Pardew: Newcastle are a selling club at the moment

Posted on February 5th, 2011 | 74 Comments |

Alan Pardew, Newcastle United
The realities hit home
Alan Pardew appears to accept that Newcastle United are a selling club at the moment and could struggle to hold on to the likes of Cheik Tiote if a good bid came in.

After insisting that Andy Carroll will not be sold and then having subsequently seen that happen anyway, Alan Pardew appears to have accepted the realities of Newcastle United a bit more now.

Speaking about his hopes to hang on to Cheik Tiote if a big bid should come in, he said:

“I am hoping there are no bids, otherwise we will have a problem.

“Tiote is a very important player, very talented and someone we want to be a big part of our future.”

Pardew then goes on to reveal more about the club philosopy as he understands it:

“When I became manager, Ashley and Llambias made me aware that they wanted to get the club on a financial footing, which gives them a chance to build it.

“Signing young players and hoping they become successful in the Premier League is part of the policy of growing as a club.

“Now, ideally, you would like to keep someone like Andy Carroll, a young player who is from the area, but financially we could not keep him. But we like to think, certainly I have that ambition, that in two or three years time, if we can sustain our status and keep getting the TV money invested wisely, that we can hold off that next bid which might be for Cheik in 18 months time or so.

“We have to get ourselves in a position to do that because at the moment we’re not and we have to accept that.”

Isn’t it a bit of a catch-22 situation though? If we keep selling all our best players we’ll never be in a position to challenge for Europe and receive the financial rewards that come with it.

Finally, Pardew admitted that, in the absence of a big striker, the gameplan may have to change a bit:

“We may be short of strikers, but we will have a strong team against Arsenal with a midfield that could play in any Premier League team.

“I think it is fairly evident that with what I have got available, I will have to change the gameplan.

“Our style will change from now. Not having a 6ft 3ins striker around means we have to come up with something different.”

We’ll see how that pans out against Arsenal today.

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.

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Comment on this post

74 Responses

  1. Well… We all know that we wont reach our full potential with MA in charge, but on the bright side, we wont become a financial mess like some of the other top clubs neither.

  2. “that in two or three years time, if we can sustain our status and keep getting the TV money invested wisely, that we can hold off that next bid which might be for Cheik in 18 months time or so.”

    TV Money! So what happened to the 35 million quid thats just come in then?

  3. As if we already did not know that. i mean how much mess could we have been in for us to be still in financial ruins even after AC sale and spending blots last summer.

  4. only have to be selling club when greedy agents and players have their heads turned…….Joey refused to go last year and Shearer numerous times before! tough task Today, however lets get behind the team and show again why were the best fans in the world!!!

  5. Hmmmm,
    It’s starting to look to me that Pardew is Ashley’s puppet (i was giving him a chance) But over the last few weeks it’s become apparent that pardew JUST does what Ashley & Lambiase wants.
    We are a selling club because Ashley is asset stripping the club ready for selling it, that could come in a few months or a couple of years unfortunatly for us poor fans it is the later because apart from the Qatar rich lot noone else is interested in buying a football club at the moment, imho we have to get behind the lads for this season to help them stay up but then i will not re-new my season ticket and will not buy a ticket until Ashley is gone i am fed up to the back teeth of his poor excuses via lambiase for not buying players and giving them a competative wage.
    how is it that at a club with the 5th highest income in the premier league cannot compete with the likes of tottenham, everton or pool it beggers belief

  6. Newcastle is really not a big club anymore! Sunderland will eventually be bigger than Newcastle! They sold D. Bent because they have other good strikers, such as Gyan. If Newcastle doesn’t have other midfielders as good as Tiote, they shouldn’t sell! Be clever! Ashely and Pardew!

  7. Alfred……5under1and have other good strikers like Gyan? ?? we have other good midfielders. …..barton, Ben Arfa, gosling??? and them a bigger club….how come?? have u seen their home gates…..and bent says he left for a bigger club…..villa!!!

  8. By the way! Go back to Championship league! Give chances to other Championship league teams! Don’t waste your supporters’ time! Let them support Sunderland! Small club!

