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Newcastle’s Alan Pardew waivering on Cheick Tiote
“You never know with the window — it’s such a minefield of possibilities. I think I’ve learned from the Andy Carroll situation and outside of Manchester City, every club has a player that is vulnerable.
We have one or two players here that top clubs, I’m sure, would be interested in.
The one thing I would say is that they will have to pay a lot of money to take anyone out of here because we’re in a good position — not just on the playing side but financially.
Cheick is a big target because he’s a great player and great players will be targeted.
We value him very highly here and I think, on my part, I expect him to stay.
But that does not mean to say something might not come out of the fire.
If he did go, it would have to be for a silly price.”
That’s Alan Pardew on the possibility of Cheick Tiote leaving Newcastle.
Why not just say he’s not for sale? All Pardew has done here is give encouragement to any sides that are sniffing around his midfielder – he’s basically confirmed that the Ivorian is for sale at a certain value. You can’t really blame Pardew, because I suppose that he’s aware that his owners will sell any of his players for the right price, but it’s just a shame to hear this kind of comment after the start Newcastle have had.
If I’m a Newcastle fan, all that’s happened here is that it’s been reinforced to me that we’re a selling club – and that there’s a ceiling to our progress. Brilliant.
This is why Mike Ashley shouldn’t own a football club, because if he’s ever forced to make a decision between trophies and cash, he’ll choose the latter. Sometimes you have to ignore the economic benefits of owning a football club, and focus a little bit more on rewarding the fans.
Andy Carroll was sold for a ‘silly price’, but that was never properly reinvested in the squad – so what’s the upside of a similar scenario with Tiote from the supporters’ perspective?
“We’ve sold the lynchpin of our midfield for an exaggerated transfer fee!”
“Great, who will you buy with the money”
“Oh, nobody – our owner will just use the funds to erect SportsDirect marketing material around our stadium.”
“Great.”
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Derek Llambias talking himself into trouble at Newcastle
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Just when you thought that the Cockney Mafia couldn’t get any more dislikeable, here’s Newcastle United CEO Derek Llambias to prove otherwise. It seems that Llambias thought that getting pissed in a Newcastle Bistro and mouthing off to anybody who would listen would be a good exercise in public relations.
Good call.
Anyway, here are some highlights…
(On Kevin Keegan)“Kevin Keegan can’t take pressure. His f****** head is all over the place”
(On Alan Shearer)“Shearer was my choice and I have to hold up my hands — the wrong choice. Shearer, for this, destroys us. He gave all the responsibility to Dowie. Rubbish!”
(On Chris Hughton)“He would never have taken us where we want to be. That’s my decision by the way. Chris can’t make decisions. If I am asking about a player, Ben Arfa? he says ‘I’m not sure, blah blah’. With Chris, he couldn’t cope with where we are mentally. We are aggressive. You need to be aggressive. I don’t want a manager below me who can’t argue.”
(On Andy Carroll)“No — he’s worth f*** all. It is about control. We had the control. We knew the Torres deal was there. We drew that f****** deal, perhaps the ultimate. So £30m? F*** off! Don’t waste my time and I slammed the phone down. £35m? Everybody including Pardew [manager Alan Pardew] all agreed. But the £35m they wanted to pay over four years. It was rubbish. Mike (Ashley) said — and he is a brave boy Mike I promise you — get all the £35m up front. We got it all up front and then they never paid us on time and we charged them 12 grand f****** interest.”
That’s just really, really classy. You do get the feeling that Llambias ever-so-slightly enjoys the notoriety that he and Ashley have achieved at Newcastle don’t you. The problem is Derek, that all this self-congratulation is just a little bit premature – have you seen your next three fixtures?
It’s unfortunate, because I used to like Newcastle in a passive way, but now – and sorry to the fans for this – I really hope Ashley and Llambias fall flat on their faces. There’s just too much talk from these fat little cockneys, and it’s completely disproportionate to what’s been achieved during their reign at the club.
Win something, then you can talk. Just a League Cup? Just something.
Mike Ashley at it again at Newcastle
Mike Ashley spends his days wandering around St James’ Park – sorry, the Sports Direct Arena – looking for assets to sell. You can see it, him and Derek Llambias treading the pitch perimeter and guessing at ‘how much they could get for the penalty spot’.
Look, I know that naming rights are part of football now, but not quite to the extent that the Cockney Mafia insist that they are. The ‘need to keep with the times’ will doubtless be used to explain away the need to shed the St James’ Park moniker from the stadium, but in reality the Bolton and Arsenal examples that will be used to temper fan anger are ill-fitting.
