It may be some hundred and three days away, but on the 8th of June 2015 our summer transfer window re-opens. I don’t know about you but I’m already thinking about who and what we need to try and progress from our present standing. While I think it’s fair to say we will pretty much all agree on what’s required, the bigger question is what does our owner think we need? My guess is he’ll spend as little as possible to keep our current status in the Premier League. For me, the prudent, cautious approach, though I know some will say **** right stingy, is better than blowing big bucks on aging and possibly ‘had their day’ players. That said there surely has to be room for two, maybe three, quality experienced players who may well be 26 and over and I do feel we are far too rigid in our transfer policy. For every cracking little player like Ayoze Perez you will most likely get 3 or 4 mediocre duds. I also think Graham Carr being hailed a scouting genius is a bit much too, yes he’s un earthed a few gems but also a couple of duds as well. We have also been linked to many players on the well built up dossier of Grahams only to find ourselves outbid by other clubs due to our owner not wanting to be part of a bidding war. What then is the point of Carr putting in so much leg work if in the end we won’t pay the asking price. Again this just serves to show our rigidity in both age and price restrictions and this must be detrimental to us ever building a team of quality good enough to truely compete on any level. It’s also policy to wipe our own noses and we obviously sell to buy now and though that makes some financial sense it only works if you replace the quality you lost straight away; leaving it until the next window just leaves you in a perilous position.I would like to see us break the constraints a little and bring in a couple of quality guys alongside youth, what do you think?
KIMTOON
Some guy is taking the FPR to court wants it over ruled,this will be interesting out come
icedog(Quote)
GTE – How did Spurs get the their turnover? Levy pushed and pushed and pushed his commercial dept for better deals and if they didn’t come up with them he sacked them. He employs some of the best in the business to make that happen. Ashley is not interested in having the best in the business, he wants the cheapest available who could just ‘do a job’. It is scandalous!
We could absolutely without debt be challenging Spurs in a financial way if we had the ambition to increase our commercial activities and employed the right people. Did you know NUFC don’t even have a commercial director? Shocking! That’s why we end up with WONGA and their poxy £4m a year or whatever it is, even though we are involved in the biggest and richest leagues in the world.
Stuart79(Quote)
GTE
The relegation…sure. That was him in charge. He didn’t have a clue on how to run a football club and made mistakes. But I’m not going to keep holding that one against him as he’s certainly learned since.
The commercial side of the business? Not strictly true. A lot of things have been outsourced which actually skews the figures and the SD advertising isn’t actually worth as much as most people seem to think. Plus, if you consider the interest free loans as opposed to the FFS loans with interest + huge wages for himself and Douglas Hall, then it just doesn’t add up.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Stu – because our owner has no ambition and is a tight wad. No excuses, just fact. Sadly it is fact, and those numbers are getting worse and worse for us season by season. Under the present regime, we are not a big club with big club ambition. Boycott at the level needed aint gonna happen. So, best to hope for is a coaching set up that can ‘work within the financial oparameters’, or, as you keep saying, give up and walk away.
GTE(Quote)
Stu – on Spurs, as on just about everything else, we are actually agreeing under all the thunder and smoke 😀
GTE(Quote)
You can’t think that we’ve maximised comercial revenues as much as our competing clubs can youTDS? Wholly agree on the Halls and FFS – have argued bhere many times that they were a bigger set of leeches that Ashley.
GTE(Quote)
STUART
If what you say is true, then it’s an even bigger gap to Spurs at £50M! So we can forget the top 6?
As I’ve said twice now, those clubs gamble on PL safety a lot more and are willing to spend big. Look at clubs in the CL to see where it went wrong…consider QPR, Wolves, Leeds, Blackburn, Fulham, Cardiff, Norwich, Wigan, Blackpool…need I go on?
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
I have no issue with going after younger players – I reckon 27 or younger. I want us to avoid players in their twilight years of looking for a big final pay day. There will be some players I’d bend the rules for – like Lescott, who I think would have been a very good signing for us.
But the main change I’d like to see us make is this maximum spend – which seems to be around £10m at the moment. If that was increased to even £15m, then the quality of signing would be so much better.
Sharpy17(Quote)
GTE
Maximised? No. No such thing really. But optimised? Yeah, I’d say they’ve done fairly well. Take whatever we can get for the SD advertising and pay interest on Ashley’s loan or have it splashed around a bit and have it interest free. I think the latter is better for the club based on the figures I’ve seen.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
Anyway…need to get on with some work. It’s been a pleasure.
