Gary Neville: The north is being cut adrift in English football

[Kaizero]

Worth its own thread, because what is the answer?

 

Playoffs.

Oh no you didn't.

 

It only fixes everything.

 

Just ignore me saying it, will you. Even when I agree with you, you just blank me

 

I was like

 

http://i.imgur.com/CFpuvZU.gif

 

tbh.

 

It would literally just straight up fix everything. Can't believe there was a point in time I didn't want play-offs.

[Unbelievable]

I'll just requote this here:

 

Gary Neville - quality as ever

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/competitions/premier-league/11891430/The-north-is-being-cut-adrift-in-English-football-and-I-fear-the-damage-may-be-permanent.html

 

Good read that. Depressing like.

 

Although I agree with the sentiment and the "bright lights" of London argument (see Remy) I also believe that another London factor has caused our demise, Ashley. Neville touched on it briefly by talking about the disconnect between owner, manager and fans, but I believe with an ambitious Owner in the mould of Hall when he first took over would see us still fighting near the top.

 

The main trouble is the money and never has it been truer than today that you speculate to accumulate and the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. There's so much money sloshing round at the top that makes it nay on impossible to challenge without finding the perfect chemistry between manager and players at a lower budget.

 

With Ashley in charge and his two-bit football-retarded MD we have absolutely no chance of stumbling across the perfect formula. Our mighty messiah will turn us into that which "he saved us from" the next Leeds or even Hull, we should be so lucky to be as good as Wednesday.

 

With Hall and Keegan we had vision and ambition and yes maybe some delusions of grandeur but we gave it a shot, we defied all the odds and we stood toe to toe with the best the country had to offer, that's why we could entice the players away from London. Who wants to play for "let's aim for 8th but top 10 would be awesome"? Who wants to play for the mighty McClaren?

 

London didn't take it away from us Ashley did.

 

Take a bow sir

[GM]

Cracking read that, but the question with Newcastle has to asked, did the demise start with Ashley or was it there with Shepard ?

 

Think the club has been on a downward spiral since John Hall stepped down as Chairman, we had the couple of years renaissance under Robson but the first killer blow was the appointment of Souness and since then we have fallen from grace at an alarming rate and now we are at the shipwrecked stage. Ashley had the chance to steady the ship under Keegan but blew it big time and now we are in a hopeless position with second rate stooges running the operation of the club and we are now a pitied shell at best and a laughing stock at worst. That's why some people on here really boil my piss as you just don't get it and don't appreciate how serious the situation is.

 

Then again, if you take a longer term view of things which acknowledges the club existed before 1990s, you might come to the view that the Hall/Shepherd/Keegan era was just a beautiful, ecstatic, extraordinary but fleeting aberration the allowed us to dare to dream. Bit like having an amazing affair with your dream woman, but ultimately having to recognise you were just a jammy git for a while and you have to return to the maudlin old battleaxe you actually married.

[Dave]

Ultimately, I think somewhere along the line we are going to have to start developing our own players of a decent standard.

 

Where are they though? There should've been dozens of talented new Geordie players by now. Or are we saying the gene pool has run dry in the North-East in recent years?

 

I think the article poses some essential, but very difficult questions. When I posted that article on my Facebook earlier, a Celtic-supporting mate of mine took issue with Neville saying that "maybe Gary Neville needs to open his eyes when he is in his employer's studio and he would see the reason for the decline. Clubs with no support are handed £100 million a year before they even need to sell a ticket because of the ludicrous money paid by Sky....take that money away and see what clubs produce the income needed to pay the wages".

 

What Sky et al's money has done is commodified football so that the top brands retain the dominant market share. It's almost like a cartel arrangement. In some ways, it feels like we're yearning for an old paradigm which no longer exists, nor could ever exist. It's bullshit to talk about Newcastle not being able to offer a good enough quality of life for the best talent - it's not changed much since the days we attracted great players like Ginola, Asprilla, Ferdinand, etc. What's changed is the extent of greed within the game. I think if you're looking for answers to that question, you need to look at Blatter, Platini, etc - it's all rotten to the core.

 

Thing is, where do Sky and BT get their money to spend on it in the first place? Of course a significant proportion of it comes from overseas, but an absolute shitload of it comes from mugs paying anything up to £100 per month for the TV packages. I used to be one of them.

 

They're paying ludicrous sums to the clubs because we enable them to.

