Every player has a price.If we were to listen to the naysayers and those in desperate need of a long course of anti-depressants, the starting XI will be gone come the summer transfer window.
We have always been a selling club, will always be a selling club and unless Ashley leaves, we will remain a selling club. After all, the proof is in the pudding and so far Ashley is just looking to line his pocket with gold. A nugget of truth that somehow ties into todays gutless performance – everybody is for sale. Or something.
The fact is, we aren’t. I know, it’s incredible to think that, but we aren’t a selling club. This season we have sold Andy Carroll.
No, that isn’t a pause for dramatic effect; that’s actually the only sale we’ve had this season. Yes, players have been sent on loan. Yes, players are ‘rumoured’ to be leaving, but if paper talk was 100% true then we’d have Messi and Ronaldo roaming the midfield with Podolski knocking in 80 goals a season and a bench made up of Gervhinho, Hulk, Robben and Shola Ameobi. (more…)
£20m available for players. Maybe.Press speculation suggests that Alan Pardew will be given £20m to spend on players at Newcastle United in the summer.
If Louise Taylor of the Guardian is to be believed, Alan Pardew will have £20m of the £35m we got for Andy Carroll to spend in the summer. Taylor doesn’t say how she knows that and merely states it as fact, so there may or may not be some truth in it.
Apparently the remaining £15m will go on players’ wages.
As part of the article, Alan Pardew reflects on the sale of Carroll:
“Selling Andy was a watershed moment. You couldn’t tell what would happen. It was a bit like Kenny Dalglish going back to Liverpool – that could have been a disaster but proved the opposite.
“Fortunately we stepped up to the challenge and it’s definitely been good for some of our players. Our fans might be looking at strikers like Shola and Peter in a different light now.” (more…)
Llambias: Foamin' ower Keegan!In the latest salvo of the war of words between Newcastle United’s Managing Director, Derek Llambias, and former player and manager, Kevin Keegan, Llambias has responded to Keegan’s comments on the current regime at St James’s Park. Llambias launched a blistering attack, or, if you will, a ‘llambasting’ of the Mighty Mouse.
He was responding to comments from Keegan in which he suggested that current manager, Alan Pardew, wouldn’t see any of the £30-£35 million raised by the club from the sale of striker, Andy Carroll, to Liverpool.
Speaking in an intererview with the BBC’s “Radio Five Live”, Keegan remarked:
“I saw an interview with Alan Pardew where he said he hoped to get some of the £35m and I thought ‘Alan, you ain’t going to get any of that’.”
In the interview Keegan was referring to, Pardew said:
“The one thing I said to Mike yesterday was, ‘Look, if this boy [Carroll] is going to go, this money has to be reinvested in the team, all of it’, and he has assured me of that.
“For the Newcastle fan, that is the most important message I can give today, that all that money will be used.”
Getting back to Keegan though, on the logic of the Carroll sale, he then added: (more…)
Your move MikeThe debate goes on about what Newcastle United Owner Mike Ashley will spend in the summer, but we really won’t know until then. Bobby Moncur counters Keegan’s recent statement as ‘ill-advised’ and is – like me – in the ‘wait and see’ camp.
Kevin Keegan recently came out and said that Alan Pardew would see nowt of the £35m the club got for Andy Carroll and he may yet be right.
But other Newcastle ‘legends’, such as Bobby Moncur, have come down on the other side of the argument, guessing that Ashley might get his wallet out for more than a swift ‘all on red’ bet at the casino.
Just a tangent for a second (although one relevant to Newcastle for a change), but I walked into a bar earlier in the week. Hang on, that sounds like a joke: did I say ‘ouch’, meet a talking dog or a man with a large green head? No, actually, what I meant to say was I went to the pub on Monday for a meeting with my local village cricket club (rebels all, terrorists to a man) and met a new chap wanting to join the club who claimed to be a batsman and a Blackburn supporter. (more…)
Cautiously optimistic?Newcastle United captain Kevin Nolan reveals he’s ‘hopeful’ about the future of the club, whilst Alan Pardew praises Nolan as a better player than he thought he was.
Kevin Nolan’s goal against Bolton on Saturday means he now has 11 for the season, which is not bad for a midfielder, albeit one that often slots in close behind the striker(s).
Personally I find Nolan a bit frustrating. He sometimes seems to ‘disappear’ for large portions of the game in terms of his general midfield contribution, but he frequently ‘reappears’ to put the ball in the back of the net, which is not to be sniffed at. Although feel free to sniff if you wish – I’m not a man to stop professional sniffers.
Nolan seems to be cautiously optimistic about the future of the club in the hands of Ashley and his bespectacled sidekick, particularly after the club managed to sign Cheick Tiote until 2017. Nolan said:
“I hope and I think that Mike and Derek are in it for the long haul here.
“We’re all working together to get Newcastle back where it belongs. It’s going to be bit by bit and we can’t get carried away but it will be nice when they get us back. They can sit and smile knowing they’ve worked so hard.
“All we’ve asked for is a bit of stability and giving lads new contracts when they deserve it.
“Hopefully we can build a team for the future around Cheik.” (more…)