ToonDarnSarf(Quote)
ToonDarnSarf
February 26, 2015 at 12:09
He still doesn’t know how to run a football club! He is running a trading company where football is secondary and that is a crime for a football club!
Stuart79(Quote)
SHARPY 15mil?you cheap skate lol
icedog(Quote)
Great stuff, cheers lads and lasses
GTE(Quote)
Stu – I completely agree with you, but that’s just one aspect of Spurs success.
Let’s not forget that they have sold their fair share of players too – in Keane, Berbatov, Modric and Bale to name the big fees.
I wouldn’t disagree that they reinvested that money better than we ever have for our big fee sales – but Spurs income hasn’t just been down to commercial deals & sponsorship
Sharpy17(Quote)
You know the real sad thing is that at the start of this season we really only needed another centre half and good striker and we would probably have had a team capable of finishing in the top 8 and then push on from there. I guess that is a prime example of how Ashley doesn’t think like a football club. He see’s no benefit in having finished 8th this season but having to have spent an extra £15m to have achieved it. A football club does see that benefit because what else is there to spend the money on other than trying to be as good as possible?
Stuart79(Quote)
Ice – I know mate :oops:. I just truly hate these massively inflated fees for not great players.
I’m mainly thinking of Bony, who I think we lost out on coz we were unwilling to go above £10m – so Swansea got him for around £12m – meaning we missed out on the CF we desperately needed, and Ashley missed out on more than doubling his money 😆
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy – Their income now is based on better commercial decisions. They have sold players but they have invested that money to move the club forward, what have we done ours? We have reinvested it to maintain our mid table mediocrity.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu – I agree. They used those big fees to move the club closer to the top 4 – they aren’t there yet, and are still a distance away IMO. I’m not convinced that all of the Bale money was invested wisely personally, but no nowt they have a strong squad.
But, it is also worth noting that their development players are probably their best players this season – Kane, Bentalab and Mason.
Sharpy17(Quote)
TDS @73 – Yes fans like you, balance book fans. As long as the books balance all is good, no matter what rubbish is being served up on the pitch. All of your points relate to the balance sheets and none to what is happening on the pitch.
You also ignore the fact that as MA owns a private company he isn’t obligated to release finance reports so he releases enough of the figures to paint the picture he wishes to show. Even your Deloitte bible is based mostly off hand picked financial reports and media publication.
Also you seem to accept that just because the ‘big 6’ are light years ahead of the rest of the league financially then we should all pack up and go home, between your desire for bean counting and throwing in the towel you should never have anything to do with sport ever again.
Mag71(Quote)
Sharpy – The players they bought are of course debatable, but they still spent the money and I don’t think they’re that far away to be honest. But they are also in with a shout of winning a trophy too.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu – by that I obviously mean that Spurs have invested well in their youth development too and not just focused on buying in.
Yet another thing we are years behind the top clubs on.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Stu – yeah, spot on – Capital One Cup final this week, 7th in the league – what was this craic about Europa Cup destroying a season?!. Clearly not if you have the squad – mind you, we did bring in Anita that season, so we must have just been unlucky I guess.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Thanks for the article Kim
It’s a good question, and from the outset you could say maybe it is too rigid. Personally I am generally on board with a policy of buying younger players and helping them develop, rather than buying “ready made” players in their peak who will decline.
Make no bones about it, developing and selling players for massive profit (Ala Spurs) is the only way we will ever make at attempt at getting back with the big boys. The key is doing it on a regular enough basis, and proving you can do it with each new set of players (See Southampton/Spurs again). The issue is we can’t match them at that. Either our coaches don’t have the same level of ability, or we aren’t investing as much of them. I would say it’s both.
Our transfer strategy is clearly not as rigid as was said – we were told we’d buy players under 27, but Cisse and Ba were both already 27, and Debuchy a couple of years older. If the right player is going for the right price – we will get them. The problem is the fans disagree (And rightly in my opinion) with the Board on what the right price for players is. Key example being Bony, where Swansea got great results from him and then doubled their money. They missed a trick not cashing in on Michu, who is now worth sweet F/A just like when they bought him.
Agree with all those citing leadership as an issue – i’ve said it regularly, Tiote imo is the biggest leader we have, but he’s not even in the first 11, and as of this season probably wants out. De Jong was brought in as vice/future captain material, and as the captain of a successful, title winning side, I thought it was a great choice. Sadly his injury record looks very worrisome. If he can become a regular next season we may have that bit of leadership, but I wouldn’t want to rely on him being fit given his recent record. I do hope we’ll get a couple young lads to start chipping in as a key part of the team, Perez, Dummett and Colback as they all play with commitment and the local lads should always be expected to play above and beyond.