[Deuce]

Even if Ashley were to go, which we all agree needs to happen, and be replaced by someone 100% committed to the club, someone who understands what the club means to the city and region, it wouldn't change our position much at all in the grand scheme of things. Star players aren't going to sign here because of a feel-good, happy go lucky atmosphere and fan passion. One of two things will need to change: massive, City-esque investment and/or a complete overhaul in the entire football system to encourage some kind of level playing field (yes, playoffs, a wage cap, etc.)

.

[GM]

Ultimately, I think somewhere along the line we are going to have to start developing our own players of a decent standard.

 

Where are they though? There should've been dozens of talented new Geordie players by now. Or are we saying the gene pool has run dry in the North-East in recent years?

 

I think the article poses some essential, but very difficult questions. When I posted that article on my Facebook earlier, a Celtic-supporting mate of mine took issue with Neville saying that "maybe Gary Neville needs to open his eyes when he is in his employer's studio and he would see the reason for the decline. Clubs with no support are handed £100 million a year before they even need to sell a ticket because of the ludicrous money paid by Sky....take that money away and see what clubs produce the income needed to pay the wages".

 

What Sky et al's money has done is commodified football so that the top brands retain the dominant market share. It's almost like a cartel arrangement. In some ways, it feels like we're yearning for an old paradigm which no longer exists, nor could ever exist. It's bullshit to talk about Newcastle not being able to offer a good enough quality of life for the best talent - it's not changed much since the days we attracted great players like Ginola, Asprilla, Ferdinand, etc. What's changed is the extent of greed within the game. I think if you're looking for answers to that question, you need to look at Blatter, Platini, etc - it's all rotten to the core.

 

Thing is, where do Sky and BT get their money to spend on it in the first place? Of course a significant proportion of it comes from overseas, but an absolute shitload of it comes from mugs paying anything up to £100 per month for the TV packages. I used to be one of them.

 

They're paying ludicrous sums to the clubs because we enable them to.

 

Yeah, you're right mate. We're to blame for it - all of us, me too. But like bemoaning the phone hacking scandal but we all lapped up the juicy gossip that was produced by their malpractice. I had to axe the Sky Sports package though, it was too big an indulgence and I just wasn't using it enough to justify the cost. Mind you, the whole Sky deal doesn't stack up for them, either. Mate of mine who works at Sky news was telling me how tough things are getting there these days as Sky are basically running their entire operation ragged trying to afford the football package they've paid for. They're basically on a colossal internal austerity drive, axing staff, cutting costs at every turn. I keep waiting for the Sky bubble to burst, but it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger....

[GM]

Even if Ashley were to go, which we all agree needs to happen, and be replaced by someone 100% committed to the club, someone who understands what the club means to the city and region, it wouldn't change our position much at all in the grand scheme of things. Star players aren't going to sign here because of a feel-good, happy go lucky atmosphere and fan passion. One of two things will need to change: massive, City-esque investment and/or a complete overhaul in the entire football system to encourage some kind of level playing field (yes, playoffs, a wage cap, etc.)

.

 

But surely, that kind of presumes the only way to be 'successful' is to emulate the Chelsea/Citeh modus operandi. Isn't there another way to do it? How do we break the cycle of constantly having foreign players dominating the squad list, and never being able to blood/bring forward the new locally-grown indigenous talent required?

[Deuce]

Even if Ashley were to go, which we all agree needs to happen, and be replaced by someone 100% committed to the club, someone who understands what the club means to the city and region, it wouldn't change our position much at all in the grand scheme of things. Star players aren't going to sign here because of a feel-good, happy go lucky atmosphere and fan passion. One of two things will need to change: massive, City-esque investment and/or a complete overhaul in the entire football system to encourage some kind of level playing field (yes, playoffs, a wage cap, etc.)

.

 

But surely, that kind of presumes the only way to be 'successful' is to emulate the Chelsea/Citeh modus operandi. Isn't there another way to do it? How do we break the cycle of constantly having foreign players dominating the squad list, and never being able to blood/bring forward the new locally-grown indigenous talent required?

 

Wish I had the answers. Seems the English development system isn't the strongest right now either, could probably use an overhaul as well.

[Parky]

Worth its own thread, because what is the answer? Just been reading RTG's thread about it and a couple of people have suggested it may only be a matter of time before clubs have facilities in London and simply fly their players up for matches.

