It will be some time before I envisage us buying another Michael Owen type signing, and before people say that ‘s a good thing, I’m referring more to the fee paid for the player, not what the player himself actually brings to the team, which in Owen’s case wasn’t a great deal!
Basically what we are witnessing is a change in our transfer strategy. Gone are the days of us buying our stars. Instead the club are going to focus on making them. That was their stated policy after all.
There are good and bad sides to that of course. Financially it makes very good sense to grow your own players, but then you have to try and keep hold of those players if you want to grow as a club. If you keep selling them then you will need players to replace them, and finding those players in a competitive environment is not an easy job when you have a clutch of clubs all trying to do the same thing.
Step forward Graham Carr, who is the man who is at least partially charged with finding these relatively unheard of, cheaper, up and coming players.
Carr is apparently highly thought of at the club and has a good record as a scout. He was the man who identified Hatem Ben Arfa and recommended him as a signing. He was also partially responsible for the Cheik Tiote deal. Those two players are what I am personally hoping for more of over the summer.
It’s looks like most of our scouting activity is being conducted over in France and Holland, which is incidentally where Ben Arfa and Tiote came from respectively. More of the same will do nicely thank you!
Generally speaking you get what you pay for, but there are exceptions to the rule. What is important though is that the necessary homework is carried out on any new arrivals. Scouting is something that we haven’t done for some time, not properly anyway, so it’s nice to see that the club are putting work in to identifying players for us to sign.
A lot of hope is being pinned on the ability of Graham Carr, but he is just a small part of identifying players and bringing them to the club. However, his small part of the process is arguably the most important part of the lot.
Fingers crossed he can deliver the goods!
if I could ask a favour from you guys…..
If you could pop here and leave some comments for us. http://soccerlens.com/should-newcastle-be-contemplating-europe/66435/
Just pretend that you don’t know me 😉
toonsy(Quote)
@toonsy – done
4411(Quote)
With Carr and the recruitment strategy we’ve got, the summer will be a lot more interesting than usual. Seeing the likes of Tiote come from obscurity to stardom is so much more rewarding than signing a big name and hoping they at least live up to their price tag.
Whumpie(Quote)
Sorry Toonsy – can’t get at that page from work. They no likey.
Whumpie(Quote)
I still think the one bit of recruitment this club needs to do above all others is a proper MD to replace Owl Heed. Why can he not see that the logic they tried to use as an excuse to sack Hughton applies far, far more to him? 👿
Whumpie(Quote)
um.. quiet, ennit. 😯
Whumpie(Quote)
Cheers 4411. It’s for a reason that I won’t bore anyone with unless they really want to know 😆
Whumpie – No worries. Call it homework for later 😎
toonsy(Quote)
Toonsy – Sorted and decided a bit of a name change for it. 😆
Regarding Carr; between him and Pardew i believe in both of them and as long as Carr can keep up his track record then we could have a few good young signings on our hands. Also Whumpie i couldn’t agree more from watching unknown players become stars.
Also i read on Twitter that Carr’s at Anderlect’s game tonight. 😉
dan4toon(Quote)
Our biggest enemy over the summer is the agent. Those amoral excuses for organic matter will be filling the heads of our players with poison and trying to get them to move whether it’s in the player’s best interest or not.
Normally a club has its own experienced negotiator and a boss who’s seen it all before, to balance that influence. We’ve got… Casino Derek. Oh, bollocks.
Whumpie(Quote)
toonsy howay tell us ❓ 😕
batty(Quote)
Batty – You sure? It’s really boring but ok.
Basically the long story cut short is that it is helping get this place noticed. More comments on that article will make that article more popular and in return the link that I put to this place at the bottom of that page will be stronger and will be worth more when things like Google scan it etc.
Also, It gets us access to Newsnow as that was published on there 😉
Told you. Boring 😛
toonsy(Quote)
That site used my avatar….shouldn’t be a problem as millions of people have Nobby Solano as their avatar. Could have been anyone.
Moreno(Quote)
toonsy thought it was summit do with that ,with the blog link 😉 how the fck u havent got on news now yet ile never know
batty(Quote)
Can I just say that having to correct typo’s and poor punctuation from a quote in an actual newspaper is actually shocking 😯
I mean it’s not like they are paid to get things like that right is it 🙄
toonsy(Quote)
Just proves what we already knew. Newspapers are a joke!
Moreno(Quote)
Batty – Because I haven’t tried again yet 😉
I’m letting things settle down after the server switch and name change. Think of it as though your little quiet country house was ticking along fine (.info) until one day it get ripped apart by a random tornado (server/name change). Now your are left with having to rebuild that nice house, but it takes time to do it and make sure it’s done right 😉
Basically, it’s pointless going on there until everything has settled down and any problems have been ironed out (they have) rather than going on there and putting a site to a new audience that only works sometimes 😉
toonsy(Quote)
Agree’d more of the same caliber (sp?) please 🙂
Slarth(Quote)
I see Birmingham have been charged for failing to control their crowd? Smacks of punishment for not allowing Arsenal to win the cup to me 🙄
toonsy(Quote)
I wish they had let Arsenal win the cup, It would have kept our season ticking along, Now i can see a no mark like Bolton or Stoke getting to the cup final and taking the last european spot… 🙁
CC(Quote)
http://www.everton.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=233800 nice unbiase article by a toffee fan 😉
batty(Quote)
Toonsy – that team photo above – is that Alan Foggon at the beginning of the front row? – if so – which team is it?
tattyheed(Quote)
the keeper looks like Gary kelly an all …. that cannot be reet?
tattyheed(Quote)
Telford United
bobby(Quote)
Bobby is bang on 😉
toonsy(Quote)
Hey guys,
Could anyone here remind me th ename of a NCFC professional who worked in the club in the staff / management and left few years ago after 20-30 years f services at the club?
Abel Helmer(Quote)
NCFC? 😕 Typo?
toonsy(Quote)