I really think we need a new coach and coaching team to get new belief into the side though, and the best out of our transfer strategy – which won’t be changing anytime soon.
Newkie(Quote)
I’ve just seen on SSN that Rugby League side Widnes are going to lauch a black & white strip as their shirt sponsors is the Bobby Robson Foundation – all profit from those shirts sales go to the charity 😯
Why the **** do we have Wonga splashed all over our kit and training kit, while a Rugby League club with no connection to SBR is raising awareness to the great mans charity?!. 👿
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy – because money hasn’t destroyed League as much as it as Footie mate 😕
Newkie(Quote)
Too true Newkie.
GTE(Quote)
Newkie – do we even have any signage for SBR foundation around the ground or on the boards behind the manager/players when they are being interviewed though?!.
I know it’s a bit contradictory saying in one breath that the club arent bring enough money commercially, then saying free advertising for SBR foundation – but the club should be doing more considering it’s a cancer research charity & Jonas has just gone through cancer treatment.
And to revisit an old chestnut – if SD get free advertising, make a little room for SBR I say
Sharpy17(Quote)
well said tds
hitman(Quote)
Big Dave @18 😉
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Icedog@28
Despite TDS making comments you disagree with, he’s entitled to make them without chasing him away isn’t he? I mean you are the biggest critic of others for doing that. 🙄
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Unfortunately for TDS his arguments crumble into oblivion when you look at the reality and history of Ashley’s ownership. He’s still entitled to his opinion though, however flawed.
Stuart79(Quote)
I believe strongly that the club’s ambition is top ten for now and then pushing on from there. Just staying in the Prem is not nearly enough for them.
The problem is they don’t know how to properly go about it. Ashley’s problem isn’t that he’s cheap, it’s that he has largley hired incompetant people to run the club. I am no fan whatsoever of Charnley. Wise and Kinnear’s reigns of terror speak for themselves. Llambiase was probably the best of the lot so what does that tell you
MDS(Quote)
Guti on the bench on Sat? Has he signed a contract clause waiver?
Maybe Carver wants to get him jogging along the touchline at intervals to get the crowd going?
GTE(Quote)
Blimey bloods boiling on here today, great stuff 😉
GTE, good news on Jonas if true.
kimtoon(Quote)
Sharpy – Aye, it’s a shocking state of affairs really isn’t it mate 😐 I’m surprised Ash hasn’t done it, god knows his PR needs anything good, and even if he didn’t actually care about it himself it would make everyone on Tyneside a darn sight happier.
Newkie(Quote)
Newks, too true, golden opportunity to do something decent for once.
kimtoon(Quote)
On the commercial revenue side:
The big advertisers chase success and we have not been successful during the massive new exposure of the PL worldwide.
The new fans in Asia, Africa, USA and the middle east also chase success. The expansion of live TV to these areas coincided with us becoming an afterthought and the new fans wear the shirts of the top 5 plus Spurs. I know this for a fact watching games in Chicago where the Yanks invariably wear the top 5 and Spurs. This expands their base while we are stuck with basically the NE catchment area. Obviously if one team is stagnating and another growing the new money will go to the growers.
It can probably be summed up that “success breeds success” on the revenue side.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
MDS – Do you honestly think that if Ashley wanted success he wouldn’t have fired Charnley by now if Charnley is refusing to invest in players? Nothing happens there unless Ashley says so, so it’s no good blaming Charnley.
Stuart79(Quote)
Eric – Please explain to me how Spurs have managed to attract all this commercial success despite winning the same amount as us over the last 10 years?
Stuart79(Quote)
And another thing about success. I will give you an example from the USA. All PL games are available live but the National Network invariably shows a Top 5 team. We get on TV only against these teams and 9 times out of 10 times now lose. Would a major brand rather be associated with a winner than a loser? TO THE VICTOR GO THE SPOILS. I think that may be partly why we have WONGA and Tat Inc and Man U have Chevy.
I think the time has past for us to catch up because at the exact time money was flooding into the PL and coverage was exploding worldwide we went into a footballing slump and even got relegated where there was absolutely no worldwide coverage.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Stuart: Spurs have not generated the commercial revenue that the top 5 have but quite a bit more than us because they have been more successful than us and have the London element. Check out their record at home and in Europe. They have had a few star players that fans would be happy to have on their shirts. Whatever you believe, they are a more storied and successful club than us. We briefly caught up under Keegan and Robson, but that was a relative blip.