Those were newly-built stadiums that incorporated an entitlement sponsor to part-subsidise the costs of construction. A new stadium, with no history and no memories. Fine, fans won’t like it, but most will probably appreciate its necessity.
Stripping the name from a 119-year-old stadium and whoring its identity to the highest-bidder is a little different. Yes, yes, it’s a new revenue stream, but enough already – why must we tolerate everything becoming so relentlessly corporate?
Like everything that Ashley and Llambias do at Newcastle, it’s predicated on the interests of the ownership. Over the next few days, doubtless we’ll hear about how the funds raised will be used to support the ambition of an upwardly mobile club – I’ll believe that when I’ll see it. A branded stadium leads allows for a more valuable football club, that’s what this is actually about. Anybody who hopes to see those funds invested in the team is going to end up sorely disappointed, that I promise you.
I’m not going to pretend that Mike Ashley’s involvement doesn’t make my reaction to this disproportionately poisonous, but that’s with good reason – he doesn’t have enough credit in the benefit of the doubt bank. I sincerely feel for every Newcastle fan, because no matter how promising the team, no matter how well they perform, Ashley will always be capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Don’t you see – all the talk about ‘self-sufficiency’ is just rhetoric. Ashley is whoring Newcastle United and its identity to price-up his commodity.
This is not an overly-romantic view of the game, the need for evolution within the sport – and its economy – is not lost on me, but there’s something so crude about what’s happening in the North East. Remember, this was something that Ashley promised would never happen in 2009, and that ‘St James’ Park’ would remain – at least in part – regardless of a title sponsor.
Like everything else, just words – reneged on for the sake of a financial short-cut.
Newcastle are flying, and the side is exceeding everybody’s expectation, but – as ever – Ashley is the dark cloud on the horizon.
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Slightly irritated by Newcastle’s good start
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Newcastle’s start to the season irritates me a bit.
Let me get this straight, it has nothing to do with the fans or the players – because they do deserve the success that they’re currently enjoying. It’s not even really much to with Alan Pardew.
No, it’s because of Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias.
Everything that Ashley has done since he’s owned the club has been done to benefit himself. Selling players, reducing the wage bill, branding St James’ Park. Mike Ashley is interested in Mike Ashley, that’s it. All of his actions can be traced back to his desire to sell the club for as much money as he can possibly get for it. In a business sense that’s obviously normal, but his philosophies are just too cynical for football. It’s very hard to tolerate.
With that in mind, Newcastle’s start to the season is miraculous. And annoying. Ashley has stumbled into a successful formula with Pardew, and he’s struck gold without ever really mining for it. Any situation in which Ashley or Derek Llambias could potentially receive any credit is one that’s highly-objectionable.
Cash-in on a club’s assets and replace them with cheaper, younger alternatives. Then refuse to reinvest the majority of the surplus back into the club. It’s unforgivable. But he’s got away with it. The stars have aligned, and the players that have arrived have gelled perfectly and are playing without any semblance of fear.
Alan Pardew deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done, but even that doesn’t sit that easily. Pardew was brought to the club because he wouldn’t object too strongly to the Cockney Mafia’s refinancing and meddling, and because he wouldn’t command high-wages. A club the size of Newcastle could easily attract a manager of higher-profile, or even someone that’s actually won something – but they went down the path of least possible resistance. Someone who wouldn’t ruffle too many feathers.
It was a decision predicated on anything but football, but it’s paid off and they’re starting to get undue credit for it. As unreasonable as it may be, that annoys the hell out of me.
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High-flying Newcastle still an unknown quantity
Let’s put the breaks on the Newcastle love-in that’s running wild in the media.
Let me prefix this by saying that I’m a big fan of the the type of players that have been brought to St James Park, but the rush to judgement is premature.
Alan Pardew’s side have started well – better than those with an anti-Ashley agenda would have hoped – but it’s still very early in the season, and that side hasn’t really faced a proper examination yet.
This is not an attempt to be negative, it’s just caution in the face of past precedents. It’s always the way at the beginning of the season, we feel the need to brand teams with an identity as soon as possible. There’s a fresh feeling to Newcastle at the moment, a novelty, a lot of young foreign players will tend to do that – but we’re six games in.
