In demand?Much speculation surrounds Newcastle United’s Demba Ba with rumours of release clauses, interested clubs and new contract offers from Newcastle. So will Demba Ba still be at Newcastle United next season?
Demba Ba has been hailed as the Premiership’s best buy of the season. This and his 16 goals for us this season has obviously attracted a certain amount of attention and we keep reading rumours about clubs being after him.
Blabbermouth Redknapp went on record to say that there’s a release clause in Ba’s contract that might make it easier for clubs to try and swipe him away from us at the end of the season. Redknapp seemed to take a particular delight in publicising that one but I’m sure Ba’s agent would have made that common knowledge amongst clubs anyway, if it wasn’t already.
The latest rumour from The Sun suggests that we’ve offered Ba a new 4-year contract with a much improved salary and terms. The Sun alleges that his salary will rise from £35k/week to £50k/week and that he will also get a £5m signing on fee paid over the 4 years. That works out at about £74k a week, which is not bad although he would probably get offered more by the alleged ‘richer’ Premier League teams if they were interested (Chelsea, Spurs, Man City … maybe Liverpool). Of course any speculation about our alleged offer and the monetary sums suggested depends upon The Sun’s report being true and it could of course be complete twaddle. (more…)
Alan Pardew - Silver supremo? Or Grey gob*****?As we look towards our game against Norwich City, Alan Pardew’s 51st Premiership game as Newcastle United’s manager, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to look back on his time so far and see what we have learned since he arrived at St James’ Park.
The Silver Supremo’s first game, a 3-1 victory against Liverpool, was certainly a good start, as was his eleven game unbeaten run at the beginning of this season. Despite this, he still has his detractors, as well as those on the opposite side. Let’s take a look at the long term picture of what he has achieved in terms of results, and also touch on some of what we have learned about his style of play.
Statistics
I suppose that the best place to start would be to take a look at the statistics of those first 50 games to give us some kind of reference, so here goes! (more…)
Newcastle United: £32.6 million profit after player trading.Newcastle United’s annual accounts were finally released to the public today by Companies House.
These, of course, are the accounts which cover last season, our first since being promoted back to the Premiership at the first attempt. As previously announced in a PR statement by the club’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias, operating losses before player trading fell to -£3.9 million, which is significantly down from a loss of £33.5 million for the period which covered our season in the Championship. However, the club’s overall profit after player trading was a mighty £32.6 million. This of course was due largely to one man, not Mike Ashley, or Derek Llambias, but Andy Carroll, whose sale to Liverpool FC brought in a huge £35 million to the club’s coffers. This is up from a loss of -£17.1 million in the previous year. According to the report, this profit “has been transferred to the club’s reserves.”
Newcastle United debt
On the matter of the club’s debts the report and financial statements reports:
“The overall level of net debt (including shareholder support loans and net of cash) has fallen from £150 million to £130.5 million.”
Basically, this figure is a £140 million pound debt to the club’s owner, Mr. M.J.W. Ashley, minus a positive bank cash balance of £9.5 million. This is still significantly higher than it was when Mr. Ashley took over the club in 2007, when it was around £70 million. However, this £70 million figure did not include the mortgage on the ground which had to be paid off, which took the true level of debt to around £124 million. (more…)
Derek Llambias: The PR offensive continues.As Mike Ashley’s current PR offensive continues apace, Newcastle United’s managing director, Derek Llambias, claimed that the club have had some “nibbles” from “tyre kickers” expressing interest in the club’s stadium naming rights offer.
In the latest chapter of the offensive, planned on the back of an announcement of reduced losses in the club’s annual accounts after the sale of Andy Carroll, he claimed to “sympathise” with fans concerned over the stadium’s latest name change. I’m flattered to say that he also took a swipe at my own hypothesis as outlined in several previous stories on this blog. My hypothesis being that the sponsorship offer, including the highly questionable “showcase” idea, has broken so many rules of the golden rules of sponsorship, and is so overpriced in comparison to similar sponsorship deals (with one rather dubious exception in the North West), that it seems to be a ruse, something which has been planned to fail from the start, as it has for well over two years so far to Sports Direct’s benefit. (more…)
Out of favour?Newcastle United are going through (what is so far) a short spell without a win, so what can be done to pull us out of that?
We’re in the midst of a slightly disappointing run. Since our 5-0 thrashing from Spurs we’ve only managed two draws. We seemed to lack resilience and second-half ‘attitude’ against Wolves and threw away a 2-0 lead. Against the mackems it was the other way around and we clawed our way back into the game in the second half to snatch a draw. We’re up against Arsenal next of course and I can’t help but feel pessimistic about our chances of coming away from The Emirates with any points.
So what can we do to improve?
One of the criticisms of the team I’ve heard a lot is that our midfield plays too deep and this isolates our strikers a bit, and it has been suggested that introducing Ben Arfa into the mix helps to alleviate this problem. Yet Alan Pardew seems reluctant to start with Benny and has insinuated that this may be because Benny doesn’t defend well enough and thus leaves us open at the other end. (more…)
