Reality bites for Mike

This is way worse hat I would have thought.
This will be a key week on a number of fronts I reckon now.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...tml?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

Newcastle United have suffered another fall in season-ticket sales with supporters unconvinced by Mike Ashley’s promise of investment.
Indeed, the Magpies remain just one of four Premier League clubs yet to sign a new player this summer, despite Steve McClaren being installed as manager nearly three weeks ago.
And now a study by long-running fanzine The Mag has revealed that around 30 per cent of season tickets remain unsold.

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Newcastle United have suffered another fall in season-ticket sales under controversial owner Mike Ashley

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A study by long-running fanzine The Mag has revealed that about 30 per cent of season tickets remain unsold
They sifted through all available season tickets on a seating plan of St James’ Park on the club’s official website and found that nearly one in three was still on sale.
A club spokesperson says that renewal numbers are ‘comparable’ to last season, when it is understood there was a drop-off of around six per cent.

However, the Magpies have been forced to extend their renewal deadline twice already this summer.
They did themselves few favours by not allowing McClaren to talk to the independent press when he was confirmed as head coach earlier this month, something which is said to have frustrated the new man given the needless negative coverage it generated.

 

This should have happened years ago really, but I'm glad toon fans are finally realising the only way to get through to Ashley is to refrain from giving him money unless he is definitely investing and the club.

 

Like it makes a difference. If Ashley continues to trust, empower and employ Lee Charnley , we will continue to fail. There's this misconception that somehow it's not his fault but the owner, or it's just to do with money, or that if Charnley was that bad he'd be sacked. This is an owner who stood by Joe Kinnear until he failed two windows in a row before acting - Charnley will need to fail again for anything to happen, but in football unfortunately this would mean we were too late, as his "failure" would mean it was 1st September. This is a Chief Exec who can't even backfill his finance position. I don't think there's a level of underestimation appropriate for Charnley as things presently stand. All I hope is that McClaren looks at this and says "I don't fcking think so" and tells Mike EXACTLY what's going on.

 

I do think it will be interesting though. The cynic in all of us thinks his proclamation before West Ham was about nothing but getting ticket sales up. As it stands, he has done nothing to back it up Replacing the coaching staff is not really much of a sign of intent. To a certain degree yes, but everyone knows its player trading which costs the big money and makes the difference what kind of season you have.

We seem at a bit of an impass if the cynic's are right. I have friends who believe this is a who will blink first scenario and will not renew without clear intent from Ashley. Personally I'm not so sure about everything, I assume the worst because that is what has gone before. However I'm just not convinced he is waiting for season tickets to sell before he invests. It makes no difference, I think he'll do whatever he was going to do anyway this summer. I do think his pre match appearance was about season tickets rather than intent, but I'd be happy to be wrong.

 

But is he responsible? That's my question. Joe Kinnear was allegedly given money, but failed to spend it because he was such an intolerable, foul-mouthed sack of sh!t. He was eventually sacked, but only after he had failed, solidly, to bring in a single player 2 transfer windows in succession.

There is money there. No question, no doubt, we have said there is a stack of cash in the bank, profitability on the way and more money coming. One has to assume that Ashley's move to disappear from the board has left responsibility solely at the door of Lee Charnley; whether that's deliberate or smoke and mirrors, he did it. I find it impossible to believe that McClaren is going to 'do a Pardew' and profess delight at his inherited squad. As has been pointed out already, he is not afraid to walk if things aren't right. So what's going to happen? I don't think anyone can predict, I'm not sure it's possible.

 

Whether money gets spent or not is down to one man. He can remove himself all he likes. These people all work for him ultimately. To be fair he did admit that in his interview too, the buck stops with him end of story. The ability to spend money is not a problem. Its the parameters you are given under which to do that which dictates whether you will.

I don't really rate Charnley on all known evidence. The truth is though, he does what he is told.

 

Charnley used to be the man who closed the deals for Cabaye, Tiote, Ba etc.... so knows how to close out deals.
I just think that in his new role as the boss he can't give his all to that one task anymore so **** gets missed/overlooked.
The fault for that is jointly Mike's and Lee's IMHO.

 

At times we'd be better off sending in Gazza, a fishing rod and a family bucket to get deals done.

 

All three were taken on with Derek Llambias at the top, I'm afraid. Derek came 2008 and resigned June 2013, Tiote came in 2010, Cabaye and Ba were 2011. Charnley was in charge for the non-event of Jan 2014, the Summer arrival of Janmaat, Cabella, Riviere, et al. and most significantly the non-event of Jan 2015 coupled with Carvergate.

 

I think you're being a little unfair on Charnley here. He was almost certainly involved in the Tiote, Cabaye and Ba deals. He would have brought in the tea and biscuits...

 

At best, he might have taken the minutes. That's probably what he's been doing for the past four weeks, trying to decipher his own shorthand to work out what he wrote Lambeezy said and did, between the doodles of Dangermouse and "must restock digestives" reminders.

 

Managers have come and gone during Ashley's tenure, and the Club has consistently not invested.

Ashley is the common denominator here, so the answer to that particular question in my opinion is most definitely yes.

Whether it's through not making (enough) money available, or hiring totally incompetent staff, he is ultimately responsible.

 

Another reason for him not to invest?!

'Season ticket renewal too low'

I can see it already

 

Que sera! What ever will be, will be.....

The fans will be here long after that fat feccer has gone.

I unreservedly love Newcastle and will be there next season. Whatever.

 

At the top yes. But Charnley was the deal broker.

 

Last year was our biggest spend on transfers for some time. We didn't spend it very well though so the blame has to be on the staff rather than the owner. We spent 37.6million but the only bit of that that paid off last season was 1.6mill on Perez and 5mill on Janmaat. Arguably our best piece of business was Colback on a free.
But our scouting has to be blamed for spending 6.3mill on Rivière, 12mill on Cabella, 6 mill on de Jong who clearly has an injury record. Would also argue that the signing of Lascelles and Darlow was the wrong one for last season - presume we thought we were getting them cheap by loaning them back but I think we could have used that 7mill on a decent centre back and got those two at the same or less in this window.
A good 24Mill striker with Colback, Perez, Janmaat and a solid centre back would have been a much better piece of business than what we ended up with so I think the scouting staff are to blame in this case. Maybe we do need a proper Director of Football to help.

 

Charnley proved he can get a deal done last transfer window. However, we spend no money. There will be no cup. Marveaux a new signing... Same old ****.

 

promise this promise that ...fans far to wise now .. stand as one ..get him out ... nufc should of been the first team to buy ..squad full of tiddlywink players ( always injured ) and numbers and quality . but no he still doing nothing ...or is it players just don't want to play for us at all ...

 

Money was badly spent last season mind, I would whole heartedly agree with that. It has been consistently.