I could think of more reasons, but I don’t want to and it would also be a tangent from the real issues on this thread – ie I don’t want to dwell on the finances of f@cking Spurs 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sharpy@99, that’s a nice looking shirt that
http://www.widnesvikings.co.uk/news/article/42048/vikings-unveil-magic-weekend-shirt
kimtoon(Quote)
We finished fifth one year and totally and utterly missed our opportunity to move forward. Actions speak louder than words and our actions that summer proved to me that Ashley has no ambition other than to stay in the PL.
We had an opportunity to progress but we brought in only Anita but let about 5 players leave. Ashley only acted once he was worried our PL existence was under threat and sanctioned a January splurge. That says it all!
Stuart79(Quote)
Eric – They’ve had star players, but that’s because of a totally different mindset to NUFC under Ashley. They have made it clear they want to compete and are doing everything they can to make Spurs the best they can be. We don’t do that.
I do NOT accept that we couldn’t compete with Spurs if we got our act together and everything we did was because we wanted a better football team, not because we want a better balance sheet.
Stuart79(Quote)
We’ve had some success in terms of standings back in KK and Sir Bobs time but it was far too transient, and though we managed 5th recently we failed too maximise that success with astute and badly needed signings. That we did nothing but choose to stand still says to me that there is and always will be zero ambition for the club in terms of football. What an opportunity that was to grow and push on for a top 4 finish next time out.
kimtoon(Quote)
Oh and the London club **** is bollocks! Doesn’t matter where you are, if you are successful you will pick up supporters. The growth area is in Africa and Asia and they don’t give a flying **** where abouts in UK the club is based.
There are other ways of picking up support too. If we had an entertaining team playing good football, competing in the cups and challenging for top 7 we would grow support that way. Spurs are the club we should be looking at emulating, and their location offers them more a hinderence than anything else. Look who they have to compete with for support.
Stuart79(Quote)
Stu 😆 wasn’t copying honest
kimtoon(Quote)
Stu , Right again, if it were all about London, then Manure, City, AND Liverpool would be ignored. Truth is the vast majority of overseas fans unless ex pats, are glory hunters and follow success not cities.
kimtoon(Quote)
Shuart: we could possibly catch Spurs again as the gap isn’t too big but they do have an advantage with their London footprint and bigger fan base. We would need a period of success to do it which at this point could only come with an exceptional manager like Keegan or Robson. We will see if Southampton can keep up their success as we should conceivably be well ahead of them.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Stuart: the London thing is not bollocks when you throw in that they pay more as well. I know the arguments about Manchester but they are an exception. Most of the football mercenaries would choose London over Manchester if the money and possibility of success was the same. Wouldn’t you?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
ffs came out and says we always had to offer more wages to get players to choose us owa london clubs,fk nos why like.and know with jabba offering a half pack of custard creams we are well fked. 😆
hitman(Quote)
*now
hitman(Quote)
Hitman 😆 greggs pasty surely 😉
kimtoon(Quote)
Kim @109 -a comment from Carver picked up by the BBC, that’s all at the minute. I’d be delghted if he got on for a cameo.
On the wider stuff -yes, Spurs can still be caught, both on the field and commercially, but I thimk we’d need to raise our stakes to do it – starting with more ambition for the team to genuinel be the best of the rest, which doesn’t necessarily mean changing recruitment policy in terms of age / sell on (hell Spurs has built its recent teams on big player sales) but probably does mean increasing the max transfer fees paid to the £20m mark. If we bring in a couple like that in the summer, with a new coach, we could do ok, but I’m not holding my breath.
GTE(Quote)
With Financial Fair Play we can’t even get an Oligarch or Sheikh to buy us into the big time now, right? We have to generate our own cash, which admittedly Ashley has us set up to do. The problem is it doesn’t seem that we would be willing to use it all under Ashley.
With Sports Direct off our backs and cash flow that is now being generated, would we be attractive to a Billionaire at the right price? Most of the big wages are dropping off this year and next which just happens to coincide with when Ashley said he definitely not be selling by and when Rangers could be conceivably back in the SPL. He is a tight but shrewd ****** so I wouldn’t put it past him. Any new buys could replace the aging players like Colo or the sicknotes like Taylor whose contracts expire in 2016.
