Prince v Pauper – Would you prefer to have money like City?

The kind of player money can buy
Both Manchester City and Newcastle may be the only unbeaten sides in the Premier League as things stand, but for me the similarities end there.

In a way it’s testament to the kind of start that we’ve had to the season. The pauper that is striving for financial self-sufficiency has thus far matched the prince that has spent nigh on £900 million in transfer fees at a time when we’ve actually made a profit on player sales.

Now not for one moment am I comparing us to Manchester City. Our good start to the season has been well deserved but quite simply they are on another planet. Look at their squad and look at ours and you’d have to think that they are equipped to maintain a challenge whilst we fade away at some point.

The reason for this is money. They’ve spent the money to build a squad capable of maintaining a challenge whilst we go about the same principle in a very different manner using careful scouting and trying to cut deals wherever we go. The goal of both clubs is the same (I guess, in time), but in a week which saw Manchester City post losses for the year of £195 million you can see that both clubs are going about it a very different way.

I was inspired to write this article yesterday whilst having a discussion with some of you guys. I found it interesting so thought that it would be good to gauge a bigger opinion on the matter.

Basically my argument is that I’d love it for someone to lavish the kind of cash on Newcastle that has been spent at Manchester City. Even half of it would do me and would go a long way towards giving us a lift up the league. That was countered with people saying that they prefer the way we are going about things currently, so that anything we achieve as a result we can feel proud of as we’ve earned it.

What I want to know is what do you guys think? Would you be happier with a Manchester City style injection of cash allowing us to compete with the best a lot sooner? Or are you happy with the way things are going right now?

Basically I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want a boatload of money spent on us. I mean we seem to be doing well enough in terms of player recruitment at the moment, that isn’t an issue, but what would be wrong with getting a leg up and getting to the top that little bit quicker?

I keep hearing things about how “none of their trophies will have been earned”, but if I was sat in the stands at Wembley watching my team win trophies, if we were top of the league and looking pretty much favourites for the title, if we were in the Champions League I really don’t think I’d mind.

It’s almost as though we’ve been told about self-sufficiency and are using it as a comfort barrier and believe that it’s good for the club. It is of course in the long run, but it isn’t the only way to go about things.

Now I want to know what you think of it all.

[poll id=”49″]

About toonsy

A lifelong Newcastle fan and current webmaster of this very 'blog who has the sole aim of creating a place by Newcastle United fans, for Newcastle United fans.

102 thoughts on “Prince v Pauper – Would you prefer to have money like City?

  1. I think Geordie fans would welcome a non-interfereing benevolent arab. More than some cockney with deep pockets and short arms.

    No more relegation battles. The city being redeveloped.

    Like city, you’ve got a non-obvious manager buying none-stars, getting the most out of existing players. I think this would continue when Ashley cashes in this season. Remember when he tried to get shot, and there were no takers?

    Newcastle are a privately-owned entity, no shareholders, unbeaten, great stadium and captive fanbase, top of the table.

    When (not if) you are bought by a rich owner, you will start to believe that the meek will inherit the earth after all. The years of suffering were all worth it.

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  2. Toonsy, one of my friends is schizophrenic. He would say, ‘don’t believe the media, they are painting a picture to make the grinning, blinking, nodding percentage of our population believe a cynical, thought out plan from the western governments. In a way he is right. In a way he is crazy.. eg. he thinks the moon landings were on a film set in Nevada, 9/11 was a cover up by the US government to destroy ‘secretive records’ and that the government put Fluoride in the water to ‘dumb down’ the population in urban areas. In other words he believes every conspiricy theory going. 🙄

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  3. Bambam 8

    Where did you read that ariticule about Virgin/Richard Branson investing in NUFC? Can’t find a thing about it.

    Would I like NUFC to have the same sort of money thrown at them that MCFC have had over the last three years, of course I would, only a fool would say no.

    Good luck to Man City fans, they have put up with a lot of **** over the years (especially from that smug mob in Salford).

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  4. Zorrin, I was one of the people who voted yes on this article’s poll. It’d be nice to have a generous owner who forked out large amounts on players, but to be honest, I think City have gone OTT a bit. I’ve always thought football teams should have a maximum spend season cap, keeps things fair. Otherwise it’s just like entering a Kawasaki Z1000 into the Tour de France.

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  5. Toonsy. The doctor gives him this stuff to basically chill him out. I’m suprised he doesn’t reject it as a conspiricy to ‘dumb him down’. :mrgreen:

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  6. Good team, Been moaning at how open we have been away in particular so pleased with 4-4-1-1 and is it me or is gervinhos final ball worse than w@nk ??

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  7. @75MCFC…..thing is though there’s a bit more to it than rich arabs etc. Manchester has grown into the second city these last 20 years and the likes of Marco Pierre White etc see it as high profile next to the capitol. Huge investment has teken place and even your airport is seeing nearly as much traffic as the London ones. Newcastle as a city isn’t in that sphere….they’re not even planning to run the high speed rail-link this far. Leeds are more likely to be the next boom-town after Manchester! So even if the club were to be taken over by mega rich owners we’re still not going to see the whole city benefit a’la manchester

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  8. Zorrin Drax – yep, weird isn’t it? Gets into some odd areas here – philosophy and stuff like that. Honestly – we have standards to live down to don’t we?

    And nope, I try to stay away from Manure sites. I lose two IQ points just thinking about it!

    Personally I think Lawro’s prediction of 2-0 is a compliment to us and not unrealistic. Most on here would be happy with just a good performance.

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  9. Re Richard Branson/Virgin, **** & blast! Knew if was to good to be true. Thanks for the info anyhow Chris G.

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  10. what the hell is that simplesimon on about at the top lol 20 or 30 million is not alot of money when we were a team in europe then.

    anyway i’d prefer it as it is for us becuase say the owners of city suddenly left where would that leave city? deep in the **** thats where. how would they afford the high player wages without the current owners input of cash they simply wouldnt

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  11. We are football fans we would love lots of money to buy good footballers because thats what we do we watch footballers play football simple .
    And thats what boils my **** about fans bleating on about Ashley and what a great job hes doing at making us self sufficent , well yes he is and woop de doo if your a accountant or a shareholder but he is selling players and keeping the money and history has made it very clear that he will not invest in the team .
    Our scouts are great and Pardew is doing a great job but from time to time there will need to be investment in the first team 10 million or so for a good player or two to support the good work the coaching staff are doing and in my opinion that will not be forthcoming and if at the same time Ashley continues to sell our high value players the football will get worse .
    And if we are football fans thats bad yeh !

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  12. And as for Sheik Monsour walking away well so what he cant take the team with him so City will have a cabinet full of trotheys and 100s of millions of pounds worth of players and lots of happy memories how would that be bad for a football fan !

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