trooper 940 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Some sportsdirect signage. There's not enough of them knocking about. Ah right of course stupid me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 There's also agents fees. We spent £7m on those last year. The question for me has always been will Ashley try to pay off the consolidated debt from before relegation, once he had recouped the cost of relegation, or would he leave it fenced off to allow re-investment and a little ambition. I have always said I can understand and encourage the frugal approach, so I'm not going to complain about it just because we've not signed anyone in 18 months (come summer) and have a large pot of cash. We're in the top half and we have £129m of debt so I can still understand the penny-pinching. That said, my view of the 3 years since promotion is that irrespective of who we sell we have been spending reasonably enough to be somewhat satisfied (£15m-£20m a season) and once the 13/14 TV deal came into effect I saw no reason that we would not double it. I was waiting to give Ashley that opportunity before complaining too much. With the breakdown of the Grenier deal which I had hope of happening and breaking Ashley's transfer record I'm more inclined to believe that the appointment of Kinnear was basically Ashley putting in place a lightning rod for the shitstorm of negativity when he fails to invest anything. Without any big moves come the summer it will confirm to me Ashley's intention to cover the conolidated debts before changing up a gear in terms of ambition or selling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper 940 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 With it being a WC summer I would imagine any potential targets if they've featured & been successful in the WC would inflate their price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWalrus 0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Yeah, I would argue that. Also agent's fees and other transfer charges. Let's say we sell a player for £10m. By the time you take out the farcical player loyalty bonus and agent fee, we receive an overall amount quite a bit less. And then the wages - if we sell one player for £35m but bring in 4 or 5, the wage cost is considerably more than we started with. However, even taking these into account, we have a canny bit of spare wedge after selling Cabaye. If we don't sign anyone in this window I fully expect us to splash out in the summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trooper 940 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Yeah, I would argue that. Also agent's fees and other transfer charges. Let's say we sell a player for £10m. By the time you take out the farcical player loyalty bonus and agent fee, we receive an overall amount quite a bit less. And then the wages - if we sell one player for £35m but bring in 4 or 5, the wage cost is considerably more than we started with. However, even taking these into account, we have a canny bit of spare wedge after selling Cabaye. If we don't sign anyone in this window I fully expect us to splash out in the summer. Well by then we'll have to buy a front row of strikers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 3997 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 "Sky sources confirm Ben Arfa rumours are rubbish". That's him away then! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I would also consider the impact of when we spend big. One of my biggest bugbears was that we never pushed on after finishing 5th and made a statement in the transfer market. It deflated the entire club and our relegation scrap followed. Opportunities like that don't come around often. Last January it was imperative we brought some quality in, and we did. We could spend big now and lift ourselves 2 or 3 places, max. Where would that leave us in the summer? The opportunity would be there again...but we'd have already spent big. To make a statement we'd then have to go out and do it again or the club is left deflated again. You might say "why not spend in both windows", but i can't see Ashley going all out two windows in a row, can you? Signing no-one this month could mean we drop into the lower half, or we could maintain our current position with loanees, but either way, it makes the summer the best opportunity for making a statement of intent, buying big and lifting the club to better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWalrus 0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Interesting way to look at it. A lot of clubs do seem to be quite reluctant to do too much transfer business in January. I got the impression that Sissoko et al were planned to come in the summer, but we brought them forward to stave off the threat of relegation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 3997 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 The other thing you have to factor is (with regard to most owners) is what incentive they as owners actually have to spend big once you get to around 7th or 8th spot. It's fine for an Arab or massive sports group but your average owner ain't going to throw money at it simply just to move a space or two upwards. It's definitely a two or three tiered league these days more than ever. You either accept that or sit and pray for your Man City type buy out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWalrus 0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Yep, football is shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acrossthepond 707 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I would also consider the impact of when we spend big. One of my biggest bugbears was that we never pushed on after finishing 5th and made a statement in the transfer market. It deflated the entire club and our relegation scrap followed. Opportunities like that don't come around often. Last January it was imperative we brought some quality in, and we did. We could spend big now and lift ourselves 2 or 3 places, max. Where would that leave us in the summer? The opportunity would be there again...but we'd have already spent big. To make a statement we'd then have to go out and do it again or the club is left deflated again. You might say "why not spend in both windows", but i can't see Ashley going all out two windows in a row, can you? Signing no-one this month could mean we drop into the lower half, or we could maintain our current position with loanees, but either way, it makes the summer the best opportunity for making a statement of intent, buying big and lifting the