  9. Newcastle are in the financial position they are in due to the disastrous way the club used to be run and is only now starting to break even, I’m actually starting to get what MA and AP are saying now, before you start spouting off about MA and co you should read this
    http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/12/newcastle-uniteds-finances-in-black-and.html,
    its a long read but stick with it, then you can judge, however for some fans they just want to jump on the hate bandwagon without truly understanding the situation, those fans I don’t have time for.
    Under the current regime, we will have a club being built for the future, I for one wont be singing anti Ashley songs again.

  10. Actually, I am a die-hard fan of Newcastle! I have supported this club for 14 years! I am so happy that this club come back this league again! But they sold Caroll and Pardew agreed that this is a selling club! How come I keep supporting this club! I even wanted to cry for this club few times! I am heart broken!

  11. fatty has made disastrous mistakes and will make many more but he has got the club on a better financial footing. We can’t keep selling our best players but if they want to go and we get offered silly money….then so long as we reinvest we should be ok. Judas possibly out for another 8 weeks so was it good business by the bindippers? ??

  12. Kev, the current regime have wasted millions on rubbish sigings, pay offs for sacked staff not to mention relegation, they are only putting their wrongs right and in doing so knocking the stuffing out of the fans who have never failed to support the club financially.

  13. Alfred….were all hurting mate but can’t do an awful lot about it other than get behind the lads and support the team. Boycotts are often mentioned but for me as much as i try to leave nufc behind the draw of the matchday banter in the pub then the thrill of the game is always to much…..whoever the owner whatever Division, i will continue to buy my season ticket!

  14. Ashley and Mubarak… FFS just go! Your people despise you and you are both guilty of destroying important and historic megoliths!

  15. The sorry truth is without MA Newcastle would have folded, end of, has he made disastrous decisions? Yes, everything up to and including the appointment and sacking of Hoots, however I challenge anyone on the signings, Ben Arfa, Tiote, Collo, Gosling etc. other lesser player were bought for the need at the time, no different from Keegans first stint, some fans don’t see the bigger picture, we are a long way from competing financially with Manure, Money City, Chelski and Liverpool, its all about realism.

  16. bigbadbob:
    February 5th, 2011 at 8:06 am
    Kev, the current regime have wasted millions on rubbish sigings, pay offs for sacked staff not to mention relegation, they are only putting their wrongs right and in doing so knocking the stuffing out of the fans who have never failed to support the club financially.

    Bigbsdbob, I have to disagree to an extent. Millions on crap signings…we haven’t spent millions on signings crap or not. Xisco & Perch do spring to mind…compare that to the previous regime? Owen, marcelino, boumsong, viduka to name a few. Money on sacked managers… Allardyces contract was agreed by the horrible man that is freddy sheppard & although MA did hire Keegan which was a mistake in the first & he only got compo cos he took MA to tribunal as opposed to a contractual obligation…

    And all football clubs particularly the premiership rely on the loyalty of fans & to a greater or lesser extent exploit that loyalty…

  17. All the actions did by MA keep telling me to quit this club! I always remember Newcastle qualified European place in the past! By the way, thanks for your support! Bollox !

  18. Kev,
    Whilst i agree that the swiss blog is very good and does go along way to understanding or at least explaining the current finacial situation, but currently our wage bill is less than Wigans and wolves our gate size is twice there size, our tv income is approx 2 times there’s, our £90 promotion payments have GONE, the money from Milner, Given & Carroll will never be re-invested.
    but look on the bright side we sold a player that has a thigh injury that will NEVER heal properly and could quite possably end his playing days within a couple of years, or at best he is going to end up like owen hargreaves, liverpool have paid £35 million for a lame “Judas” duck