Conceivably, we could have a promising young new team with absolutely no legacy salaries to drag it down. Have a look on NUFC.com under players to see all of the salaries that are dropping off. We have a chance here to basically start a team with a core of young players and build it up – no overpaid leeches seeing out the final years of their contract and no perma-crocks. For someone with vision, this might be attractive.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I must say sorry to TDS. for being so rude to him he has his views others have theirs,but he caught me at a very bad time a ex Gateshead player I played with rang me:-) to say his good lady had passed with a heart attack so I was in a real foul mood,its no excuse but there it is,just the wrong time Ime afraid,I still disagree with his views but that’s his view
icedog(Quote)
So Villa want 150mil for the club,is it a better buy than us??
icedog(Quote)
Ice.
Fair comment.
Troy Stavers(Quote)
Ice, Villa have around £170M worth of debts I read the other day. That’s a big increase on just a year ago when this blog was posted.
http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/aston-villa-fc/2013/03/15/blog-what-if-randy-lerner-sells-aston-villa/
Hope your day gets better Ice, sorry you lost a pal.
kimtoon(Quote)
TROY. truth is all I have,maybe to far back for you but his name was Basins,inside right
icedog(Quote)
BAINS,dam tablet
icedog(Quote)
KIM thanks never saw that,reading between the lines it could cost them as much as jabba wants
By the way it was my pals wife
icedog(Quote)
Ice @ 131 sorry to hear that mate.
As for TDS he must work with Aussie as Jabba’s PR team 😆
Big Dave(Quote)
Kim meant to say your article has got people talking so I hope your trying to think of your next one 😀
Big Dave(Quote)
Was wondering when Aarons was back,he’s been training with first team for a week,we need his pace if only forPerez sake,bloody bad PR as normal from the club
icedog(Quote)
DAVE trust a woman to cause bother lol,lady always have another one up there sleeve
icedog(Quote)
Fiorentina and Basiskas have nowhere near the budgets of Spurs and Liverpool and are at least holding their own at the moment. It shows that it is not ALL about money. But, it also shows that some of the PL clubs are held to ransom by Agents and Clubs alike and pay way over the odds.
It would be great if we could strike a balance between their profligacy and the Fat Mans frugality.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric the common things between Fiorentina, Basiskas, Spurs and Liverpool are that the clubs all have ambition to do the best they can. Where as with us we have no ambition and while Jabba is here it will remain that way 😕
Big Dave(Quote)
Dave, difficult to find much to chat about at the moment, got an idea for one but not sure if I can write a piece that makes sense 😆
kimtoon(Quote)
Big D: and if you look at the money table and league tables in the various leagues they almost exactly line up year after year. Currently, we would be about 7,8 or 9 so Jabba has us underperforming in my view. Still, I think there are some bargains to be had. Fatty sees it all as a negotiation and brings a gamblers mentality which doesn’t always work. His now obsession with cost cutting is also holding us back, although as I said above we will be presented with a tremendous opportunity in the next year or two because we are getting rid of dead weight off the books (hopefully that includes Carver 🙂 )
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sorry, I just can’t accept Spurs have a bigger fan base than us. Locally they have so many other clubs competing for the same fans and we on the other hand have no local competition really Amd cover a catchment area of Tynside, Northumberland, Cumbria and County Durham. That’s a big advantage for us.
Spurs can only pay more because they ti river more money, it’s nothing to do with being in London. I accept some players would choose London ahead of Northern England, but it also works the other way round too. Good players want to go and try and win trophies wherever the club is, just ask RVP or Nasri for instance. Or in Spurs case in particular Keane, Berbatov of Carrick.
Stuart79(Quote)
Cardiff announce increase in debt to 174 MILLION, so it could be a lot worse.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
We’ve got exciting times ahead mates. Just listen to this from Lee:
“I know in my heart we can be a mediocre club. I just feel it in my bones. And Mike knows I won’t spend any money that would be needed to get us above 10th. We’re happy with Johnny C. as well. He knows what we want and how to get it. Top 15 will do us nicely.”
Thanks Lee.
GeordieTwo(Quote)
Stuart: the latest population estimate for London is 8,174,000. There are only 2 big clubs in NORTH London but still that catchment would swamp the whole of the NE. Population of Newcastle is 265,000. If you want to have the argument of NUFC having the whole of the North East, I could say that Spurs could include the Home Counties.
I don’t want to dwell on Spurs though, even as they just got beat by a team with a city population of 375,000.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric Sykes@147, exactly mate, thank goodness we have Ashley 😳
Munich Mag(Quote)