No striker in 6 months: unlucky or tight-fisted?
Posted on August 18th, 2011 | 81 Comments |
What, you might ask, is the problem? We’ve had six months to replace Andy Carroll and still haven’t, unless you happen to believe that Demba Ba’s that man. And, although Enrique’s actual departure is relatively recent, we’ve pretty much known he’d go for a few months now (the clue was in his refusal to sign a contract), yet we haven’t got a replacement for him either.
Let’s allow some leeway with Enrique. He has only just been sold and we must surely know by now that players don’t come in unless Ashley’s 100% sure he’s getting the dosh for the outgoing player. It might not be a proactive way to run a football club but we seem to be stuck with it.
Some might argue that selling Carroll so late in the January transfer window left us no time to bring in a replacement, which is true. And let’s even be generous and say that £35m was too good to refuse and that it was actually worth limping through the second half of last season without a first choice striker. Surely, though, in the months after the Carroll sale we should have had plenty of striker targets lined up, ready to make bids for them as soon as the transfer window opened.
So what has gone wrong?
Well one school of thought might say we’ve just been unlucky. Our first and second choices appeared to be Gervinho and Gameiro but Arsenal and PSG were more attractive options to those players. Our third choice seemed to be Erdinç, but the trail has gone cold on that one. There was a rumour we were interested in one or both of the Banguras but with at least one of them (I forget which) some work permit issues allegedly got in the way. There was also a rumour we might be interested in Shane Long, but West Brom offered real money and bought him.
So there are some names there and the charitable observer will say we’ve tried and must simply accept that other clubs – particularly those playing in Europe – will often be more attractive propositions to players.
The less charitable observer will say that we’re run by the world’s tightest billionaire and that a lack of assertive, realistic bidding – for want of only bargain-basement acquisitions – has seen some potential targets slip through our fingers. Is that true? I really don’t know because I’m not party to the details of if/how we’ve bid on these players and what the stumbling blocks actually are, but it’s an tempting assumption to make right now.
There are those who would suggest that some Newcastle fans would only be happy if Ashley went out and spent the entire £35m on someone to replace Carroll, but I don’t think it’s about that. We want bargains where possible and I think most fans agree that the ‘principle’ of hiring young players with bags of potential – who maybe haven’t fully realised that potential yet – is fairly sound. This is supposedly the ‘Arsenal Model’ that Ashley favours, but it’s not the entire Arsenal model. Arsenal do spend money when it’s necessary, with Gervinho being a point in fact, and I’d like to bet the money they get for Fabregas and Nasri goes on players of decent quality too.
It is true that Arsenal have more pulling power than us when it comes to attracting players, but of the Premier League teams who aren’t in Europe we should have plenty of pulling power really and I think we should be able to attract a decent – if not ‘World Class’ – striker to Newcastle.
If you sense frustration in this article you’d be right. We’ve done well this year on transfers, accruing £47m from player sales and only spending £7.5m, which leaves us just shy of £40m in the pot. I’m well aware that agents cost trillions and that Ashley wants wages to come out of incoming transfer funds (although I’m not sure quite what happens to the wages of players we sell), but I don’t think it’s a lot to ask for £10m-£15m of that money to be set aside for a new striker of proven quality. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask why we haven’t identified realistic targets in the 6 months since we sold Carroll.
It’s possible, as I said previously, that we’ve been unlucky and that patience is needed, but it’s also possible that the deals have been financially strangled beyond the point of ‘careful money management’.
It’s up to you to decide which.
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.
must be waiting for happy hour