A shocking stat has emerged on Newcastle United’s net spend following our promotion back to the Premier League in 2017, showing a net spend of just £1m since then – a laughable amount when compared to Brighton (£110m) and Huddersfield (£78m).
This was highlighted following Saturday’s defeat to City on BT Sports’ PLTonight show, with presenter Jake Humphrey and Jermaine Jenas discussing the current situation at NUFC with Rio Ferdinand and Richard Dunne.
It was good to see some balance delivered to the #PLTonight debate by @mrjakehumphrey and @jjenas8
Also a better use of stats than we’ve seen recently. #NUFC pic.twitter.com/9pW3xemoCf
— If Rafa Goes We Go (@IfRafaGoesWeGo) September 1, 2018
Ferdinand made a few pathetic attempts to defend Mike Ashley – which makes sense given his new fashion label is now ‘exclusively available at Sports Direct’. Thankfully, each point he made was shut down.
He praised him for the money he spent the summer we were relegated (he was trying to clean up the mess he created), he claimed Ashley is up against levels of investment he can’t compete with (we’re asking to compete with mid-table teams, not Man City and Utd) and also suggested that he has every right not to spend his own money – even thought our issue is his reluctance to spend money generated by the CLUB.
Watch it here:
Where's the money gone? ?
Stop scrolling and watch this open & honest #PLTonight chat about Newcastle United under Mike Ashley ?
"I feel sorry for the fans when I see what I see having played for that club."
"They're just surviving, I don't get how that's happened." ? pic.twitter.com/wwqVXeX5kg
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) September 1, 2018
Jermaine Jenas actually hit the nail on the head when it came to Ashley’s investment in the Championship. He may have spent upwards of £60m to bring in the likes of Gayle and Ritchie, but he reminds Ferdinand that the likes of Wijnaldium and Sissoko were sold for huge fees that summer – so Ashley was hardly dipping into his wallet, instead just spending the money we’d recouped from sales.
I was so impressed with how BT Sports put this over.
Unlike Sky and Bein Sports (who employ the likes of Dennis Wise to give ‘unbiased’ views on NUFC), they’ve not allowed it to just be a fight of bizarre and uninformed opinions.
Jake Humphrey’s had the facts and stats in front of him and it’s made the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Richard Dunne look like fools – not amplifying their incorrect claims like others (Sky/Bein).
A refreshing watch after so many outlets have given such a false reflection of the current situation at NUFC.
1 million net spend spend? How can any self respecting pundit stand up and try to to defend Mike Ashley it’s absolutely ridiculous to even try owners in the championship are more ambitious. The fact I find so interesting is the Ashley went to great lengths in the SSN interview to portray himself as not a cash rich man all his money was tied up in shares he said, yet he cashed out 90million for HOF at the drop of a hat. I wonder could anybody find out did Ashley sell any of his SD shares recently to finance this? Or did he as we all expect raid the nufc kitty to buy HOF.
Nufc11(Quote)
Dunne talking absolute sh*te. I suppose Rafa has never attracted top players before. He didn’t buy Torres, Higuain, Mertens, Koulibaly, Jorginho, Alonso, Reina, Mascherano etc. If you pay the fee and the wages the player will come. He’ll definitely come if along with the wages he thinks that the manager knows what he’s doing. Not even Rafa’s harshest critics could suggest that he isn’t a capable coach. You might get the odd player who passionately prefers one way of playing over another, but generally they just want to know they’re in experienced, knowledgeable hands.
Kevin(Quote)
Forgot to say that Dunne is also talking nonsense because the players he’s talking of aren’t the players we’d be in the market for currently. We want to be able to go after mid level players. Players who Rafa has scouted as having potential. Players that would cost around the 15, 20 million mark in today’s market. These aren’t the sort of players who could necessarily have their pick of the top six teams.
Kevin(Quote)
Brilliant there’s a distinct change in the air with people criticizing the regime with the real facts totally shooting naive or corrupt pundits who don’t have a clue long it may continue until Ashley’s had enough and leaves!
Clive(Quote)
Well done bt sports & the lads, finally a true account of our clubs perils
There should be laws & rules governing the way football clubs are run to protect the fans and make sure there getting good value for money and not being ripped off when buying there tickets & merchandise
Club owners should be forced to reinvest 50% minimum of the clubs earnings every year to make sure critical investment is made.
i really don’t know how he’s been successful in business with the way he goes on
Long live nufc
I wish nothing but misery on that fat greedy git
GET OUT OF OUR CLUB
David Smith(Quote)
Just shows you that when it comes to business, footballers are the last people you should be listening to for analysis.
Last season our net spend was the same as Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Burnley combined.
How does that fit in?
To cherry pick a single figure as a reliable statistic is like picking out Yedlin’s goal against Man City and claiming we won because you choose to ignore the ones they scored.
Brrrian(Quote)
I wonder how Sky would react if all PL clubs were run like the Toon? I believe they would not create the same income trying to sell the TV rights of mediocre football. That would then reduce the money PL clubs receive, which in turn reduces the talent seeking to play in the PL for the excessive wages on offer. Hopefully Sky has identified this issue and puts pressure on the FA to introduce laws that requires clubs to invest all TV money in their club both on the field and the facilities and the community.
LA Toon(Quote)
MagfromCram(Quote)