 

Not going to happen but things like changes to the loan system, wage caps and caps on foreign players would all help make the league more competitive IMO.

 

Football has been identified as a site of resistance, identity with a community and tribal allegiances it will be globalized like everything else. The brands that have hijacked football over the last two decades want global reach. The next phase will be a European league which will mainly include capital based clubs with international players from all over...Resistance is futile.

[GM]

Worth its own thread, because what is the answer? Just been reading RTG's thread about it and a couple of people have suggested it may only be a matter of time before clubs have facilities in London and simply fly their players up for matches.

 

Not going to happen but things like changes to the loan system, wage caps and caps on foreign players would all help make the league more competitive IMO.

 

Football has been identified as a site of resistance, identity with a community and tribal allegiances it will be globalized like everything else. The brands that have hijacked football over the last two decades want global reach. The next phase will be a European league which will mainly include capital based clubs with international players from all over...Resistance is futile.

 

You no more believe those last three words than I do. Give over. Resistance is far from futile. And you only need look at the growing interest in fan-owned clubs to see others are tuning into this issue.

[Parky]

We will fight to the end GM.

[midds]

Non-league is where it's at. Far more enjoyable, far cheaper and far more authentic and competitive in the true definition of the words. I'd laugh by bollocks off if the PL imploded.

[Parky]

EU labour laws made it possible for rich clubs to hoover up talent all across the EU to the detriment of many clubs all over Europe with proud histories and traditions who didn't have the financial muscle to hold onto young players.

[Wallace]

I do think London and the South are starting to take over.

 

At the moment, it is really just Chelsea and Arsenal but once West Ham and Spurs get their new stadiums they will both be in a position to move forward again.  QPR have talked about a new stadium and Palace were in takeover talks and are also looking to redevelop.  If players are only interested in moving to London, the lesser London clubs will be able attract those not quite good enough for the top 4.

 

Even the "mighty" Liverpool are losing out on players who prefer to move to London.

 

Those clubs (if properly ran) will all be in a strong position to pull further away from the rest of us and the top half of the league will comprise mostly of London clubs.

 

Infact London has so many clubs that they could easily form their own league.  There is surely no other city that has as many professional clubs.

 

However with good management and vision, other clubs could do well but I think they would need to have a strong academy to do so.  But two clubs that have that (Southampton and Swansea) are still losing their better players each year.  Unfortunately we are miles behind both of them and Ashley has damaged the club to such an extent, I do not see how we will ever be able to close the gap.

 

I can imagine the football landscape will look quite different in 10-20 years time if the authorities don't do something to redress the balance.

 

 

 

 

[Parky]

One day digitally generated supporters will be projected onto empty stadiums and future/past songs will be heard echoey (over digital 6D) and pockets of drab workers will sip gin with a tear in their eye as they watch on their telescreens.

[GM]

One day digitally generated supporters will be projected onto empty stadiums and future/past songs will be heard echoey (over digital 6D) and pockets of drab workers will sip gin with a tear in their eye as they watch on their telescreens.

You should probably stop smoking that thing round about now, mate.

[Parky]

 

It's already the case that a lot of clubs don't actually need gate receipts.

 

 

[jdckelly]

when you look at the clubs he mentioned in that; us, sunderland, leeds and sheffield wednesday the common factor is ridiculous mismanagement of resources available. Leeds are obviously the worst for it but all have been run horrifically. Liverpool too, they had an utterly dominant position in the 80's but didn't take advantage of that position like Man United did in the global marketing sense and haven't been able to catch up. 

[Heron]

Ultimately, I think somewhere along the line we are going to have to start developing our own players of a decent standard.

 

Where are they though? There should've been dozens of talented new Geordie players by now. Or are we saying the gene pool has run dry in the North-East in recent years?

 

I think the article poses some essential, but very difficult questions. When I posted that article on my Facebook earlier, a Celtic-supporting mate of mine took issue with Neville saying that "maybe Gary Neville needs to open his eyes when he is in his employer's studio and he would see the reason for the decline. Clubs with no support are handed £100 million a year before they even need to sell a ticket because of the ludicrous money paid by Sky....take that money away and see what clubs produce the income needed to pay the wages".

