Part of Mike Ashley’s £25 million transfer profit.Below are a series of tables showing the profits and losses (mostly profits) made by Mike Ashley in player trading since he assumed control of the club early in the 2007-8 season.
Firstly, they are broken down season by season from 2007-8. However, it should be noted the major transfers into the club in his first season as owner were either done in the days of Freddy Shepherd, or were arranged by Shepherd and completed in the transitional period of Ashley takeover, or the first days under the club’s new Chairman at the time, Chris Mort. Players in these two catagories include signings such as Viduka, Barton, Rozehnal, Smith, Cacapa, Enrique, Faye and Beye.
The following ones then display the season by season figures from the 2008-9 season (Ashley’s first full season as owner), with the first purely Ashley signings such as Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Gutierrez, Xisco and the rest starting to come in. Of course, these are then followed by successive seasons up to the present day. (more…)
Doh! I’ve lost again!Below you will find my final report for the 2012-13 season on Alan Pardew’s long balls.
It has been a long journey which started in the first few games of the season. Although Pardew has always been something of an old school “route one” manager, I noticed from watching the games early in the season against teams such as Aston Villa, Everton, Norwich and Reading that things started to get even worse this season, and my suspicions were confirmed when I found in my first report (made 11 games into the season) that with 17.7% of their total passes being over 25 yards, Newcastle were indeed the biggest long ball side in the Premier League, ahead of Reading, who were then managed by Pardew protege, Brian “long balls” McDermott.
As I made further reports, Newcastle United maintained their lead, until now. In true Pardew style however, the performance declined in the final stages and Pardew eventually lost out to the kings of “Route One” football, Tony Pulis’s Stoke City (yes, I know he’s gone now), who sneaked up on the back stretch, eventually claiming the title for this season with an overall long ball percentage of 16.2%. In the final countdown, Pardew’s Newcastle could manage third with 15.6%, with the aforementioned Reading sneaking back into second place with a long ball percentage of 15.7%. (more…)
Who made it? And who didn’t?Below you can see two Newcastle United “teams of the season,” which I have assembled based on player statistics from whoscored.com, OPTA and transfermarkt.co.uk.
The first (and most important) is based on performances in the Premier League, with the second based on performances in the Europa League. The figures below the player’s names are their ratings from whoscored.com, which are based on a range of performance metrics based on OPTA stats. To put these into some kind of perspective, whoscored’s most highly rated Premier League goalkeeper last season was Sunderland’s Simon Mignolet with an average of 7.0. In defence it was Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen with 7.6 and in midfield the honours were shared between Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla and Tottenham’s Gareth Bale, both with 7.9. Finally, up front, Liverpool’s Luis Suarez narrowly pipped Manchester United’s Robin van Persie (7.8) with his 7.9 rating.
Getting back to Newcastle United though, although the goalkeepers, defenders and strikers were pretty straightforward overall, things became more complicated when it came to midfielders who had been played in several different positions during the season, gaining different ratings in different positions. However, after some work, I have finally managed to sort it out. (more…)
A tough climax to a tough season.Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sun 19th May, 2013. Kick off: 4.00pm. Referee: Howard Webb (Sheffield). UK TV: Sky Sports 1.
Hello, good afternoon and welcome to our final match banter of the season!
Of course, this game sees us facing Arsenal at St James’ Park. Thankfully, it will not be a do or die game for Premier League survival against very stiff opposition thanks to our previous 1-2 victory against the not quite so stiff Queens Park Rangers – That would have been just too much to bear. Even so, the fact that we have been teetering on the abyss so close to the end of the season is indicative of what a disappointing season we’ve had.
Before I carry on though, just a quick note to let you know that I will actually be at the game this time. Hence, I might not be posting the team sheets, links to watch the game online etc as I usually do. I will try, though if some of you regulars could help out by posting the teams, that would be most appreciated! Alternatively, they can be found on the club’s official website
