NUFC Transfer Rumours

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 hour ago, Whitley mag said:

 

Please don’t bother Craig. 

[Thumbheed]

26 minutes ago, hakka said:

 

I had time for Hope under Ashley as he seemed to one of few journos prepared to call out the managers (especially Bruce) - but why is he trying to kick the club when it's down during its best years spell in 2 decades? PSR is a factor, yes the club failed to land first team improvements - but baiting for clicks through shit stirring is very low.

 

Because he's a Tory cunt who has no desire to call out right or wrong but feed and thrive off the misery of others.

[christ]

29 minutes ago, hakka said:

 

I had time for Hope under Ashley as he seemed to one of few journos prepared to call out the managers (especially Bruce) - but why is he trying to kick the club when it's down during its best years spell in 2 decades? PSR is a factor, yes the club failed to land first team improvements - but baiting for clicks through shit stirring is very low.

“I liked the journalist when he was writing negative stuff about people I don’t like, but now he’s writing negative stuff about people I do like…”

 

Our fans need thicker skin. 

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, christ said:

“I liked the journalist when he was writing negative stuff about people I don’t like, but now he’s writing negative stuff about people I do like…”

 

Our fans need thicker skin. 

 

I don't think it's about having thin skin, it's about being frustrated by hacks like him driving a narrative which impacts the club. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

FWIW I never liked any of them, especially Hope and Edwards. Their job is to capture attention with valueless drivel. 
 

We’ve got a new regime just getting started, it’s selfish and idiotic to be using one poor window to stir shit. 

 

 

Edited August 31 by AyeDubbleYoo

[Mikky]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

FWIW I never liked any of them, especially Hope and Edwards. Their job is to capture attention with valueless drivel. 

I mean they had 4 months to put questions re transfer business, if they were so bothered  - twats the lot of them 

[Armchair Pundit]

In other news, I think Adrien Rabiot is still available on a free 

[Whitley mag]

Here’s the article so nobody needs to click -

 

REVEALED: The truth behind Newcastle's turbulent transfer window

02:00, 31 Aug 2024, updated 08:42, 31 Aug 2024 By Craig Hope

 

This is all starting to feel a bit Mike Ashley. Now there is a statement you never thought you’d make when, 12 months ago, Newcastle Unitedwere about to play in the Champions League for the first time in 20 years and were signing £52million Italy internationals.

It was, in reality, something of an illusion, the notion of a Saudi-backed super club ready to become No 1 in the world, the intention as declared by chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan.

The truth was that Eddie Howe’s brilliant management, their equally remarkable recruitment and force-of-nature personalities such as Amanda Staveley and husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi had taken them on a magic carpet ride, fuelled by optimism and renewed ambition. Not to mention the relief of no more Ashley.

In just 18 months, the team went from 19th to fourth and barely a misstep was made. Yet, in terms of infrastructure —training ground, stadium, sponsorship and commercial revenues — it remained a work in progress. As chief executive Darren Eales said: ‘It’s like building a plane whilst in the air.’

Well, this summer, that plane — and the carpet — have come crashing back down to earth. For the first time, we can reveal the truth behind a boardroom fallout that has shaped what Howe describes as the most difficult summer of his managerial career, in which only £10m was spent on one back-up player, new sporting director Paul Mitchell was unable to deliver the manager’s top target, Marc Guehi, and stars such as Anthony Gordon were nearly sold to satisfy a £70m deficit in meeting the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules. It is Howe who will be left to pick up the pieces amid the turbulence.

Newcastle endured a difficult summer transfer window where they didn't achieve their aims 

They failed to sign their major target Marc Guehi, despite a lengthy pursuit of the defender 

There was also a boardroom fallout that led to Amanda Staveley and husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi selling their six per cent share and leaving the club (pictured earlier this year) 

But the plane had started to come apart towards the end of last season, when tension at boardroom level would lead to Staveley and Ghodoussi leaving the club in July. However, as multiple sources have now confirmed, the co-owners were forced out.

We have learnt that, when Jacobo Solis — a senior figure from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the majority owners — asked questions over the day-to-day running of the club, Eales communicated that he could not do things as he would like because Staveley and Ghodoussi were too involved. It caused a split at the very top of the club, and Staveley and Ghodoussi felt they had no option but to sell their six per cent share and go. This, it is said, left them heartbroken.

 

For fans, Howe and players, it meant the loss of the reassuring presence of a pair who had been the face of Newcastle re-United. Staveley could be a maverick, but as one source said: ‘Everything around her was a million miles an hour, but she always wanted the best for the club. She got s*** done.’

