A few days on from his laughable claims live on Sky Sports, I still can’t quite get over what Dennis Wise had to say about his old pal Mike Ashley – so it’s time to expose them both.
According to the club’s former executive director, Ashley “cares for Newcastle” and “runs the club in a structured way“.
Here’s a few reasons why these two claims from Wise are laughably false:
“He cares for Newcastle” ?
- He’s just put season ticket prices up by 5% despite the fact we don’t know who’ll own the club next season, we don’t know who our manager is going to be and we don’t know if our player of the season will be returning.
- Is charging £65 for our new 2019/20 home shirts – more than ANY other club in English football.
- He changed the name of St James’ Park to the ‘Sports Direct Arena’
- We have a net spend of £4.5m per season since Ashley took over – Where’ the money gone?
- He treat club legends Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer with complete and utter contempt and forced both out of the club.
- He appointed Joe Kinnear – a man who couldn’t even be bothered to pronounce several of our players named properly.
- He sold Andy Carroll for a club record £35m and replaced him days later with 33 year old Shefki Kuqi on a free transfer.
- He’s refused to back Rafa Benitez in the transfer market and does not seem phased by the fact he could lose him this summer, despite the fact he’s loved by the fans and the best manager we’ve had since Sir Bobby.
- He’s lied to both fans and managers when it comes to his investment – remember the ‘every penny generated’ quote?
- He scuppered a potentially huge takeover bid from Sheikh Mansour after getting drunk and insulting the islamic faith in a Dubai bar.
- After finishing 5th and qualifying for the Europa League, our only signing the following summer was Vurnon Anita – despite the fact this was our big chance to kick on. We then finished 16th the next season & sold all our top players bit by bit.
- Had one of his cronies tell Kevin Keegan that Luka Modric ‘wasn’t good enough’ – a decision that would go on to bite him on the backside given Modric would go on to become one of the world’s best midfielders.
“He runs them (NUFC) in a structured way” ?
- He constantly leaves us fans in the dark, refusing to communicate on transfers, takeovers or managers.
- We don’t know who our manager is going to be next season – despite the fact the transfer window has been open for over a month.
- There’s no ‘board’ – it’s just Mike Ashley and his cronies.
- Fan’s forum? What’s happened to that? And even when it happens, the feedback and involvement on the club’s part is so poor.
- He’s overseen TWO relegations and consistently fails to learn from his mistakes upon our return to the Premier League.
- He refuses to sign our player of the season because he’s ‘too old’ – despite the fact his goals last season were one of the main reasons we stayed up.
- He’ll give Steve McClaren over £80m to spend over a season, but decides Rafa Benitez can only have £100m over two seasons – and that budget will have to cover agent fees and contracts, making it impossible to work with in this day and age.
The above are just the tip of the iceberg – feel free to add some of your own in the comment section!
In fairness, we all know Dennis Wise is an idiot who’ll back his old pal Mike Ashley to the very end, so I question Sky Sports here as much as anyone. Why on earth do they continue to use Dennis Wise as the spokesperson for all things Mike Ashley and NUFC related?
OK, they want to hear from someone close to Mike Ashley, but where is the counter argument from the likes of Kevin Keegan or Alan Shearer? It’s never forthcoming, yet we’re criticised for believing there may be some sort of agenda here.
The main point you’ve missed; is that Kevin Keegan took him to court were Ashley was found to be a liar and not a trustworthy individual, the judge made Ashley pay Keegan 1.2 million and this is the man that has been running are great club and has friends like Dennis ‘ rat’ wise.
Keith(Quote)
Very true. Well said!
Olly Hawkins(Quote)