If there’s one criticism of this new look Newcastle, it’s that the squad looks surface-deep. Factor in the inevitable dips in form that occur over a season, the injuries, the inexperience within the club, and there’s still cause for concern at St James Park.
Players like Joey Barton and Kevin Nolan may have been high-earners, and while that’s clearly against Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias’ financial philosophy, those are players that would have given this team more security, more backbone. While this looks like a leaner and fitter Newcastle and while Ashley looks to have gotten away with his Summer penny-pinching at the moment, it would only take a couple of negative results to change the atmosphere in the North East.
As mentioned, I like a lot of the players in this team at the moment – Yohan Cabaye is an elegant footballer, Hatem Ben Arfa has too much flair not to be liked, and Cheik Tiote is one of the most unheralded players in the league – but there’s not enough security in numbers.
In November, Newcastle play Everton, both Manchester clubs, and Chelsea – if those results don’t go well, it will be interesting to see how this team handles the long Winter period that will follow.
4 things to expect from the new season: Man United, Everton, Arsenal & Newcastle
Ashley Young will turn into one of the best signings of the season
What is it that limits Nani to being just a good player rather than a great one? Over-indulgence and inconsistency of supply into the box. How many times does he pass over a crossing option in favour of one more step-over? That’s what Ashley Young has been bought in to cure. Young is not an exceptional winger, he’s just an extremely good one, but it’s his direct approach to forward play that will have appealed to Sir Alex Ferguson.
If you’re Javier Hernandez, you’re delighted to see Ashley Young at the club. As a forward, if you’re forever checking back on runs because your source of supply dallies on the ball, then the chances you get in front of goal will diminish. But if you can make runs and know when the ball is coming in, it’s a license to fill your boots. Manchester United under Ferguson have always had pace going forward, and have always had players that can fit into a counter-attacking philosophy – Young is far more in that mould than Nani is, and the team will benefit because of it.
Arsenal have stood still
Because there’s no evidence to suggest anything different. I challenge anyone who watched the Emirates Cup over the weekend to identify any differences between this year’s Arsenal and last year’s incarnation. They’re still profligate infront of goal, they’re still indecisive around the opposition box, they still make too many errors in defense, and they still haven’t learned how to protect a lead.
Yes, Gervinho’s joined the club, but so what, because fine player though he is, he doesn’t solve any of the existing problems. In fact, it was even mentioned in ESPN’s commentary that he’d already ‘caught the Arsenal bug’ of overplaying in the final third. They’re frustrating to watch even when you don’t support them.
The only way the club can depart its current malaise is through investment; Samba needs to come in and Joey Barton needs to be seriously considered. Ultimately you can decorate a house as flamboyantly as you want, but if the foundations aren’t built from strong enough materials then it’s fairly pointless – Samba and Barton are your Bricks and Cement.
Newcastle are going to be better than expected
Well, they might be. A lot of their squad is foreign now, and talented as they may be a collective temperamental melt-down is never going to be far away. In Cabaye, Marveaux, and Demba Ba, they have creativity, flair and pace, and goals – that’s a pretty good start.
I think it’s fair to say that the way in which the club is run is baffling, because you always have that sense that the current ownership are capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at any moment. What hasn’t been made public about Kevin Nolan’s departure is probably more significant than what we know – something is very wrong with the infrastructure of a club when your captain choses to move down a division. The Joey Barton saga is also symptomatic of the same issue; players at properly run football clubs don’t behave in that way. When a large swell of public support emerges for someone with Barton’s past, you know that the club has an enormous PR problem – there are just so many questions; why are first-team players leaving? How much jurisdiction does Alan Pardew really have in that dressing room? What is Mike Ashley’s long-term objective for Newcastle United.
As always, one step forward and two back at St James’ Park. They’re going to give a few ‘bigger’ teams a bloody nose this year, but the pack of cards could crumble at any moment. It will, at least, be a good watch for everybody else.
Everton will start well
We know what to expect from Everton, because nothing has happened over the Summer and they’re exactly the same team. While resources are scarce at Goodison Park, what David Moyes does have in abundance is team-spirit and a unified squad. This is a set of players that seem to genuinely like each other – check out the various Twitter conversation between Messrs Coleman, Neville, and Cahill as a starting point – and Moyes deserves a lot of credit for fostering that spirit.
The perennial criticism of Everton is always that they start badly and only really seem to get going as Winter sets in. Interestingly though, four of their first five games are very winnable this season; Tottenham, QPR, Blackburn, Villa, and Wigan. White Hart Lane may be nil-pointer on the opening day, but you’d expect them to gather at least nine points from the other twelve available.
