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Mike Ashley

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afar

afar

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Posted

If he does sell got a feeling it  will come out of the blue, may have been long in the process but only comes to light weeks or even days before it actually happens.  We'll see, he's certainly set the club up to be easily saleable should he wish to offload.

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Guest reefatoon

Guest reefatoon

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Quick Rafa, get some extra cash off him while he is out power drinking his victory. Rifle through his pockets while he is chundering in the fireplace.

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HaydnNUFC

HaydnNUFC

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http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/15437872.Scott_Wilson_Column__Newcastle_and_Sunderland_pay_the_price_for_owners_who_want_to_leave___while_Middlesbrough_continue_to_splash_the_cash/

 

Scott Wilson Column: Newcastle and Sunderland pay the price for owners who want to leave - while Middlesbrough continue to splash the cash

 

NEWCASTLE UNITED and Sunderland have always had much more in common than their supporters would like to admit, but rarely have the parallels between the two clubs been as apparent as this summer.

 

While Middlesbrough spend money as if it is going out fashion, with the impending arrival of striker Ashley Fletcher set to take their summer spending to close to £40m, Newcastle and Sunderland find themselves scratching around in the footballing equivalent of the bargain bin.

 

On the same day that Boro were agreeing a £6.5m deal with West Ham for Fletcher, Newcastle were engineering an unusual agreement with Borussia Dortmund that will see them loan Spanish youngster Mikel Merino for a season, with an obligation to complete a permanent deal next summer no matter what happens in the next 12 months. Why such a convoluted deal? Presumably because it enables Newcastle to spread their limited transfer budget across a longer period, and might mean Rafael Benitez has an extra million pound or two to spend this summer.

 

Simon Grayson might not even have that, and while Sunderland have signed plenty of players since their new boss was appointed, they have moved to the Stadium of Light for a relative pittance. Aiden McGeady, James Vaughan and Jason Steele cost a cumulative £1.25m between them, and Sunderland were only able to sign Lewis Grabban on loan because his parent club, Bournemouth, agreed to stump up two-thirds of his wages.

 

Why the contrast in spending power? Newcastle’s financial position has been damaged by their absence from the Premier League last season, while Sunderland are paying the price for a succession of dreadful decisions that have resulted in a £110m debt. Middlesbrough, having been run on a relatively even keel for the last couple of decades, are able to take full advantage of the parachute payments that accompany relegation from the top-flight.

 

All those factors are important, but to a large extent, the situation the North-East’s big three clubs find themselves in is a reflection of the attitude of the person who owns them.

 

Mike Ashley and Ellis Short want to sell up, or at the very least attract outside investment, and are therefore extremely reluctant to throw more good money after bad. Steve Gibson was offered the chance to strike a deal with a Chinese business group last season, but opted to walk away because he didn’t think it was in Boro’s best interests. Two opposite ends of the spectrum; two very different transfer policies this summer as a result.

 

Ashley’s position is the most controversial, as the sportswear magnate appeared to suggest there would be up to £100m available to Benitez when he broke his silence after the Newcastle boss agreed to remain in his current role at the start of the summer.

 

Ashley’s statement claimed Benitez would be given “every last penny that the club generates through promotion, players sales and other means in order to build for next season”. That was interpreted as a pledge to support the kind of spending that might have seen Newcastle splashing out £20-30m on a new centre-forward, but it is becoming increasingly clear that such figures are beyond the Magpies’ reach.

 

There will be no £30m striker this summer – instead Benitez has been forced to concede that he will have to be creative to improve his squad, moving players out in order to free up space on the squad list and wage bill, and spreading the cost of deals as thinly as possible in order to plug as many holes as he can.

 

Ashley and managing director Lee Charnley can wriggle out of their previous pledge by claiming that the funds accrued through promotion are being spent on wages and loan fees as well as transfer payments, but it still feels like yet another broken promise.

 

Benitez probably suspected as much at the start of the summer, hence his intense disappointment when proposed deals for Willy Caballero and Tammy Abraham fell through. Even at that stage, you sense he feared his best chance of signing the type of players he wanted had disappeared.

 

It needn’t be that way, but having flagged up his desire to sell at least some of his shareholding earlier in the summer, Ashley is clearly in no mood to loosen the purse strings. That is his prerogative, but having failed to pick up on the warning signs when Newcastle were relegated on two separate occasions on his watch, there has to be a fear that Ashley is making the same mistakes again. If you try to do things on the cheap in the Premier League, you generally get found out.

 

In fairness to Short, he gave up trying to hide his unwillingness to invest for growth years ago. He is still pumping in money to keep Sunderland afloat, but any desire to speculate to accumulate disappeared when the losses continued to pile up during successive previous regimes.