  19. Ashley is a greedy sod who has done nothing for us at all. all this rubbish about us being a selling club… yes we are, but not becasue our situation requires it. The losses we had last year are less than we gain this year for being up in the PREM and that is a fact. We went into all of this last season once we were confirmed as promoted. We were already going to turn a small profit this season and that was without selling AC for a stupid amount of money. Since Ashley has bought us he has spent zero on players and now that AC has gone he is about 37 million in the black on what he has bought to sold. We must be the only club in the land that has netted more than its spent on players every season for last three years ffs. We came into the window with pardew spouting that he will get at least one player maybe two in. so what do we do… we unload three without a single replacement which left us short on numbers then donkey boy breaks his cheek bone and we are down to three strikers, of which only loven is proven. all in all a shambles and we have weakened ourselves at a vital point in the season, for the run in. We had aspirations of top ten, now i think relegation battle looms. Also, how come ashley never ever has a problem in selling any player with such speed it astounds me, but can never sign a single player without chaos and drama and ultimate failure? funny that isnt it. He claimsthe agents are making it hard to buy without paying an inflated price…its same agents that got him inflated price for carrol and brokered deal at a break neck pace…. i have not heard him complain about that agent for sure!
    pardew is a disgrace of limp wristed puppet too… what a shockingthing to do, that last interview. telling the whole world thatc we are a selling club and then to rub salt into wounds advises whole world that we will sell tiote without an issue as ashely will always take the money. Nice one pards…you have done a great job of putting all our players in shop window…mind you, i think that was your deliberate intention as you are nothing more than a Ashley rent boy with no credability.

  21. Craig C….I’m not sure MA has taken any money out of the club?!? Hasn’t he loaned the club money to kept us from going into bankruptcy

    Whilst he’s made his mistakes there’s absolutely no proof or foundation to what your saying…

    I for one am thankful that the club is reasonably secure financially (well as much as you can be in football) & I’d rather be a middle of the road team with players who want to play for us…you never know this way might work eventually! after all buying big, paying stupid wages & changing managers constantly (although we’ve had a few under Ashley do I have an issue there) and repeating that cycle until we’re almost ruined financially didn’t work

  22. Paul @ 18 – If I can just pick apart some of your post?

    £90 million for promotion? Please elaborate on that.

    Our gates may be bigger than Wolves and Wigan, but that will in itself incur a higher running cost, staff cost, police cost etc.

    As for their wagebill being higher, you do realise that our wagebill is around £45-££50 million still don’t you?

    As for TV money, it’s based on how much a club is on TV. Have we really been on twice as many times as the others you mentioned?

  23. Toonsy…how’s the blog going & give us the link?

    We need some balance & some impartial commentary back in this blog!!

  24. Aspirations of top ten? the goal was stability, we need to consolidate ourselves in the premiership first and then build on it, any fan who thinks otherwise are deluding themselves. We’ve had a good start, we just need to get over the finishing line now.

  27. The club hierarchy said ‘we are going to build a team based on the Arsenal model’ find good young players and develop them. So at the first opportunity the stupid bastards sell the best young cente forward this country has seen for years!

    As for Nolan, would Steven Gerrard have gone on Chelsea TV the day after Torres was sold to them and started spounting of about what how great a move it was for him (Torres).

    I think Ashley is in for a shock today when the gate receipts are counted, I am convinced that a lot of NUFC fans will vote with their feet and not go to the match.
    I know I will never set foot in SJP till Ashley, Lambias and Pardew are gone.

  28. Toonie1949 – You can be as convinced as you like mate, but 50,000+ people have already handed over their hard-earned for the match today.

  29. Toonie1949 spoken like a true fan, although my definition of a true fan is someone who sticks with the club through thick and thin, NUFC is about the team, playing football, winning and losing, not about any one player, politics around ownership and the current plight of the spending policies, but then again I’ve been on the terraces even when we had gates of 13k. other fans like players come and go, makes my blood boil.

  31. AP on speaking about Tiote”I am hoping there are no other bids otherwise we will have a problem”sounds to me like a plea to other clubs to put in a bid.17th position is all this club is aiming for with Ashley in charge not just this season ,every season.

  32. One minute Llambias is saying we didn´t need tht £36 million because Ashley was a billionaire, in the next breath he says we couldn’t afford Carroll’s wage demands, now Pardew says we’re a selling club for the next few years … isn’t our billionaire owner fantastic?

    Pardew = Lying Puppet – Hope he gets booed out of the ground today.

