Frantic transfer deals needed at Newcastle United.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 | 42 Comments |
Why do I think that? I don’t know – it just feels about right. Call it gut instinct. In fact let’s call it ‘sources close to the club‘ – my fictional sources are as valid as the fictional sources the press use.
So, let’s reword that: sources close to the club insist the new owner will be in place by next week. Now I’m sounding like a real journalist.
What I wanted to do was speculate as to what needs to be done in terms of players when the new owner takes over.
We have already started pre-season training and our first pre-season match is on Saturday 11th July. It’s feasible that the new owner will be in place by then and a new manager will have been appointed, particularly if that new manager is Shearer because he’s just sat around with his thumb up his bum waiting to get started. If the new owner doesn’t favour Shearer then it might take a bit longer to get a manager in place.
Our first league game is on Saturday 8th August, so we’ll have roughly a month to get everything organised. The first thing the manager probably wants to do is get shot of some players and bring some new ones in and it’s going to take some frantic work to get that done in time. Let’s have a look at last season’s regular first team selections and see who’s likely to go:
- Owen: out of contract and definitely going.
- Viduka: out of contract and definitely going.
- Cacapa: out of contract and definitely going.
- Lovenkrands: sacked by letter apparently.
- Edgar: gone to Burnley.
- Colo: probably going as he gets paid too much.
- Enrique: probably going as he gets paid too much.
- Geremi: probably going as he gets paid too much.
- Smith: probably going as he gets paid too much.
- Barton: probably going as he gets paid too much and he’s not Mr Popular.
- Jonas: probably going as he’ll want top flight football.
- Martins: probably going as he’ll want top flight football.
- Bassong: probably going.
- Butt: possibly staying but may get the push due to his wages.
- Duff: possibly staying but may get the push due to his wages.
- Nolan: possibly staying but may get the push due to his wages.
- Beye: possibly staying.
- Harper: probably staying.
- Taylor(S): probably staying despite contrary press speculation.
- Ameobi: probably staying.
- Guthrie: probably staying.
- Carrol: probably staying.
- Taylor(R): probably staying.
- Nacho: no idea.
- Xisco: no idea.
I’d suggest … sorry, ‘club insiders’ suggest that anywhere from 10-16 players will end up leaving and they all have to be replaced somehow. They can probably promote some of the decent youngsters to the first team – the likes of Ranger, LuaLua, Tozer, Godsmark etc. – but I reckon we’d still need to get in at least half a dozen players to ensure we have anything like a competitive squad. A lot of Championship transfer activity has already taken place, so we’re going to be playing catch-up in that respect.
I wonder if the new owner will actually keep on some of the players who we consider to be ‘overpaid’, simply because time is too short to complete all the associated transfer activity involved in replacing them. If that’s the case, players like Smith, Duff, Geremi and Nolan might still be playing for us next season even though ideally we’d probably want to get rid of them to reduce our extortionate wage bill. Maybe they’ll be given the shove in stages – some in January, some next summer etc.
Then of course there’s the back-room staff. A few have been given the push (and asked back again in the case of Calderwood) and some have left for other clubs, so the manager will need to sort this out too.
It is going to be frantic stuff but I can’t wait for it to start happening. It has been a sorely depressing time lately and I’m just looking forward to some positive activity from the club before I run out of Prozac.
NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen
I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10).
Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.
I think we should sign Owen while he’s on a free.