There’s a bit of concern amongst many Newcastle fans that the hierarchy just aren’t spending the money needed to take the club to the next level. While the purchases of Yohan Cabaye and co. seem like shrewd signings, in terms of football transfers, not a great deal of money has changed hands. As expected, the Andy Carroll money isn’t being spent on transfer fees, instead it seems to be covering wages and the new contracts that are being handed out. So should Newcastle fans be worried about the club’s deep pockets but very short arms approach to running the club?
Newcastle’s counting of the pennies has been going on for a number of years and really came into essence when Mike Ashley took charge of the club in 2007. He has taken a business-like approach to running the club, and while that shouldn’t be seen as being too negative, after all Ashley is helping to safeguard the future of Newcastle United, it would be nice to see a big money signing now and again.
Newcastle haven’t had one of those in a number of years, and that’s reflected in the stats. TransferLeague.co.uk have put together an interesting looking table that shows how much each club in the Premier League has spent and recouped since 2003, and thus what their net spend is. As the table below shows, Newcastle are way near down the bottom (or top depending on the way you look at it) and if it showed the stats from 2007 they’d be even lower…
The Magpies are placed 19th in the table with a net spend of minus £15 million, which is close to minus £2m a season. While they have spent a significant amount, it’s still £15 million less than neighbours Sunderland, and they are only one of three Premier League clubs in the red on the table. Perhaps most interestingly is who are just above Newcastle in the table – Arsenal.
It is no secret that Newcastle are following the Arsenal model and there are no better stats to illustrate this. While this model has served Arsenal well, in recent years the Gunners have arguably underachieved and have gone trophy less, which many Arsenal fans would say is down to a lack of spending. Newcastle would obviously love to be in Arsenal’s position and they seem to be going that way financially, but let’s hope it doesn’t lead to fans’ discontent like there currently is in North London.
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Check the 5 year table:
http://www.transferleague.co.uk/league-tables/2006-2011.html
Cut adrift at the bottom
You either spend and show ambition and POSSIBLY improve or spend nothing and DEFINATELY just stagnate.
We all know which option our owners have taken.
Take a gamble that we can survive in the Premiership by doing everything on the cheap and endeavour to rake in as much as possible on sell-on players.
It’s the Ashley way – God help us!
Get ur cash out u fat t w at
Looking at the 5 year table (why this article is from 2003 I dont know, Ashley cam in at 2007), this clearly shows that no other football club has made as much money from transfers than Newcastle Utd. The nearest club has made 50% less than us. The rest dont even come close.
I have been saying this for months and months and months. We are the only football club, and will ever be the ONLY football club, that has had a BILIOINAIRE takeover…..and actually made a profit through player transfers. Its an absolute disgrace. £50 million that fat **** has made from us….any money he has loaned the club is through his own incompetence because of relegation. Get OUT!
It’s worth pointing out that whilst it does kind of paint a picture of what it going on, it’s not wholly accurate.
If you bothered to dig a bit deeper and looked into it further rather than just grabbing a headline you’d see that a lot of transfer are undisclosed and are thus not counted. You’ll also see a few fees that are actually wrong…
toonsy what you mean by You’ll also see a few fees that are actually wrong…
More worryingly, the 2 teams at the very bottom of this list have gone into administration by using similar business models. Hope we don’t follow suit!
another 11.5 million in jaba the huts pocket,that will next be seen in some casinol
when will this fat pig get out of our club,and i don’t want to see or hear anybody defending him or lambias,or the greatest liar ever to come to the toon pardew,if anybody has a good word to say about these pond life you are tits.
toonsy open your eyes,divvy.
I wish ashley was my sugar daddy 🙂
perv.
If they took into account free transfers, that would obviously have doubled our expenditure.
Look how much Liverpool’s spent and the squad they started with and they’re still not going to be close to MU, MC & CFC. They might have a good early run but they’re just pissin’ their money away running up debt that will bite their huge ass in a couple of years…..and this goes for a few other clubs.
So how much would we need to spend to make a proper challenge? Double what you’re thinking and we’ll still come up short. Naa we’ve slagged the flat lad off enough now… it isn’t going to help getting on the clubs back. Before he showed up I thought we’d go bust like Leeds. So you’ve got to at least thank him for that. Sounds like he’s managing the money as clubs should, I think the squad is stronger this term, but only time will tell. But like I said no one’s got the money to dent the top 3, but if we don’t piss him off any more he might get interested again and find additional investors and then who knows?
Hugh Jaas, Liverpool will be a long way away from us in the years to come and that’s mainly because of your relative Tite Aas.
You can piss him off as much as you like or shower him with accolades it’ll make no difference, he’ll never get interested as he doesn’t give a toss about this club or its fans.
‘let’s hope it doesn’t lead to fans’ discontent like there currently is in North London.’ What planet are you on? is this website owned by big fat mike ive never heard so much rubbish as i have on this site?
ive been going to the match since the bad old 80’s and i dont think supporter morale was as bad then as it is now. Your stories are just that stories!!
Morale isn’t that bad mate. Think we’re in pretty decent shape and while we’re a few players short, especially if one or two more leave, the likes of Yohan and Hatem should light up SJP next season!