 

What Sky et al's money has done is commodified football so that the top brands retain the dominant market share. It's almost like a cartel arrangement. In some ways, it feels like we're yearning for an old paradigm which no longer exists, nor could ever exist. It's bullshit to talk about Newcastle not being able to offer a good enough quality of life for the best talent - it's not changed much since the days we attracted great players like Ginola, Asprilla, Ferdinand, etc. What's changed is the extent of greed within the game. I think if you're looking for answers to that question, you need to look at Blatter, Platini, etc - it's all rotten to the core.

 

Thing is, where do Sky and BT get their money to spend on it in the first place? Of course a significant proportion of it comes from overseas, but an absolute shitload of it comes from mugs paying anything up to £100 per month for the TV packages. I used to be one of them.

 

They're paying ludicrous sums to the clubs because we enable them to.

Exactly why I sacked mine off earlier this year. I told them they were ruining football and appealing to people like Ashley to run football clubs as a consequence. At this point their salesmen realised no matter what offer they mentioned I wasn't takeing it.

[Hanshithispantz]

Fully agree with Matoon, we could be fighting near the top easily if we had an owner who wasn't seemingly running us into the ground out of spite, I mean we effectively gave away Yanga Mbiwa, Ben Arfa & Santon and decided to ignore the fact a bargain £11m Cabaye was wanting to come back to the Premiership, despite him being the exact midfielder we need.

 

Not that I disagree with Neville's argument on the whole like.

 

EDIT: Obviously our fans being soft as shite doesn't help either, I don't think this is exclusive to us like, it seems more of an English thing in general.

[LucaAltieri]

Good article. Particularly the points about mercenary players. The solution needs to be local players the likes of Andy Carroll, Shola, S.Taylor, etc who will play for the shirt. They aren't/weren't good enough as individuals but they wanted to be here. We need to invest more in local grass roots football to ensure that the quality of the local kids is high enough so that we can have a class of 92 or a Gerrard & Carragher to carry us for a decade. The alternative method we're using (recruit foreigners and motivate them by telling them this is a shop window for bigger clubs) clearly isn't working.

 

We can't compete with London as a destination. We can't compete with the bigger clubs financially. The only remaining option is greater self-sufficiency through local player development. I know nothing about how much or how well NUFC currently contributes to that.

[brummie]

It isn't about London versus the rest or north versus south.

 

It is about big money or no big money. Manchester United have huge amounts of money and power because they've won shit loads of silverware over two decades. Manchester City are artificially powerful because money-is-no-object arabs decided to buy them and have a bit of fun. Chelsea have loads of money because an oligarch poured it into them (after several years of a multi millionaire doing the same), and Arsenal have the same because their ground and associated operations are a money making machine.

 

The reason Crystal Palace can compete with "bigger" clubs for players is nothing to do with some sort of magic "south" thing they have going on, it is because they, like all the other PL clubs, now have lots of money, too, and can offer the same huge wages other clubs can. Look at some of the players Stoke signed this summer and last year. Stoke City FFS.

 

It is an evening out of the playing field.

 

In the past, there would have been pretty much no way a player would choose Palace ahead of us or you, mostly - let's be honest - for reasons of money. These days, that is a much lesser factor, and the player is thinking "well, Palace are never going to win anything, but then again, neither are Villa, Everton, or Newcastle either" whilst thinking what it will be like being a twenty something multi millionaire sports star in one of the most exciting cities in the world.

 

If you are not going to be playing for a title challenging club (of which there are at most four), and you're not going to be playing in the CL, there's really not a great deal in it for any of the remaining clubs, however much it hurts our pride to admit it.

 

[Guest ElCid]

Cracking read that, but the question with Newcastle has to asked, did the demise start with Ashley or was it there with Shepard ?

 

Think the club has been on a downward spiral since John Hall stepped down as Chairman, we had the couple of years renaissance under Robson but the first killer blow was the appointment of Souness and since then we have fallen from grace at an alarming rate and now we are at the shipwrecked stage. Ashley had the chance to steady the ship under Keegan but blew it big time and now we are in a hopeless position with second rate stooges running the operation of the club and we are now a pitied shell at best and a laughing stock at worst. That's why some people on here really boil my p*ss as you just don't get it and don't appreciate how serious the situation is.

 

Then again, if you take a longer term view of things which acknowledges the club existed before 1990s, you might come to the view that the Hall/Shepherd/Keegan era was just a beautiful, ecstatic, extraordinary but fleeting aberration the allowed us to dare to dream. Bit like having an amazing affair with your dream woman, but ultimately having to recognise you were just a jammy git for a while and you have to return to the maudlin old battleaxe you actually married.