If they can couple their traditionally strong finish with a better start, then – don’t laugh – but fourth or fifth is not beyond them. Of course that whole theory comes with the usual caveat about injuries, but a full-strength Everton can beat anyone.
Marveux & Demba Ba promise hope for Newcastle
Newcastle’s a funny club.
The first half of the week saw the ownership derided for the ambition-less sale of Kevin Nolan to West Ham, but by the time the weekend has arrived there’s cause for some real optimism on Tyneside.
There have been many low-points of the Cockney Mafia reign in the North East, and the failure to adequately replace Andy Carroll is fairly prominent. The sale itself probably doesn’t rankle that much given the vastly inflated fee that they recouped, but watching Shefki Kuqi trapse into the club immediately afterwards was probably less gratifying. Overseeing an exodus of talent leaving a club, and then not obviously reinvesting the sales revenue into new players is one of the quickest and easiest ways to alienate yourself from a club’s support. The sale of Carroll was a case study of how to do this, as £35m seemingly disappearing into a blackhole.
But credit where it’s due, the last 24 hours have seen two very astute purchases – Sylvain Marveux and Demba Ba will both significantly improve the first eleven at St James’ Park, and combined with the earlier acquisition Yohan Cabaye, Newcastle suddenly look like a really interesting proposition again. If Jonas Gutierrez, Joey Barton, and Jose Enrique can be retained – which the new arrivals may allow – then Alan Pardew will be a right-back and a central defender away from a team that can do some damage inside the top half of the league.
Given his five months in the East End, most fans will be fairly familiar with Demba Ba by now and can rest assured that he’ll contribute goals – he’s the kind of player that will always score wherever he goes. Quick, powerful, good movement, and a really good finisher – a Shola Ameobi for the digital age. Yohan Cabaye is more subtle, and he brings an elegance and a creativity to the midfield that will complement Joey Barton’s combative style. Sylvain Marveaux is possibly the biggest risk of the three, but his potential upside is huge – and at twenty-five he’s still a developing player. Liverpool fans will no doubt now dismiss him after their club seemingly blinked at the negotiating table, but Newcastle could be getting a real steal on a free transfer – a versatile forward with extremely good feet and a fondness for Laurent Robert-esque left-footed fireworks.
St James’ Park will be fun place to watch football next year, so far so good this Summer, and Ashley, Llambias, and Pardew have us eating our words a little bit. Maybe, just maybe, Newcastle are taking shape as a flair team again.
Newcastle sign Kuqi
Nothing tells you that the owner of a football club values money over his team’s success more than selling a prized asset, and replacing him with an ageing free-transfer.
Having already engineered Andy Carroll’s transfer to Liverpool – whilst cleverly trying to make it look as if the player had demanded to leave – Mike Ashley has brought in a rather underwhelming replacement, 34 year-old Finnish forward Shefki Kuqi – yes, he of the silly goal celebration.
Ever feel like you’ve been cheated, short-changed, and robbed Newcastle fans?
Nothing against Kuqi – who seems like an honest professional – but when a player expresses shock at being wanted by a club that’s not generally a great sign.
Bank £35M, spend nothing – owning a football club looks ever-more appealing.
Real reasons for Alan Pardew’s appointment.
Something tells us that Jose Enrique might be a little underwhelmed by the identity of his new manager, especially after saying this yesterday afternoon:
‘We were all happy with Chris. He’s a great person, he works really hard and we all wanted him to stay. He’ll get a chance with a big club soon because he is a great manager. If they are going to fire someone as good as Chris, they have to then bring in a big name, someone who has won trophies. And that doesn’t even mean he will necessarily be better. If they just bring in someone similar, it’s a joke.’
Joke is right Jose, only this one probably isn’t causing too much laughter in the North East.
By the way, we can shed a little bit of light on how Alan Pardew managed to find himself in charge at St James Park obviously ‘in charge’ is meant in the loosest possible sense. Pardew is an acquaintance of Derek Llambias, having struck up a friendship with him during Llambias’ time as Chief Executive of the private members club and casino ’50′ in St James’ Street, London.
So really, when Mike Ashley spoke about trying to find a manager with more experience, what he actually meant was that he wanted a soft touch who would allow him and Llambias to interfere in team affairs – as they were rumoured to constantly try to when Chris Hughton was in charge.
It just gets worse and worse and worse.
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