Mike Ashley

[Dave]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

[themanupstairs]

At what point did llambias qualify as a sound judge of footballing talent?

 

A casino manager until a few years back & now he`s sudenly re-invented as an almost sage like figure offering opinions on the playing staff that are quite clearly bullshit.

 

I`m not sure what worries me more: Either this is his opinion & transfer policy is being infuenced by such, or this is Pardews thoughts-by proxy.

 

I'm pretty sure they're learning about the business of football as they go along. Not a bad idea in theory, unless you're learning from the wrong people.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

[Ryan_Taylor]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

 

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-cSpYxwXnrDXxIDvlFfAzuc6zjx7g8sBC84HyMPG3M82jQS5uHmmY1nwVVg

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

if he's not going to pay for more than 11 players worthy of a place in the starting lineup then he should, in theory, at least pay to employ some fitness and conditioning staff with half an idea on what their job involves.

 

Some of it might be bad luck, but ffs you can't help but wonder why we pick up injuries so easily.

[johnnypd]

Considering he always misses half a season and isn't THAT good can we class Taylor as being half-purple? let's say, mauve?

[BottledDog]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

[BottledDog]

I doubt Llambias claims to be a judge of footballing talent. He has Pardew and Carr for that.

 

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-cSpYxwXnrDXxIDvlFfAzuc6zjx7g8sBC84HyMPG3M82jQS5uHmmY1nwVVg

 

Thought you didn't think he had any say, but if we're going down that route...

 

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sites/default/files/imagecache/ts_news_article_header_image/Demba_Ba_0.jpg

[pi_D]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life. Jeez.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

Quit sucking all the joy out of life. Jeez.

 

We clearly have a structure where we feel we can assign a certain amount of the budget to those on higher wages, and like every club it is difficult to justify having highly paid players sitting on the bench (or even in the reserves ala Xisco). Llambias just tried to simplify things in answer to a question. Of course we're flexible. Of course things change.

 

Far too sensible a view that.

[arnonel]

One thing I dont understand about the current structure.

 

If the purpose is to buy low, so that we can sell high later.

 

Surely that means then, that if we have more stock, we stand more chance to make money?

In Sports Direct terms: Right now we only have a few shirts in the shop. We need more shirts, else we wont hit revenue targets.

 

[Dave]

Define 'highly paid'.

 

A useful comparison might be the Spurs squad, which I'm pretty sure was the last club held up as the one we are trying to emulate.

[Benwell Lad]

So this latest crisis we're in makes it open season to question/criticise/abuse Ashley's ownership and his financial strategy again.

That's fine of course, but what is the suggested alternative this time, bearing in mind he won't be changing course any time soon ?

Is it fairy godmother Arabs, fanzine editors wanting our pension pots or perhaps another "Geordie" knight in shining armour dashing to our rescue?

[Dave]

Eh? There is no alternative. All we're doing is discussed the relative merits.

[steve_69]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no fucker else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be shit hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

[BottledDog]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no fucker else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be shit hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

Good is gonna be great. Bassong x 2.

[nufc4eva]

Obviously we need the policy to be flexible so that we can sign Ba's replacement because we can't make do with Cisse, Shola and no f***er else.

However, beyond that I'd be happy for us to sign a relatively young, talented CB to replace Williamson rather than another purple, similar to when we signed Bassong. He was originally bought as backup but turned out to be s*** hot.

 

If our scouting network is that good why haven't we unearthed another Bassong or two?  There must be plenty of them out there.

 

 

In some respects all we need are a handful of Purple players such as Colo,Cabaye, Ben Arfa, Cisse etc and the rest to be competent football players not superstars. Likes of everton have a few handy players in Baines, Fellaini and Pienaar, Jelavic the rest are competent but would struggle if just dropped into our team imho

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

If I couldn't afford to run my car, I'd sell it.  If he can't afford to run a football club, then put us up for sale.

 

Still utterly laughable that for a businessman, this clown didn't conduct due diligence.

[bealios]

If the Financial Fair Play rules are adhered to then anyone should be able to afford to run a football club, it should run itself. The extortionate TV deal will help. Buying it in the first place is a different thing of course.

