Newcastle United Transfers – It’s Speculation Season!
Posted on May 30th, 2012 | 124 Comments |
The speculation season has started in earnest for the British football press. With the domestic season over and the European Championships yet to begin, there is still a need for footy hacks to justify their bloated salaries and write stuff that sells newspapers. And they never let the truth get in the way of a good story – even if it was made up without checking any facts or even leaving the office.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against factual, truthful reporting. I just can’t remember the last time I actually read any! If Newcastle United were to eventually sign all of the players we are supposedly linked with, we’d end up with a wage bill approaching the level of the national debt. So there must be a lot of crap reporting out there somewhere – it stands to reason.
The key to spotting made up stories is of course the lack of direct quotes. If it says “a source close to the player” or “a source close to the club” – lets face it, un-named, impossible to prove sources are reliable? I don’t think so. Treat all such stories with a pinch of salt. What makes matters worse is that a made up story by one journalist is then picked up and repeated ad-nauseum – and this is particularly easy since the advent of the Internet, it’s not just other publications repeating made up stories but online publications, blogs etc If you don’t believe me, check a news aggregator like Newsnow, pick a story and watch it get passed around and grow!
The other clue to a story being made up is easy – we know it is made up because we know better. So, for example, when a United fan reads that Alan Pardew is keen on signing a 30 year old forward – we know it’s rubbish, because we know the club’s policy is to sign ’em young, stack ’em high and sell ’em slowly, painfully and for a lot of money. A 30 year old just does not fit that policy and the story is therefore likely to be totally garbage.
It’s difficult to identify the real stories and, when it comes to our star players being sought by other clubs, identifying what is real and what is made up speculation. If you believe the press today, for example, Little Tottenham are going to relieve us of Tim Krul and Demba Ba, whilst so-called “big clubs” (whatever that means) Manchester United and Manchester City are locked in a titanic struggle over Papiss Demba Cisse. Now I know Tottenham and Manchester City get smaller crowds than us and can’t compete in terms of matchday atmosphere, but all of the clubs mentioned could offer more in wages and the Manchester twins can also offer Champions League football. So if there is indeed a grain of truth in these stories, there is cause for concern.
The press have decided that Ba will go for £7M – but what if more than one club is interested and an auction ensues? What we do know is that, apart from Ba, the United heirarchy would “do a Carroll” and prove to be very difficult sellers – extracting maximum money for any of our players who might leave. We also know we have the capability within the club to find replacements at much cheaper prices. The other thing to consider is that every time a “Champions League” club hand over their Champions League earnings to us for one of our players – it’s almost as if we earned that money!
Personally I’ve learned that, particularly with the current United owners, nothing is straightforward in transfer window terms. And given the secrecy which surrounds their dealings in the transfer market, I doubt if the press know better than we do what is actually going on.
lets just buy all the players, then loan them to other teams. that way they cant play against us & if their any good we keep them the following season. :-)