    Ashley & Llambias are proven liars that nearly all NUFC fans now don’t trust.

  33. Kev, I have had 45 years of putting up with this crap from various owners! You would think I’d be used to it by now.

    I do understand what your saying, its a choice between supporting the club you love no matter what or not going to the match. At this point in time I am so disgusted with Ashley, he just not getting any more of my dosh.

    Everyone has their opinions and choices, and I have choosen not to give Ashley any more of my money. It does’nt mean I dont love the club.

  34. Cheers for link Toonsy…the blog looks good & I’ll be getting to it better in the not too distant future…

  35. kev @24…. you are right there kev.. stability…. and you think dumping CH for zero reason, bringing in his rentboy and flogging off players whenever possible in the january window without a game plan or single replacement is a good weay of getting stability. Yes we were wanting stability and consolidation, but we were getting better than even that, we were in top ten and it was all roses in the garden for a change. Now in true ashley fashion its all gone pete tong as usual. stability.. dont make me laugh Kev, the words Ahshley and nufc stability do not sit at all well together.

  38. I’m confused.

    Why are we reinvesting all of the 36million from Carroll into the team/new signings, and then still seemingly desperate to generate more money from sales.

    Let’s be realistic, losing Andy was bad. But he wasn’t worth 15 never mind 36 million.

    Why are we not investing some of that cash back into the club to get the books balancing (I don’t mean Ashley takes a withdrawal) and use the rest in the summer to get a few players in.

    Save 16 for transfers and fees etc for 3 players. And 20 goes into the club, surely this would be the sensible thing to do if are books are reAlly that bad!?

  39. craigchisholm,

    Asheley is an arse, but he did save the cub from financial meltdown whether you like it or not the NUFC finance reports don’t lie. Shepherd killed this club.

    I hate the rank appointments such as kinnear and Pardew, but shepherd is where the rot set in.

  42. From the moment Ashley took control everything was for sale.
    It is how he has operated all his life.
    It is has been successful for him personally.

    he will eventually leave and make a few quid but it is us the fans who emotionally have to feel the pain.
    Nothing you can do as a supporter.

  43. well with a heavy chunk of money Newcastle must choose wisely on who our next striker will be, if they choose wrong can only see a revolving door of strikers quickly coming in then going out

  46. @42

    Oh & how has Ashley been successful personally? Would you consider ploughing over £100m & charging the club no interest into your own business just to keep afloat a success?

  48. Buda, how do you think he will leave and make a few quid? Like realistically, what would you say NUFC is worth?

    There’s no way MA is in it for the money without success. If we become successful (ie Arsenal terms of success) then he might take a proportion – but i doubt that very much. He’s never taken money out of the club. Its just cheap journalism/naivety to suggest he has. He has made mistakes, but he’s not stupid enough to spend so much time on NUFC just for the money when the potential financial rewards are so little. (note, sports direct had roughly £120 million profit last year)

  49. its the fans who pay for ashley mistakes ,
    and it shows that ashley knows nothing about football, i hope he sells he put enough heart ach on us supporters ,

  51. Yeah pedro,those Qataris are renowned for their football knowledge, lets get them in..

    No new football owners know much about football, new owners would be a step back to the day MA took over.

  52. people threatening to stop buying tickets and merchandise etc are simply delaying his departure. he’ll find a buyer when the finances are in order and it becomes an attractive proposition. no-one will buy it when revenues are falling and we’re in the championship, tried that, failed.

  53. I say he will sort out the financial mess FS had us in and sell the club for more than he paid for it recouping all his loans. A profit for him. Simples.

    When I said he personally he has been successful I meant in his overall business life and not just newcastle. Hope that clears up any confusion

  54. Adam

    Something is only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it. I cannot qualify an amount.
    Theory proven by what happened to AC this week

  55. We will never ever be sucessfull if the best players are sold to the highest bidder and replaced with championship/1st division players if they are replaced at all. All that FCB wants is premiership survival? Is that the sum total of their ambitions for the club? If people want to pay for that crap, thats their affair, but I for one have had enough.

    Fed up with the Premiership, the shit owners who dont give a rat’s arse about the fans, sick to death of greedy (I love this club)footballers and their agents.