 

Earlier this summer, Sunderland banked £30m from the sale of Jordan Pickford, but that money has clearly disappeared into the vast black hole that Short has been plugging with his own cash.

 

Again, he is well within his rights to take that course of action, and it is hard to be too critical of someone who would sell and up sticks tomorrow if he could find anyone willing to pay him a reasonable price.

 

But it still feels like the wrong course of action given how easily clubs can become trapped in a downward spiral following their relegation into the Championship. Even the most blinkered Sunderland fan would not have been expecting £40-50m of spending this summer, but given Short’s personal wealth, would it really be asking too much to provide Grayson with £10m-or-so to strengthen his squad?

 

Perhaps if Lamine Kone or Jeremain Lens leave for that kind of figure in the next few weeks, Grayson’s transfer kitty will increase? Alternatively, of course, the debt mountain might simply decrease a little more.

 

The contrast with events at Middlesbrough is stark, and while money cannot guarantee success at any level of the game, the fact that Boro are 6-1 favourites for the Championship title while Sunderland can be backed at 20-1 in places seems about right.

 

Newcastle, incidentally, are 7-2 to be relegated. It might seem unnecessarily downbeat to point that out before the season has even begun, but since the euphoria of May’s promotion, sights have had to be lowered. Survival will be something of an achievement this season, but that is what happens when you are the plaything of an absentee owner who has lost interest in his toy. Sunderland fans know that; supporters of Boro, on the other hand, should be thankful for their lot.

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BottledDog

BottledDog

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"intense disappointment when proposed deals for Willy Caballero and Tammy Abraham fell through"

 

Fair play, it could still be the case that the doomsayers are right and we are screwed. But as far as evidence goes that Ashley has reneged on giving Rafa money to spend yet still only able to give the examples of Caballero (going on a free) to Chelsea, and missing out on a loan player from Chelsea seems, well... a bit shit tbh Mr Wilson.

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Kanji

Kanji

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Boro splashing cash hasn't necessarily done anything for them but yo-yo about.

 

Article should be more about how 3 of these of clubs have been seemingly shit for far too long and the owners have gotten it wrong more often than not and it's absolutely unfair to the supporters of these clubs who have to suffer through this shit.

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loki679

loki679

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"intense disappointment when proposed deals for Willy Caballero and Tammy Abraham fell through"

 

Fair play, it could still be the case that the doomsayers are right and we are screwed. But as far as evidence goes that Ashley has reneged on giving Rafa money to spend yet still only able to give the examples of Caballero (going on a free) to Chelsea, and missing out on a loan player from Chelsea seems, well... a bit shit tbh Mr Wilson.

 

Aye, strange examples to choose.  If we can't even afford a free transfer then we're certainly knacked.

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loki679

loki679

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Surely that ties in with our persistent reluctance to give decent wages and contract lengths to players over 30, though?

 

Possibly but you'd like to think that even our hierarchy know that it's a bit different for keepers. 

 

I wasn't really commenting on the details of the deals though, just seems strange to choose two deals which would be fairly low cost and low risk (in this day and age) on which to make a point about our transfer strategy or funds.

 

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Minhosa

Minhosa

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40727521

 

Wins court case. Out on the lash tonight to lay some new bets.

 

:lol: Poor f***er that took him to court was paid £1m originally and he's been hit with over £2.5m worth of legal costs.

 

Almost nailed on that he was in the right too. Poor c***.

 

Guessing it's not that nailed on as he lost in court.

 

No coincidence that the guy validating Ashley's view is the current Sports Direct Chairman.

 

'I didn't hear anything Keith, did you?'

 

You do realise that very wealthy people, with very expensive lawyers, have a habit of winning in court in situations where you or I would not likely be as successful, right?

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LoveItIfWeBeatU

LoveItIfWeBeatU

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I can't see where any investment will come from. Unless a buyer is happy to lose money there won't be a buyer. Which club makes a profit? Which club breaks even? In this time of mega money TV deals most clubs still don't turn much profit if at all. I wouldn't trust a consortium as they'd probably be wanting to make money which doesn't really happen. Our only hope would be a sovereign country investing like Man City have or a multi billionaire who isn't looking to make a profit.

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Eddy Chibas

Eddy Chibas

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WHy would you not get a written contract from Ashley. He's an absolute snidey bandit.  More fool the idiot for dealing with the devil.

 

:thup:. Everything triple checked and checked again.

 

Suppliers of product, back in the early days before ShitDirect took off, weren't careful enough in their dealings with him either. I suppose he was a relatively unknown fraudster back then, in comparison to his standing today a nightmare to deal with. Wholesale prices/delivery charges etc agreed to informally meant nothing, when doing business with a bloke who was prepared to order his staff to block a delivery truck's access out (with their own cars) as a way of strong arming suppliers into renegotiating terms that were already agreed to.

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