Read More

 

Without them — and with Eales and his new appointment Mitchell now taking the lead on recruitment — s*** hasn’t got done this summer. In fact, it’s been a bit of a s***show.

This brings us back to Ashley. In 2008, he brought in Dennis Wise as a de facto director of football when Kevin Keegan was manager. Keegan quit within eight months and later won a constructive dismissal case, citing the interference of Wise and the removal of his control over transfers. That is not to compare anyone at the club to Wise and Keegan, Mitchell arrives with a good reputation, but more so to highlight the dangers when the ‘working dynamic’ — Howe’s words — suddenly changes.

He said that during an extraordinary half-hour with written journalists at a pre-season training camp in Germany in July, when he effectively placed a probationary period on his working relationship with Eales, Mitchell and new performance director James Bunce. It was at a time when he was being linked with the England job, a vacancy he is yet to categorically distance himself from.

 

‘I absolutely want to stay but it has to be right for me and the club,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in me saying I’m happy staying at Newcastle if the dynamic isn’t right. As a new team coming together, we have to set our boundaries.’

Howe was told to concentrate on coaching the squad. Before this window, he worked closely with Staveley and Ghodoussi. They were his allies and formed a transfer team, aided (but not necessarily led) by sporting director Dan Ashworth.

It has all started to feel a bit Mike Ashley this summer, a statement that would have been barely believable 12 months ago as Newcastle began their return to the Champions League 

Chief executive Darren Eales has come under heavy criticism for his work over the window 

Alongside new sporting director Paul Mitchell, the pair have taken a lead on recruitment 

Their record was close to perfect — Kieran Trippier, Bruno Guimaraes, Nick Pope, Alexander Isak, Gordon, each brought in at what have proven to be bargain prices. Howe had round-the-clock updates, even jumping off water slides during a family holiday in California to take calls from the owners. This summer, he has been left somewhat in the dark.

Mitchell, we are told, said that he could deliver Guehi when it was decided that the Crystal Palace centre back was the target all parties agreed would improve the team. And so began a month-long saga in which Palace chairman Steve Parish, some suspect, never really intended to sell Guehi. Mitchell believed he had a good relationship with Parish, but every failed offer found its way into the public domain, much to Newcastle’s annoyance.

Read More

Inside the wild west of the fight to comply with the Premier League's PSR rules

Those inside St James’ Park also disputed what constituted an offer. A text message? A chat? Either way, the figures being discussed went from £45m to close to £70m in a one-horse race. It was not a good look.

Sources say Parish was enjoying it all the while. He was, it is claimed, extremely miffed by Newcastle’s approach for his sporting director Dougie Freedman in April. It is said that he felt Eales and Newcastle had gone behind his back. Freedman opted to stay — the salary on offer was said to be too low — and Mitchell was instead appointed in July.

As recently as Tuesday, there was confidence that a deal for Guehi would happen. Some close to Palace raised eyebrows and a smile when Alan Shearer publicly called on Eales and Mitchell to deliver a big signing, and within hours an offer of £65m plus £5m in add-ons had landed. But when Parish told Newcastle that, after a knee injury suffered by defender Chadi Riad, the asking price was £70m plus £5m, Mitchell was furious.

It is said he has been driven mad by the constant moving of the goalposts on the deal. Parish strung them along, perhaps always intent on retribution over Freedman. There is, then, sympathy for Newcastle and Mitchell, who had worked hard in the belief it could happen.

Advertisement

But one source said: ‘There is a way to play Steve Parish. You wonder if Amanda and Mehrdad would have got the deal done.

‘There was a feeling earlier in the summer that £50m should have been enough for Guehi. They were excellent negotiators. Look at the deal for Gordon last year — she stuck to her guns and got it done at £40m. Maybe that has been missed.’

Guehi, who was Howe's No 1 target this summer, was chased throughout the transfer window 

Newcastle figures became increasingly miffed as they failed to get a deal done with Palace chairman Steve Parish for the England defender, who some claim enjoyed the whole saga 

Mitchell has suggested other names to Howe in recent weeks — including Chelsea’s Axel Disasi and Nice defender Jean-Clair Todibo — but the head coach did not want to sign the wrong type of player or character for the sake of it. Todibo went to West Ham on loan and was hooked after just 45 minutes of his full debut this week. Multiple sources have told us that Howe was right to guard against signing him.

It is suggested that Mitchell has been frustrated by Guehi being the only viable option at centre back, but we understand there was a longer list of targets who Howe had liked coming into the summer, but they moved on. Two players have arrived — Lloyd Kelly on a free transfer (a deal that was brokered towards the end of last season) and striker William Osula, a 21-year-old understudy from Sheffield United.