 

Not that I think the rules will be enforced properly, or that FIFA will have the balls to stand up to a big club entering into dodgy sponsorship deals with associates of its owners (I'm looking at you Man City...)

[AlanSkÃrare]

So the 'purples' we have right now:

 

Krul

Coloccini

Taylor

Debuchy

Santon

Cabaye

Anita

Tiote

Ben Arfa

Gutierrez

Cisse

 

And people are hoping we'll bring more players in this month, right? That'll require contradicting themselves once again then.

 

I wouldn't worry about that. It's what they do.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

If I couldn't afford to run my car, I'd sell it.  If he can't afford to run a football club, then put us up for sale.

 

Still utterly laughable that for a businessman, this clown didn't conduct due diligence.

 

He put us up for sale a couple of times, it's for the benefit of everyone that he knuckled down after not finding a buyer.

[Guest neesy111]

One of the reasons he couldn't find a buyer was because of the mismanagement he did before that regarding our ridiculous wage bill.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

One of the reasons he couldn't find a buyer was because of the mismanagement he did before that regarding our ridiculous wage bill.

 

Probably, yep. Just one of the reasons though.

[Guest bimpy474]

Cheers guys. I thought that was it. So he needs to take £100m or so out before he takes any profit for himself, unless he sells for more than he bought it for + the whatevers left of the debts he paid off.

 

We are stuck with this bloke for a while longer aren't we

 

One thing's for sure, our approach to transfers isn't going to change any time soon (and rightly so in many regards), so with the mega cash bonanza next season he'll be able to claw that back much more quickly than up to this point.

 

If we stay up.

 

I'm with you on the transfers, i think we go about it the right way to an extent. But you mustn't refuse to buy to the detriment of the team, like we did in the summer.

 

I think this is where their lack of football knowledge kicks in, any fool knew we needed more players, all we got was some nonsense about purple players. Such non football speak from non football men.

 

I'm hoping they learn from each mistake. Every plane crash stops a hundred more, to steal a strange fact that floats about in my brain.

 

It's not "lack of football knowledge." Just a different set of priorities.

 

I think it's a mix of the two tbh. One goes with the other where them two are concerned.

[Unbelievable]

Let me start of by saying I applaud the general direction of financial stability, extensive scouting and looking for player value in the transfer policy that Mike Ashley has set out for the club, as I don't think the late spending spree that was overseen by his predecessor was sustainable and the results were hit and miss to say the least. His approach to running a football club has a lot of merits, and when things go well (as they did last season) he will get a lot of credit. However, if you look at our transfer and wage figures compared to other Premiership teams, it becomes clear that "last season" was a flash in the pan, and that our current season is about where you'd expect a club of our transfer activity/wage structure to be.

 

In terms of transfer fees, this is the Premiership league table for nett investment over the last five years, i.e. roughly since Ashley took over:

 

http://i.imgur.com/bBUiA.jpg

 

Source: http://transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/transfer-league-table-last-five-seasons.html

 

In terms of wage total, here's a fairly recent breakdown of wage totals of Premiership teams from the 2010/1011 season teams marked with an asterix are 2009/2010 figures):

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GD4P0rhmO2w/T2hAJj3JJmI/AAAAAAAAFcg/sXBXt61En_Q/s400/23%2BNewcastle%2BWages%2BLeague.jpg

 

Source: http://swissramble.blogspot.nl/2012/03/newcastle-united-life-in-northern-town.html

 

So 19th in terms of nett transfer investment and 13th for wage total. Now, I'm willing to accept that we can't compete with the oil rich sugar daddy clubs like Chelsea and Man City, or traditional powerhouses with huge commercial value such as Man U, Arsenal and Liverpool, but beyond that I fail to see why we shouldn't be able to compete financially for our transfer targets. If we are only willing to pay lower midtable transfer fees and wages, what else can we expect long term other than lower midtable Premiership finishes?

 

Serious questions have to be asked about what Ashley's level of ambition is for Newcastle United and why he bought us in the first place.

 

(Posted these figures earlier in the Remy thread when it went 100mph, so sorry if you've seen them before, but I thought it was worth sharing in the Ashley thread).