 

Trust me I remember well before Keegan and when you get crowds of 50,000 despite the total non-entity we have endured then we shouldn't just be thinking it was all just a dream we should be demanding that we are at least trying to compete and certainly demanding better. That's the problem too many Newcastle fans are just prepared to except things with the odd groan on forums it needs more than that for things to change.

[merlin]

Cracking read that, but the question with Newcastle has to asked, did the demise start with Ashley or was it there with Shepard ?

 

Think the club has been on a downward spiral since John Hall stepped down as Chairman, we had the couple of years renaissance under Robson but the first killer blow was the appointment of Souness and since then we have fallen from grace at an alarming rate and now we are at the shipwrecked stage. Ashley had the chance to steady the ship under Keegan but blew it big time and now we are in a hopeless position with second rate stooges running the operation of the club and we are now a pitied shell at best and a laughing stock at worst. That's why some people on here really boil my p*ss as you just don't get it and don't appreciate how serious the situation is.

This is a great summary of the situation.

Once Sir John went, the B team were well and truly in charge and they started the rot by allowing Sky(aka the NOTW, part of Murdoch's empire)to con the 2 stooges into showing themselves to be people who had no depth, were only interested in money and power and who made terrible decisions at crucial times - the sacking of SBR instead of easing him into the boardroom and asking him to find his successor was the beginning of the rot ; the appointment of Souness made things worse and we began a long descent into mediocrity from being one of Britain's most popular, wealthy and exciting clubs.

NOBODY owes you anything in football - we became a top club because SJH and KK had the ambition and knowledge to make us one...Shephard was out of his depth and a blusterer who even had his own family involved with a player's Agent in a SJP office, something certain to provoke questions throughout the game and the crazy signings like that of Owen and others proved poor value for money.

People blame Dalglish for destroying KKs side but that is not strictly true - he signed some good players like Nobby, Given and Hamann and the decision to part with Ferdinand wasn't just his - the board saw it as good business to get 6m for a 30 year old striker but Shearer's injury killed the logic in that and also caused Tomasson to be played as a target CF, which he wasn't - he proved how good a player he was when he went to AC Milan and won trophies/scored goals, but people at NUFC thought he was rubbish. Dalglish was fired after we started a season with 2 draws....McClaren would certainly not have lasted 2 minutes using that logic and then we had sexy football which ended with a home derby defeat in a downpour and Shearer being dropped for the game...

When you read all this, you realize what a mess the whole thing had become in a couple of years and eventually we got Ashley... the rest is history.

Neville's article has a lot of truth in it but unless Ashley stays beyond next season, we are still recoverable as a club and a decent power in the game - but ONLY if we get an ambitious wealthy owner who appoints a proven quality manager/coaches and allows them to sign proven quality players. Where we would struggle is to compete for many mercenary continental players who want to be close to the capital but there are still plenty who would join an ambitious well supported club like NUFC.

 

OK, Abramovitch/Makhtoum money is going to talk loudest when it comes to the cream of the crop....but NOT always and we could still be a decent club without mega-spend...the problem now is that the whole club is rotten from top to bottom and needs a complete new broom with the people as described above.

If that doesn't happen, Neville's fears will be proved correct sadly.

[merlin]

Good article. Particularly the points about mercenary players. The solution needs to be local players the likes of Andy Carroll, Shola, S.Taylor, etc who will play for the shirt. They aren't/weren't good enough as individuals but they wanted to be here. We need to invest more in local grass roots football to ensure that the quality of the local kids is high enough so that we can have a class of 92 or a Gerrard & Carragher to carry us for a decade. The alternative method we're using (recruit foreigners and motivate them by telling them this is a shop window for bigger clubs) clearly isn't working.

 

We can't compete with London as a destination. We can't compete with the bigger clubs financially. The only remaining option is greater self-sufficiency through local player development. I know nothing about how much or how well NUFC currently contributes to that.

We should be producing more young players than we are, but the truth is that the NE is no longer a hotbed of football or football tradition -and the reason for this is more prosperity.

Look at Brazil - more people there are having a better standard of living and therefore the young kids have higher ambitions than playing football in order to get out of poverty...they have more choices.

Also, because of the loss of industry in the NE, many families have moved away, people whose children may well have been fans/potential signings for the club.

Our Academy system is also clearly not fit for purpose and people like Beardsley are just there for the pension..