    It’ll be very interesting to see what the season ticket sales will be like come the summer, especially if NUFC are relegated to the championship which is a distinct possibity.

    I am now convinced that Chris Hughton was sacked becasue he would have persued AC to stay and that was not in Ashley’s game plan.

  56. My take on this is as follows; Ashley is a better owner than the fleecing Shepherd and Halls and has brought financial stability and has put us in a better position for the future, is he going to gamble our future on potential success, the answer is no, is he the perfect owner that some fans want, again the answer is no, so the hope is with stability on the park (premiership survival), and financial stability secured we become more viable for other potential buyers. However given the choice between a moneyless Moat, NUST, Shepherd and the barrel scraping Bolton, Wigan, West Ham, Villa owners et al, I’d rather stick with what we’ve got, better the devil you know.

    As for boycotts, chanting abuse at the owner, theres an old adage “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”, we need Ashley on our side to progress, p%ss him off and he wont invest.

    So Im going to the match to have a pie a pint, a scream at the ref and hopefully some happiness having secured a point or three, because ultimately thats what football and following the toon is all about.
    HWTL

  57. can’t blame anyone for wanting to chuck it.
    but it’ll not make any difference to ashley if they don’t buy a season ticket. pardew said they’re mainly relying on sky money. sky has 10 million subscribers in th uk alone.

  58. Ap is an idiot. Im tired of him cuming out and trying to sell our players, or saying they were crap after game. I used to watch hoots talk in reverance. Anyway, all the ashley apologists here make me laugh (im past anger now). Im not guna go into the 267 reasons this man is not ‘fit’ or ‘proper’ to run our great club. I just hope and pray he gets an offer for club asap. Hwtl. Im past sad, angry and hurt now.

  59. Alfred is right, we should all support Sunderland. Sunderland are a team that don’t intend on selling their alleged best players…Oh, wait. What’s this?

    “I have said all along every player has his price…”
    Were Bruce’s words when asked about his players and more specifically, Jordan Henderson.

    That’s that then :roll:

  60. It would keep the neurosurgeons busy anyway – a couple of million geordies queueing up for lobotomies so that they’re qualified to support Sunderland.

  61. What a shock!

    We’ve been a selling club since Ashley arrived.

    The man isn’t interested in making this club great, he’s just interested in spending as little as possible until he can get rid.

    Don’t be suprised if we end up back in the Fizzy, that’s what happens when you sell your best players and don’t replace them.

  62. Stuart – “We’ve been a selling club since Ashley arrived”
    So it was his fault in time-warp that we sold Peter Beardsley, Chris Waddle, Gazza etc.
    Money talks – and tell me what prize possession (apart from our families) wouldn’t we sell if enough money was offered? We were just out-gunned and unless we join the “money-is -no-object, I want my toys now” lot in PL football we have no absolute ability to hold onto players, especially with Agents, Del Boy Redknapps and others whispering in players’ ears.
    The real sadness is the state of the modern game, especially the Premiership, with Chelski and Manchester Sheikhy, players costing fortunes and earning fortunes whilst being no more than good. Anybody else forgotten they had a Porsche somewhere, like Jermaine Pennant did?
    Anyway rant over! I’m off to the game this afternoon with my daughter, will shout for the TOON, not expecting anything (especially don’t like rumours that Colo might be out and wemay have to play Solid Campbell) – but hey, I support Newcastle and that’s life!
    I can’t / won’t change.

  63. I don’t have a problem with selling players for £35m IF it’s all reinvested in the squad. I don’t trust Ashley to do thta, do you?

  66. It’s been awhile. I was ranting at Hugh De Payen couple of days ago about him being so anti…everything it seemed haha. Well wanted to apologize Hugh if you’re reading.

