NUFC - Spending power!

[brummie]

The Owen transfer is the one above all that has really killed us. We're not big enough to be taking the risk of £17 million plus £5 million a year on one player. Shepherd had the idea that if you get England's top goalscorer then you'll end up with England's top team, but unfortunately football is a bit more complicated than that. (Not to mention players can get injured)

 

On the area of youth development, I have wondered whether, as an area, the North East is at a bit of a disadvantage. There's a lot of athletic talent in the Black British population, which is apparent in the players coming through at other big city clubs. Tyneside doesn't have a particularly large ethnic minority population.

 

I've not forgotten Shola. But he's the exception, not the rule.

 

I think you may have a point there re the Black British population. At our place we've got Agbonlahor, Moore, Osbourne, all local black kids. Prior to that there were players like Vassell, Tony Daley, Mark Walters.

 

One thing i will say is that a good Geordie mate of mine always used to lament the fact that newcastle traditionally missed local talent, only to see it snapped up by other teams which had good, solid scouting networks in the north east. So players like Steve Bruce, Bryan Robson, young Shearer would traditionally get missed and snapped up by other teams.

 

That was obv the 80s, but have things improved at local level?

[Guest TinoInHiding]

not really. look at liverpool and its hinterland in comparison to tyneside and the north-east. they've produced successive waves of talent, from the likes of fowler, mcmanaman and mcateer, through to owen, gerrard, carragher and onto barton, nolan and rooney. in comparison we've produced shearer and carrick.

 

And arguably the most talented English player of all time, in Paul Gascoigne......

[johnnypd]

not really. look at liverpool and its hinterland in comparison to tyneside and the north-east. they've produced successive waves of talent, from the likes of fowler, mcmanaman and mcateer, through to owen, gerrard, carragher and onto barton, nolan and rooney. in comparison we've produced shearer and carrick.

 

And arguably the most talented English player of all time, in Paul Gascoigne......

 

was talking about in the same length of time, before that the north east was arguably the nation's top producer of footballing talent. i suppose you could include bridges in that, as before the major injuries took their toll, he looked as talented as a sheringham/viduka type, a playmaking centre-forward who could also score goals.

[Cronky]

JPD - fair point on the issue of Merseyside. Perhaps it's more true to say that the cities of Birmingham and London, with large ethnic minority populations, have an advantage over the rest.

 

On Brummie's point - I can remember reading a piece of research that was published in a paper about 20 years ago, on the subject of the origins by region of English professional footballers. Every region produced roughly the same number of players per head of population, with the exception of the North-East, where the figure was about twice the average.

 

Until recent times, there's been very little local competition from Cricket and Rugby for the interest of children.  That may have been a factor.

[thedudeabides]

NUFC's spending power = http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/451710/2/istockphoto_451710_loose_change.jpg

 

[BottledDog]

NUFC's spending power = http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/451710/2/istockphoto_451710_loose_change.jpg

 

 

"The chairman is trusting me with a significant amount of money and I don't want to bring in players who will lose value like a driver driving a car off the forecourt." Mr G Roeder Jan 21 2007

 

 

Although why he felt the need to anounce this and potentially reduce our bargaining position, gawd only knows.

[Guest Brazilianbob]

not really. look at liverpool and its hinterland in comparison to tyneside and the north-east. they've produced successive waves of talent, from the likes of fowler, mcmanaman and mcateer, through to owen, gerrard, carragher and onto barton, nolan and rooney. in comparison we've produced shearer and carrick.

 

And arguably the most talented English player of all time, in Paul Gascoigne......

 

Not to mention Beardsley, Waddle and Alan Kennedy who all played regularly for England.  I make it that at one stage NUFC had produced almost half the England team (well at least four anyway)!

[Guest SmileyCulture]

I love this, everyone's complaining that we spent too much money in the past and its causing major problems for us now but at the same time people are complaining that were not throwing money at the defensive problem were currently in the midst of.

 

If Roeder suddenly went out and blew 20 mill on a new defense then 6 months down the line we find out they're under performing and we suddenly have 10 defenders that aren't much better than eachother all getting paid godknows how much money a week and the problem remains, will everyone again be complaining Roeder has spent too much?

 

Personaly i beleive we need to get 1-2 defenders on loan, eventualy our defense will be back from injury, with the likes of Taylor, Solano, Edgar, Huntington, Bramble, Carr, Babayaro, Ramage (eww), Moore, Bernard all back to 100% our defense will already be too big and we really do have alot of quality in there - we just seriously lacked a decent defensive coach to give them direction and make them work together, which i beleive we now have.

 

10 Defenders is more than enough for any normal side, the current freak injury situation aside.