I know everyone thinks their club is the best but come on, get real please. It's not 1996, there is nothing special to an outsider about Newcastle United these days.
I have to agree. What glamour? What mystique? This is not the mid 90s any more. Bentley would have been, what, 10 years old then? Footballers these days just want to play at the highest level. If you're not in the CL, there's a f****** huge gap to bridge.
The only club outside the top four with a chance of signing him, imho, is Spurs, and that is because they are in London, which is more of a factor these days than it was before. And that's still asking him to put his faith in a club which is struggling to break the top half of the table, let alone the Champions League.
Mock all you want but I still stand by the statement that Newcastle United is a bigger pull than the likes of Villa or Everton. We still have that Mystique, whether you like it or not, that your clubs just can't match. The media is actually a good barometer for this. TBH the goings on at Villa or Everton hardly register on the interest level but when the tea lady at NUFC sneezes there's a story written about it.
Did Milner almost go to Villa as a step up ? What about Nobby's remarks when he returned, having been at both clubs he knew damn fine which one was the bigger.
Arteta's complaing in the papers today that he would be in the Spain squad if he played for a bigger club.
Spurs are the only team outside the top four that is a bigger draw than us at the moment. Most people inside and outside of football reguard the likes of Villa and Everton as also rans, they are not in the foreseeable future going to challenge for the major honours. While the likes of Spurs and ourselves have the potential under the right circumstances to break the top 4 dominance. Villa and Everton are very much "so what" clubs in my mind. That may sound condersending but I really don't give a damn what happens to them unfortunately for you guys my feeling is not uncommon.
Leaving out any previous support for their club and assuming both clubs are in Europe or not in Europe, the player has no preference for which manager he plays for or area he lives in and the same assurances have been given on first team football. Do you honestly think most players would choose Villa or Everton over Newcastle ? I seriously doubt that would be the case, in fact I would be a little embarrased if I were a supporter of one of those clubs that despite NUFC atrocious form over the last few seasons and the upturn in form shown my own team, that my club still can not out draw them !!
Mystique? Bollocks, the reason we've been in the press more than the likes of villa and everton is because of our laughable instability as a club. Being newsworthy isn't enough to draw a player like bentley to us, the media have moulded us into almost a laughing stock and to wrecklessly say we have a bigger pull than clubs like villa and everton (both of which have extremely competent mangers, good fanbases plus financial backing aswell.. not to mention being exponentially more stable and garnering higher league finishes for years on end now) based on a certain 'je-ne-sais-qua' is just you bringing your own biases into the equation.
Lets face it, we're not scrapping with the mancs for the trophy, and yes we're on the up but we need at least a season to prove to the those outside of newcastle that we ARE a major force again, because quite frankly we aren't and haven't been for a long long time. If we get on a good run and put on a showcase of exciting football then the chances of a player of bentley's calibre sitting up and taking notice are less slim, but without doing that we simply don't have more of an allure than those other clubs you mentioned.
On youtube rewatching that spectacular goal bergkamp scored against us and i just happen to find this comment: