Forgive him his sins?Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has certainly presided over a good start to this 2011/2012 season, but how – if at all – does this alter our opinion of the man?
We’re over a 5th of the way through the season and sitting proudly in 4th position in the Premier League. Somewhere along the line something has gone right.
Whilst it’s right that the owner of a football club has to take the ultimate responsibility for failure, it’s also right that he receives the plaudits when things go well. So for getting us into 4th place at this juncture I have to say well done to Mike Ashley. It’s well done to the manager and the players too, but the over all architect is Ashley, so he should get the bulk of the kudos for things just as he received the bulk of the tongue-lashing when he got us relegated.
But hold your horses Hughy, I hear you saying, we’re only 7 games in, have arguably played ‘easier’ teams and a lot can wrong. True enough and then I’ll no doubt be back to stick the boot in with everyone else if it all goes pear-shaped. (more…)
Tim Krul: A fine exampleI think it’s safe to say that recently Tim Krul has been on fire, I believe that he has been instrumental to the best defence in the Premiership so far.
Danny Simpson doesn’t turn into a fantastic left back overnight, it’s Timmy who won the 3 points for us at Wolves with a couple of ridiculously good double saves, some of which a certain Mr S.Given would be proud of.
I remember that away game against Palermo when he made his debut so many years ago, whilst looking jittery (to be fair it was a hell of a game to be thrown into) he made some cracking saves, and if memory serves me right, a certain Albert Luque scored to bring home an away win.
With Tim having “matured” so to speak, we must look again to our youngsters to see who else we can promote through the ranks. I think it’s fair to say that the Toon will drop down the league as time goes on, so why not try and integrate a few younguns into the team if and when it can be permitted. (more…)
More cash for the club?In my previous blog “The Lesser of Two Evils” many people commented that Mike Ashley has no commitment to NUFC and will sell up as soon as he gets the right offer.
The question that has to be asked then, is, “How attractive is Newcastle United for a takeover?”
If you imagine yourself as a potential investor of NUFC you have to admit that it does look an attractive business move. A huge loyal fan base, who despite their misgivings of the current ownership are relatively content at the moment. All the club debt is out in the open, in a manageable way and is a relatively small given the revenue of the club. The team is playing well and we are flying high in the leagues and cup competitions, if we had beaten West Brom last season we would have only been a few places short of Europe.
Once that debt is cleared (hopefully in a few years) provided we continue to reside in the Premier League we could prove to be quite profitable on a long term investment.
The relegation was fantastic for a new potential owner; all the dead wood and high earners are almost out of Tyneside (Alan Smith I’m looking at you) with a new sensible wage structure and transfer policy in place. I’d argue that maybe another £20 million in transfer fees to get us a new Striker and Right Back / Centre Back would set the team up for a few years; our squad is not in need of a complete overhaul as we have a relatively young squad. (more…)
£13m+, allegedlyNewcastle United may need to find £13m+ if they want to bring Pappis Demba Cisse to the club in the January transfer window.
Having allegedly had a £10m bid for Papiss Demba Cisse rejected in the summer transfer window, it would seem that Newcastle will have to find more than that if they want to bring the striker to St James’ Park in January. Furthermore, we’d find ourselves competing with the Mackems for his signature from Freiburg.
Cisse definitely wants to move on from the German club and recently told German radio:
“I want to leave. I want to try to play at a different level.”
And Freiburg chairman Fritz Keller is fairly pragmatic about the matter, saying:
“We are all still pretty calm, the boy has been doing a little in-house advertising, that’s legitimate.
“As long as he is scoring goals for us, then things are very well.” (more…)
These embarrassing pictures really need to be updated now.Of course, the League Cup is regarded as the lowest rung of the “major” trophies.
Conventional wisdom in the highest echelon of English football, ie the Premiership clubs and especially the top Premiership clubs, is that it gives them a chance to give their precocious bairns who aren’t quite “ready” yet a chance for some kind of meaningful competition. It is also a chance to dust down old cloggers kept in case of emergency and give them a chance keep their hands, or more correctly perhaps, their feet in, lest they spend so long on the sidelines that they seize up with arthritis, or forget that they were ever footballers on the first place.
There are undoubetedly reasons for this, which is why top managers who have forgotten more about football than I will ever know treat it in exactly this way. It is true for the lower Premiership clubs that survival in the division comes above everything for the financial reasons I’m sure you all know, and the teams at the other end have much bigger fish to fry, ie competing for the greatest prizes of all, the League and the Champion’s League. However, conventional wisdom can sometimes be so prevalent that the most productive thing in the long term can actually be to go against the grain, to break the existing paradigm quite simply because hardly anyone else is doing it. (more…)