club to better. If I can use a local example, fans of the New York Mets (baseball team) have an infamous creed: "There's always next year." They've been shit literally for decades but since there's no relegation in American sport, they just linger around the mid-bottom places of the division and occasionally make a desultory push for a play-off spot. But every year their fans lap up the bullshit from their general manager (like a director of football) and believe that next year they're going places, and next year they're going to spend big and attract the top players. Sound familiar? The excuse that we did our summer spending in January last year to save us from relegation is hard to argue with. But I think the 2012-2013 summer already demonstrated that there is no genuine ambition at this club except to avoid relegation, and I think this summer will prove it beyond all doubt. This window has been another disaster and it's obvious to all that Kinnear is utterly useless except, as you said, as a distraction for the fans, first taking pressure off Pardew and now off of Ashley for their respective failings. If we see Ashley jettison him before next season and somebody else brought in and empowered to go after players, then we'll know that this has all been part of some Ashley strategy. If we see Kinnear still hanging around like a bad smell and loan signings of players we first scouted 3 windows ago coming in to replace outgoing first team players, then we'll know (if we didn't already) that we're England's version of the Mets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Carr's Gloves 3209 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 The Mets won the eastern title in 2006. I know that means nowt but it's a bit more than we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 The other thing you have to factor is (with regard to most owners) is what incentive they as owners actually have to spend big once you get to around 7th or 8th spot. It's fine for an Arab or massive sports group but your average owner ain't going to throw money at it simply just to move a space or two upwards. It's definitely a two or three tiered league these days more than ever. You either accept that or sit and pray for your Man City type buy out. I don't think we have any reason to think we're at all secure in 8th though, especially without Cabaye who, along with Remy (who isn't ours), are the ones who've elevated us to where we are at the moment. We need to spend year on year to make sure we make one of those places just outside of Europe ours. Otherwise we'll be right in the mix with the ten clubs in the bottom half who can't put any distance between themselves and the relegation places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StoneColdStephenIreland 74 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 You know nowts happening when they go all round the Premier League teams on SSN and there's no one outside Newcastle Training ground and David Craigs away to Cardiff. Even Sky know nothing happening Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 70 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) We're gonna lose a few games without Cabaye and Remy that's a fact. Games we would have sneaked or drawn. One or two inj to a forward or a cd and we could start to fall toward the strugglers...Things ain't as safe as people think. Edited January 31, 2014 by Park Life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWalrus 0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 We've got 37 points with 15 games to play man, we're not going down! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 70 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 We've got 37 points with 15 games to play man, we're not going down! I didn't say we'd go down...But I think we'll struggle to win games we might have won before and slide down to deep mid-table. This against a top 7 finish which was within reach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Howay 12462 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 We'll slide down a bit for sure. I'd be confident that if Cabaye had played we'd have beaten Norwich, the amount of free kicks in good positions and amount of possession we had in good areas it would have been a good bet that he'd score or set at least one up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigWalrus 0 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 We're pretty much locked into a finish somewhere between 8th - 10th. The remainder of our season is almost like a series of friendlies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 70 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 (edited) http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/newcastle-transfer-news-live-magpies-3095948#ixzz2ryyjpVaL Skinny schemer. Here's a new name for Newcastle fans to get excited about: Benfica attacking midfielder Filip Djuricic. One World Sports are reporting that the 22-year-old's representative has said he has been in dialogue with Newcastle over a move. "It's true about Newcastle," he is reported as saying. "I have been speaking with Alan Pardew this week so let's see what has happened by the end of tomorrow.” The Serbia international joined Benfica in the summer, but has not settled in Portugal after spending three-and-a-half seasons at Heerenveen and is said to be keen on a switch to England. Djuricic has scored four goals in 15 games for Serbia, bagging a brace in a 2-0 win over Scotland in March. Edited January 31, 2014 by Park Life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 I was talking about being in danger over the next few seasons btw, not this one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JawD 31 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 If, IF it were true, shouldnt they speak to JFK (Gawd....) or Lee Charney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acrossthepond 707 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Never going to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew 4229 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 If, IF it were true, shouldnt they speak to JFK (Gawd....) or Lee Charney The player himself might talk to Pardew to see what his role in the team would be etc while agents talk to the transfer negotiators Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JawD 31 Posted January 31, 2014 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Guess so. Still wont happen... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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