Alan Shearer has launched an attack on Mike Ashley, claiming that the NUFC owner’s promise of a free holiday (if we avoid relegation) is an ‘insult’ to the players – saying he should spend that money ‘on the football club and back the manager!’.
I totally agree with Alan here – and it’s not the first time when it comes to his thoughts on Ashley.
As he states during his latest piece for The Sun, the players are multi-millionaires and do not exactly need a holiday paying for.
A nice gesture perhaps, but equally frustrating given his total lack of investment at the club – and hardly something that’s going to motivate the players to any great extent given a few days wages would pay for one of these players to go on holiday next summer.
Here’s Shearer’s rant, with him saying that he’d shove Ashley’s offer ‘where the sun doesn’t shine’ if he was a player:
“Mike Ashley offering Newcastle players a free holiday if they avoid relegation is an insult.
“If I was a player at that team dinner on Wednesday and he offered me that, I would have told him to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
“I would have said, ‘Instead of spending money on a holiday spend it on the football club and back the manager!’
“As a player, that might give me hope and extra motivation that we’re all in the fight together.
“These players are on from between £30,000 and £100,000-a-week, they are multi-millionaires.
“Does he not think they can afford any holiday they want?
“They have spent ten months with each other and my guess is that the last thing they would want is to go away as a team.”
“As for the dinner how is that going to make you better as a player?
“If you are motivated by that, or by the owner being at matches, there is something wrong with you. Was it a coincidence that the meal happened on the same night fans were meeting to discuss future protests against Ashley?
“And was it a coincidence that it happened at the same time that Kevin Keegan’s book has come out criticising the owner?
“Maybe I am just being cynical but Kevin’s book tells it exactly how it is. He has been inside the club and knows what it is like.”
Ashley’s ‘dinner date’ and his promise to pay for the players holidays if we avoid relegation is all good and well, but he didn’t deliver on his promises when it mattered earlier on in the summer – and that’s what really matters.
He can attempt to ‘build bridges’ all he likes, but until he starts delivering some serious investment into the club, I’ll refuse to take him seriously as an owner.
