm sure if he sacks Charnley people will then say "he is just Ashley's scapegoat". I'm not sure Ashley can win. He promoted a guy the previous board engaged who was a local lad who knew the club from top to bottom having been there 15 years. He has went and got the manager the fans wanted. He is giving them the money. Sure some of those decisions are **** ups. Charnley is **** at negotiating. Rafa is giving options who are cack and shouldn't even be on his list. However Ashley is trying from what I can see and Rafa says.
You're talking like Charnley doesn't have to run to Ashley any time he wants to spend money (clearly does) And putting someone clearly inept at the job in an important positions because "he's a fan" is lame reasoning as to why it's not Ashley's fault. Plus what should rafa say, "the owners a ****"?
So the conspiracy is now that Mike is in the background telling Lee to low ball the owners of other clubs to prevent us signing anyone? I have to say I'm not convinced. Rafa doesn't appear to be backing this jackanory up either. Rafa is not sticking around in the hope of a takeover. Rafa knows exactly what he got himself into. He knew the history under Ashley. He made agreements with Ashley. He had 3-4 months to weigh up the club, Charnley etc. Just go back to what he said when he joined. He knew the score. https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...benitez-stay-newcastle-manager-premier-league
