Newcastle United – News Roundup – 16 August 2009.
Posted on August 16th, 2009 | 25 Comments |
Apparently the bid will be made direct to Ashley, rather than Keith Harris at Seymour Pierce, and – I presume – without having performed a due diligence. A ‘source close to the bidders’ had this to say:
“There have been so many D-days and so many false dawns that they have done their best to keep this late move under wraps.
“This offer has been properly planned and has cost a lot to put together.
“It will be a credible offer and if Mike Ashley is serious about selling the club he will seriously consider it.
“Ashley has said he will take the club off the market if his latest deadline isn’t met, but this offer should give him something to think about.
“Something will happen in the next couple of days.
“It is being made directly to Ashley and his advisers and that is all that can be said about it at the moment.”
I must admit I’m wearing my doubtful face again.
The Mail thinks it’s all done and dusted though. They love to print guesswork as fact and in today’s example they simply say:
Barry Moat is set to become the new owner of Newcastle United within the next few days, putting Alan Shearer back in line to be the new manager.
Right, well I’m glad that’s cleared up. I had thought there was still some doubt, that Ashley might hang onto the club perhaps, but my mind has been put at rest by The Mail.
It is distressing to read that, after such a creditable win last night, we may yet lose players such as Taylor, Jonas and possibly others. I understand why it’s being done of course – to reduce the massive wage bill at Newcastle, which is unsustainable as a Championship club – but if we rip out too many more players then we may not be able to produce the sort of performace we did last night, thus damaging our chances of fighting for promotion.
Back in May The Telegraph reported that we had 15 players earning more than £50,000 a week, so let’s assume that’s true. Of the players who’ve gone I would suggest that Owen, Viduka, Beye, Cacapa, Martins and Duff certainly fall into the £50k/week category; in fact Owen was allegedly on £100k/week+ and I seem to remember reading that Viduka was on £65k/week. I reckon just getting rid of those players accounts for at least £350k a week, which is approximately £18m a year.
I suspect that Lovenkrands, Edgar, Nacho and Bassong were on much less but I reckon their combined wages might account for at least £4m a year, which would bring our total savings up to £22m a year.
If the aim was to halve the £70m wage bill we’re still £13m short so, having done the maths, I guess we do indeed need to offload more players and Jonas and Taylor would probably amount to another £3m/year in savings. Of course we also need to leave enough financial room to pay the wages of players we bring in.
Hmm, I can see why more players must go but that has to be offset against our promotion chances and it will be a careful balancing act.
These news roundups would be nothing without a contribution from Louise Taylor and this time she tells us how last night’s result was merely ‘papering over the cracks’.
Thanks Louise – you could have let us enjoy the win for a day first.
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.
Whilst all that looks lovely from a financial viewpoint – there’s a lot more to business than finance.
Selling all of our best players will mean we do not have a very good team – so it won’t matter whether fatboy has spare money in the bank to play black 17. We won’t progress.
Wonder if he’s ever heard the phrase “speculate to accumulate”??