Pardew: Newcastle United’s transfer policy no different from Manchester United’s.
Posted on August 21st, 2011 | 51 Comments |
He told local rag, the Sunday Stun, that Newcastle United are no different from clubs such as Manchester United in their recruitment policy, and added that he wasn’t really disappointed to have missed out on any players, saying:
“I don’t think the process at Newcastle is very different from elsewhere in the Premier League.
“It’s exactly what I had at West Ham in terms of chief executive (Derek Llambias) trying to do the deal – and it’s as simple as that. The board, and in this case we don’t really have a board – it’s Mike to a degree, agreeing with the deal that the chief executive has done.
“That’s the same as every other club that I know and how it works. I keep hearing these things about this football club that are actually just not true. I don’t think the procedure is any different.
“At West Ham I would tell Aldridge, my chief executive there, I would like to do a deal for him. He would go away and try and do the deal and most of the time it didn’t happen, to be honest.
“Usually because the other club make it impossible to happen. It is the same at Stoke – it is the same at Manchester United.”
“That was one that we had no control over – I think it was probably done before we got there. But outside of that, not really disappointed to have missed anyone.
“There’s always one or two you would like to have been involved in but we’re very focused on where we are right now. Of course, negotiations are ongoing – that’s all I can really say at the moment.”
Pardew’s assesment is in stark contrast to that of previous manager, Kevin Keegan, who condemned owner, Mike Ashley and Llambias in his current role as a pundit on the ESPN sports channel, where he said:
“Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias, you can’t work with these people. You can’t trust them. They tell you one thing and mean another.
“You try and sign a player, I had a ‘phonecall for about an hour to buy a player, I went off the phone, they had another conference call and said right, we don’t offer two million, we a million and they’ll reject it.”
Or, if the directors of other clubs involved in ‘phantom’ bids from Newcastle United recently are to be believed, they don’t put any bids in at all, while telling fans that they have.
However, while technically, the ways in which Newcastle United and other clubs do their transfer business may be very similar, the manner in which they conduct themselves in terms of the clarity and communication of the relevant parties, and the integrity of Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias could be very different.
But who do you believe? Keegan or Pardew?
Poll
Think Keegan is going to win this by a long stretch :lol: