Shhhh.... Be quiet.You can blame any multitude of reasons for why there doesn’t appear to be much going on at Newcastle right now, but you can be rest assured that things will be steadily ticking over behind the scenes.
You can blame the start of the World Cup for diverting media attention away from Newcastle United, or you could blame the shroud of secrecy that the statement has brought about, or you could just point your fingers at the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, there isn’t anything going on.
That last option sounds foolish to me, and the very notion that Chris Hughton will be sitting there in his office twiddling his thumbs is amusing to say the least. But the bottom line is that things will be happening at Newcastle, things that we don’t even have a hint of yet. (more…)
Krul: One of many talents at our disposal.It is becoming increasingly apparent that Newcastle United are bulding up quite a collection of young players, some of which have already been monitored by some of the biggest clubs in Europe.
Now we have another two youngsters that could potentially end up at the academy in the shape of Frenchman Martin Mimoun and Swedish goalkeeper Sulejmen Sarajlic, the latter spent the last week on trial with us in fact. You need to only look back a short while and see we reached the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup, something that hasn’t done for quite a while on Tyneside, and you have to admit that with the players coming through the academy the future looks bright.
The likes of Tim Krul, Tamas Kadar, Haris Vuckic and Nile Ranger are being touted as the next generation of Toon superstars, which they may well turn out to be. It’s an awfully risky strategy though, and focusing purely on youth is a potential disaster waiting to happen. I’m not rubbishing the strategy as it’s a sound, common sense and long-term plan for the future which should have been sorted out many years ago but wasn’t. What we need is sound investment in players for the future, and sound investment in players for next season. (more…)
Spinderella?In another ‘exclusive’ leak from the club, apparently a ‘senior United’ source has been speaking to The Journal, revealing that Newcastle is losing around £500,000 a week at the moment. Now forgive me for doing some simple maths but that equates to roughly £25m a year, which is coincidentally what the NoTW reported over the weekend as per an earlier article on here.
Which begs the question, is that because there’s some truth in it or is it because Mr Edwards has just rehashed the same thread? As they state in the article, The Journal wrote before Christmas that Ashley was loaning the club £20m cover running costs, following the drop in revenue and the limit on cutbacks to wages, which has enabled Hughton to maintain a decent squad.
Some fairly erudite contributors to this site have estimated that rather than struggling to breakeven, Ashley might even be turning a small profit, with the increase in crowds. And these are the people who aren’t necessarily ‘anti-Ashley’ as it were. Yet the feed from the club is, hardly surprisingly, somewhat different. (more…)
Mike Ashley: £7 million pounds per month claim NUST.On the NUST’s website today, Tony Stephenson claimed a source had told the NUST that Ashley has performed the financial miracle of turning a company which lost over £20 million last year, into a company which was now making as much as £7 million per month. This would be the equivalent of approximately £84 million per annum, with a turnover that is almost half as much as it was in the preceding year.
Mr Richardson was writing about this seemingly remarkable feat in a preamble encouraging members to fill out the Trust’s latest survey, which, say the Trust:
“will be used to show interested potential partners the strength of feeling in the city and beyond about the current regime – the answers you give will form the basis of potential negotiations but are not binding on you. Its a massive marketing exercise to see if the fans are up for it.”
Later on in the piece, Mr Richardson goes on to stress: (more…)
Will Toon be walking in a Kinnear wonderland once again?In an interview with the BBC’s ‘Radio Five Live’, Joe Kinnear has sensationally claimed that Mike Ashley has offered him another two year contract at the club, and added that he is “mulling it over”. He also added that it would still take another three months to fully recover from his triple heart bypass, performed after he complained of severe hypertensive symptoms during last season’s visit to West Bromwich Albion. Joe said:
“I have been offered a two-year contract and it is something I am mulling over at the present time.
“I have told Mike I am not going to go back to football for at least another three months and we will look at the situation then.
“I told him I would refuse to go back for pre-season friendlies as I was not up to it for medical reasons.
“I needed to take time out and re-assess the situation and take it from there. But obviously in another three months the picture might be completely different.
“In the meantime if Newcastle feel the need to go and get another manager then so be it.” (more…)