 

With talk of increasing tension internally, it left Howe to answer some difficult questions yesterday morning, when he conceded to the press that no new faces were likely to arrive.

‘We haven’t had the window that we wanted to have, there is no denying that,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to sit here and say it’s been a brilliant transfer window for us. I think everyone would look at me and think, “I’m not sure he’s telling the truth there”.

Read More

 

‘We’re in a really difficult situation with PSR and available funds, attracting the right players and players who we think can make a difference. It’s such a delicate spot for us, we’ve got to try and get it right and if we don’t, then doing nothing — as frustrating as that is — is probably the best option. There’s a feeling we have a good squad, but there’s a feeling there’s a few areas we need to strengthen.’

One of those areas was right wing, a position in need of improvement since the Saudi takeover nearly three years ago. There was a deadline-day approach for Nottingham Forest’s Anthony Elanga, but it was all too late for a deal to happen. Again, it evoked memory of calamitous deadline days under Ashley.

 

It has left Howe and supporters frustrated. Newcastle have managed to keep Gordon, Isak and Guimaraes this summer, but fail to make the Champions League come May and there is a danger the trio will be off. To that end, the need to strengthen the team this season was even greater.

And what of that chaotic weekend at the end of June when Newcastle frantically battled to avoid breaching PSR rules and a 10-point deduction? Howe had warned the club that the hole in the accounts needed to be resolved in good time, without star players being unsettled. But that is what happened with Gordon.

Mail Sport broke the story of the winger being offered to Liverpool. He was with England in Germany at the time, and a medical in Leipzig was even mooted, so real was the possibility of a deal accelerating.

It did not happen because Staveley brokered the £33m sale of Yankuba Minteh to Brighton and Elliot Anderson — much to the player and Howe’s disappointment — was sold to Forest for £35m. However, the latter was only possible because Newcastle agreed to take Greek goalkeeper Odysseas Vlachodimos for an eight-figure fee that we are told would ‘make your eyes water’. The Magpies have since tried to send him out on loan.

William Osula's £10m move from Sheffield United meant he was the only outfield player Newcastle spent money on this summer, yet the Danish striker is merely a back-up 

Many have claimed the window would've gone a lot better if Staveley was still around the club 

Howe has been left frustrated but it is him who has to pick up the pieces amid the turbulence 

Advertisement

But with PSR satisfied, they had money to spend this summer. As one source said: ‘Yes, PSR limits what the club can do, but there was still big scope to spend with the funds available, plus extra headroom generated by sales. But they haven’t sold and haven’t bought. That’s nothing to do with PSR — that’s negotiating skills.’

Supporter angst will turn on Eales and Mitchell, not least because of Shearer’s warning to them. Eales did not help himself when, on a stage in the St James’ fan zone this month, he started a terrace chant with a crowd who would rather he was closing deals. Dancing Darren, as he was dubbed, has got PIF to dance to his tune with the removal of Staveley and Ghodoussi, but his first transfer window in charge has ended on the flattest of notes.

To compound a bad day, the club were forced to distance themselves from Conservative MP Robert Jenrick using access to St James’ to promote his leadership candidacy. He was with former chairman Sir John Hall who, Newcastle said, had told them he wanted to film a biographical piece on his own life.

There was also the bizarre issue of a private landowner erecting fencing directly outside some East Stand turnstiles, raising concerns over fan safety ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Tottenham. This isn’t the club’s fault, of course, but it is an extra headache for them, especially as brows will already be banging after the most disorderly summer in recent memory.

And we thought the bedlam of Ashley was a thing of the past.

Match Day

 

 

Edited August 31 by Whitley mag

[christ]

1 minute ago, Yorkie said:

 

I don't think it's about having thin skin, it's about being frustrated by hacks like him driving a narrative which impacts the club. 

It’s his job to report on the club. Doubt he’s fabricating all of these stories from nothing. He’s not obligated to protect the reputation of NUFC.

[Yorkie]

1 minute ago, christ said:

It’s his job to report on the club. Doubt he’s fabricating all of these stories from nothing. He’s not obligated to protect the reputation of NUFC.

 

Howay man. He writes for a tabloid, arguably the worst of them. His coverage is quite clearly sensationalist. 

[54]

Like fuck am I going to read an article that start with "This is all starting to feel a bit Mike Ashley."

 

He can get to fuck with that sort of bullshit  

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, 54 said:

Like fuck am I going to read an article that start with "This is all starting to feel a bit Mike Ashley."

 

He can get to fuck with that sort of bullshit  

It never says that

 

Jesus Christ people, please let’s get a grip. 