    Truth be told i was so bloody disappointed/heartbroken when the sold Carroll. My head told me it was the right decision and I would have done it as well if I was chairman but….my heart….oh my heart just wanted something good to cheer about on Saturdays. And the Newcastle No 9 gave me that. Not since Shearer’s early days did other fans envy our No 9. It’s been so long since we had something we could shout. It was just starting to seem like it was all coming together….even after they sacked Chris H. We bought Ben Affleck (sorry Arfa), Tiote looked awesome, Barton was pulling strings like Rob Lee in the early days (and wasn’t punching people in the face), Curlycini and Will was solid at the back, The Bull was inspiring on the left and….and…and we had OUR No 9 up front. We were mid table but who cared. We won some and we lost some but it was a great start.

    So yes, I was sore and downright bitchy about life and football in general. But it’s been a few days. And I’ve realized once again that i support Newcastle United. My advice to fellow Toon Army fans who’ve been pissed on yet again by the footballing gods, watch some youtube mate. Watch some sappy 1994/95 stuff, watch some Sir Bobby Robson era stuff with the feel good music. There’s one video with Oasis’ Little By Little soundtrack (i’ve forgotten the link) that’s just awesome.

    So here we go again. The gunners. As they say we have nothing to lose. Everyone expects us to lose anyway. So lets pull one out of Joey Barton’s arse and nick this one. 2-1 to the Toon.

    Howay the lads.

  67. I don’t really give a crap anymore. Ashley and all his chums can do what they want with the club. They will anyway, and it seems it’s rarely for the good of the fans. We are apparently what makes this club tick, but we are the ones who get raped, constantly.

    It’s just one thing after another with this lot. We will never be stable, and football has been taken over by people driven by sheer greed. I’m looking at you Mr Carroll, and you Mr Ashley. It’s funny how you both got what you wanted last week, then tried to blame each other?

    And it’s left to us skint fans, in a bad economy, to line your pockets, and we will continue to do so out of sheer blind loyalty. And Mr Ashley knows that we will. Then he will rape us again and the circle will continue.

  68. adam says:
    February 5, 2011 at 12:12 pm
    So Stuart, what do you think he’s going to do with the money then?

    Don’t know, but I’d like to bet it doesn’t all go on transfers and when you consider we should have been spending at least £20m next season anyway we should be spending £50m st least in the summer. That would see us finishing top 6/7.

  69. Yeah I agree that I dont think it’ll all go on first team players. I think we’ll realistically have a first team budget of around 30m though with the rest going on youth players and their development and paying debts etc.

    I’d be reasonably happy with that, spending £50million on first team players would disrupt the squad imo – all we really NEED is 2 new strikers, more would just be a bonus i think.

    Guess we’ll just haveto wait and see, and beat the gunners whilst we wait :D

  70. I am still shocked and angry about the AC saga – it really was a kick in the teeth and I just think there is no way forwards with this bunch of incompetants running our club.

    To cash in on AC just as the transfer window was shutting was typical Ashley tactics and it has happened time and time again under this regime,very little of that fee will be spent on new players.

    We where doing OK a decent position in the premiership, a manager that just got on with the job quietly and had the players respect….and suddenly we end up with Pardew (a fookin liar,fookin puppet,mate of the owner)then end up losing a local lad with good prospects that was meant to be born to wear our Number 9, this has to be the straw that breaks the backs of any remaining MA worshippers?

    MA is Vermin.

  71. newcastle 0 – 3 arsenal after just 10 mins

    I think that sale of AC has affected the players, our aim for the season I think has been reduced to survival as we no longer have the goal threat, although putting it into perspective most people would agree we are not expected to win this game, the manner they are losing it doesant bode well for the rest of the season.

  72. How no one picked up on this yet??

    When Carroll was sold we were told that it was because you wanted a bigger contract once he knew of Liverpools bid. HOWEVER, Pardew has just said that we are a selling club.

    THE CLUB LIED about Carroll being the problem (with contract).

    I sick of all this shit, really am.

  73. “THE CLUB LIED about Carroll being the problem (with contract”

    The club lied ??????? Well thats news to me. I cannot imagine Mr Ashley or that nice Mr Llambias lying to anyone !
    I think you must be mistaken Blindfaith. No one but no one stood to gain by selling a player for £35m when we couldnt possibly spend any of that money for at least another four months. What’s the point of having £35m sitting in a bank earning interest and sitting on the balance sheet as profit ?