Pardew powerless to prevent player sales
Alan Pardew has admitted that it may be tough to keep hold of some of our better players, if the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Manchester City or Chelsea come calling for them.
If you take off the black and white glasses for a moment you'll see that he is just talking honestly about things on this one. No player in their right mind would turn down the chance to move to such clubs, either from a prestige point of view or a financial one, so really there is nothing to see here and nothing that deep down most of us don't already know.
Pardew said all of this in his BBC Newcastle radio talk-in last night, where he sat with John Carver and answered a number of questions posed to him by fans. However this is the one that people will latch onto so let's take a look at what he actually had to say.
"It's impossible to restrict Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester City from coming in for one of our players. We have players who are not on the salaries these top clubs can offer," said Pardew.
However Pardiola insists that the situation is no different to the one Arsenal found themselves in last summer with Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, and could well find themselves in again this summer should Manchester City firm up any interest in Robin van Persie.
"Forget about Everton and Aston Villa, we have put ourselves in a similar position to Arsenal," he added.
"The one security I have is that Mike Ashley is a difficult seller. He is not going to let someone go for £7m, he is going to want top, top money."
"But if Yohan Cabaye gets a call from Manchester United and they tell him he is going to be the next Paul Scholes I am not going to be able to stop him."
"It is going to cost Manchester United a shedload of money, but until we have Champions League football, and we might have that by this weekend, we can not compete with that."
People may not like it, but it's the truth at the end of the day. No matter how big some fans think we are as a club they would have to be seriously deluded to even contemplate us being on the same level as some of the clubs mentioned.
This wasn't the only worthy soundbite from the interview however, and I've rounded up the most important ones below although naturally if you feel that I've missed anything then please feel free to add it.
AP on Demba Ba and "that" clause: "Demba's release clause has been widely publicised, there is some truth to it, and some untruth. There is a clause there."
"There is a situation with his contract and we are in talks with him and his agent. It is not a foregone conclusion that he will stay, but the Newcastle public have played their part singing his name. He must love that. Demba is not all about money."
AP on incoming players: "I am contemplating bringing in someone because we don't have a dominant header of the ball. On the scouting front we are looking at a centre-half who can come and score us eight goals next season."
"We are trying to bring another player to the club who is close to Yohan Cabaye. That is another little connection and a bit of a clue for you."
I wonder if that would be Mathieu Debuchy, who Yohan Cabaye recently revealed he'd been chatting to about joining Newcastle? Mind you, he is not a central defender...
Like I said, there are loads of other little titbits, but these for me are the most important ones. If you really want to know what his Goal of the Season is then it's Hatem Ben Arfa's against Blackburn in the FA Cup (Carver's was Cabaye's free-kick against Manchester United). Other than that, nothing but refreshing honesty from the newly crowned Manager of the Season.