[54]

2 minutes ago, christ said:

It’s his job to report on the club. Doubt he’s fabricating all of these stories from nothing. He’s not obligated to protect the reputation of NUFC.

He's writes for the Daily Mail, the shame shit stirring cunts who have front pages like:

 

[54]

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

It never says that

 

Jesus Christ people, please let’s get a grip. 

Look at Whitney Mag's post above, if I didn't know any better I'd think it was satire  

[Doctor Zaius]

2 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

We’ve got a new regime just getting started, it’s selfish and idiotic to be using one poor window to stir shit. 

 

 

 

 

They didn't just rock up yesterday. Eales has been here long enough. Mitchell has been here since July and will have been involved since the get go. Even if that isn't enough time, why wasn't he and other members of the recruitment team appointed earlier.

 

We've finished the summer weaker than we started it and for me, Howe now faces an uphill battle to qualify for Europe, the ramifications of failing to do so on our ability to keep our best players is clear.

 

Plenty of the criticism is completely valid. 

[Keegans Export]

I think a combination of Howe having a very specific idea of who/what he wants and Mitchell being convinced that he could do the "big" deal for Guehi (either due to stubbornness or just wanting to make a bold first impression) is what has led us here.

 

Really, we should have been much quicker in walking away from Guehi and we should have had a better list of alternatives. 

 

My hope is that as Mitchell starts to properly get to work we will, in future windows, be able to present a considerably wider range of options for Howe to approve. That will allow us to be much more flexible and pivot to alternative targets as and when we need to.

[gbandit]

How the fuck can anyone stomach reading a single word of a Craig Hope article? There couldn’t be a more bad faith actor out there 

[Dr.Spaceman]

22 minutes ago, 54 said:

Like fuck am I going to read an article that start with "This is all starting to feel a bit Mike Ashley."

 

He can get to fuck with that sort of bullshit  

 

Read that line and stopped. The last 2 years have been about as far from Mike Ashley as you could get.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, gbandit said:

How the fuck can anyone stomach reading a single word of a Craig Hope article? There couldn’t be a more bad faith actor out there 

 

I tried to scroll past it before my eyes were inadvertently damaged

[christ]

19 minutes ago, 54 said:

He's writes for the Daily Mail, the shame shit stirring cunts who have front pages like:

 

I am aware of the Daily Mail.

 

Sensationalist topping and tailing aside, I don’t see too much of an issue with what he’s written. This summer has been a bit of a shambles behind the scenes. Clearly not everything has went to plan. 

[mattypnufc]

Absolute sensationalist shit stirring tripe by Hope there like. There will be some truths no doubt, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that it’s just teething issues.
 

The whole Staveley thing has been proven to be that they couldn’t afford to stay in the ownership shareholders stakes due to the rising stock of the clubs worth. 

The key indicator to me is how serious are PIF? Have they got pissed off at the whole PL thing trying to stop them at every single turn? Are there interests now elsewhere? Are they bothered about investing? The stadium plan (whatever it may be) will speak volumes in my opinion.  New stadium or complete redevelopment and they are still massively invested. If it’s an extension, I reckon they’re less bothered…but just an opinion. 

Either way, the sooner the above comes out the sooner it’ll placate our fans who have zero patience and expect the world instantly. Such is society these days. 

[Skeletor]

His article is full of hyperbole but my gut feeling is that the stuff he's written about Eales and Staveley/Ghodoussi is probably true. Their exit was so sudden and the momentum does seem to have gone with them.

[Keegans Export]

1 minute ago, mattypnufc said:

The key indicator to me is how serious are PIF? Have they got pissed off at the whole PL thing trying to stop them at every single turn? Are there interests now elsewhere? Are they bothered about investing? The stadium plan (whatever it may be) will speak volumes in my opinion.  New stadium or complete redevelopment and they are still massively invested. If it’s an extension, I reckon they’re less bothered…but just an opinion. 

Just an opinion but I think it's a perfectly sensible one.

 

Lack of movement on players etc can be put down to PSR, sponsorship is complicated by the various rules put in place to stifle us.

 

The one thing we can spend on is infrastructure and the main source of income from that is going to be the stadium. Especially with those quotes about only writing the cheque once. It will 100% be PIF showing their true hand.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Even his faux James Bond profile picture makes me want to batter him. 

[hakka]

35 minutes ago, christ said:

“I liked the journalist when he was writing negative stuff about people I don’t like, but now he’s writing negative stuff about people I do like…”

 

Our fans need thicker skin. 

 

It's more than that and you know it. Enjoy your inaccurate and pathetic cheap shot.