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How I Learned to Start Worrying, and Hate Mike Ashley

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Newcastle chairman Mike AshleyOn Thursday, I came close to loving Mike Ashley. For just a fleeting moment, I came within a whisker of, if not forgiving, then moving on from the Dennis Wise affair, the disgraceful treatment of Chris Hughton, the renaming of our stadium, the Keegan affair, Xisco, Nacho Gonzales, Joe Kinnear and everything else the fat man has done since he waddled ominously through the door to our lives. People can learn, people can change, I told myself.

It is hard to fully take stock of our transfer activity this summer before knowing how the new recruits will perform, but early signs suggest that Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveux and Gabriel Obertan could be excellent additions. Demba Ba has looked hit and miss so far, but has every chance of becoming a regular source of goals. Davide Santon is, according to my Inter supporting friend, an incredible coup for a club of our relative standing. Comparisons, he insists, with Paolo Maldini are not necessarily misplaced. Promising youngsters like Haris Vuckic and Mehdi Abeid look set to be part of our first team squad for a long time yet.

Under Ashley, the club has stopped being held hostage for huge wages. We no longer offer 28 year olds a guaranteed income of £50,000 per week for four or five years. This can only be a good thing. Kevin Nolan deserved a new contract, but not of the length that he was demanding. Nor Joey Barton. Fabricio Coloccini and Jonas Gutierrez will likely be sold for the same reason next summer as they inch closer to the ends of their enormous contracts. While it is sad that good players are leaving, it isn’t necessarily to be regretted; the signs are that the club has the scouting network and business nous to replace these players with others of equal quality at lesser cost.

Ashley’s aim is to stop Newcastle United losing him money. Our aim, as fans, is to have a good football team that we enjoy supporting. These aims are not mutually exclusive. The pain of losing Barton, Enrique and Nolan was gradually being replaced by a quiet faith that our austere summer transfer business may be in the clubs best interests in the medium to long term.

Such was my thinking before Thursday’s deadline day. Llambias and Ashley’s faith in their “blueprint” looked to have been vindicated. The signings were good, and there was a strong case that the players who had left had paved their own way out of the club through bad behaviour, greed, or in some cases all of the above. The replacements were cheap, effective and looked like improving. But as the deadline approached, two holes in the squad seemed to widen; Mike Williamson’s injury at Scunthorpe revealed how weak we are at centre-half. And obviously, we are short of a striker. If, I thought, we can fill these two positions with decent enough players, Ashley will have been, to an extent, vindicated.

Of course, we didn’t. Had the bids for Bryan Ruiz and Liam Ridgewell come off, our squad would be nearly complete. But of course, they didn’t. Worse than that, the bids gave the impression of being empty gestures – fig leaves to give the impression of activity to appease the hapless fans that the club had the best interests of the team at heart. As soon as I heard the word “helicopter”, my heart sank. We weren’t signing a striker. Ridgewell, perhaps, but the utter cynicism of putting in a bid for a player we didn’t want, and knew had committed himself to signing elsewhere, brought it all back to me. The cynicism, the brinksmanship, the gambling, the disregard for the fans. And I remembered why I hate this regime.

Our squad is good; the additions add quality that wasn’t previously there, and we have kept Coloccini, Gutierrez and Tiote. But the club had 7 months to find a striker. When the mooted deals for Gamiero, Gervinho and Erdinc didn’t come off, Llambias and co were happy to make do and mend, safe in the knowledge that they had tried. They would rather their bowl was empty than pay a fiver for a burger. Provided the club doesn’t get relegated again, they will, from their perspective, have done their jobs well. They don’t care if we finish 7th or 17th. But the fans do, and we deserve better. Mike Ashley was so close to redemption and vindication, but he blew it. His own narrow self-interest trumped the combined will of 100,000 Newcastle fans. Again.

T’was ever thus.

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Sean is a 24 year old, London-based Newcastle fan from Whitley Bay. He works at the House of Commons, he tweets at @se_kip, and can be found on facebook at www.facebook.com/sean.kippin

8 comments

  • Tron says:

    If Cabeye and Coloccini get knackered, then NUFC are knackered. Ashley will then be kicking himself for running his rapidly dwindling investment on a shoestring.

  • John says:

    Fans should now start and vote with there feet,they should hold out on season tickets next year,to see how ambitious they want to be,they had intention on paying money on a striker,owl face and FCB should be sent to the gallows

  • geoff777 says:

    The Ruiz and Ridgewell bids weren’t genuine.

    Remember N’Zogbia in January?

    No time for a medical never mind a negotiation with their agents.

    They gave up after Erdinç, all the rest was fake.

    Gambling on Ba & Best and no injuries.
    The CB situation is serious.

    They had eight months, loads of money and failed miserably to do their jobs.

    Ashley should sack LLambias.

  • howay geordies says:

    Even if we get injuries, there is enough quality in the squad to achieve a decent position this season. A cup win too?

  • Goal Mouth says:

    If, If, If, If

    Live in the now FFS.

    You worry, you die,
    you worry, you don’t die,
    why worry?

    See a doctor, get some pills.

  • Ian Y says:

    No real striker = a season of struggle. Once again ashley is happy if we achieve 4th bottom. This year will be very different because the club will be making a decent profit. The club makes money trading players, the club makes money on income generated by fans, sponsorship and the majority from TV. Profit = success for ashley and he is laughing all the way to the bank. However, I am not going to watch a balance sheet, I am going to watch Newcastle United FC I want some success, but more than anything I want entertainment. That comes in the way of good football and goals and hopefully victories. 7 points from 9 and I am already thinking I hope we can scrape another 35+ to stay up for me and the rest of the fans. If it got rid of ashley I would take a few years of championship football and crowds of 25,ooo. Get out of our club you fcb.

  • MrFlibbles says:

    with regards to the striker we already have 5, its just only best and ba have proven they can score enough goals in the prem, I dont understand why you’d pay money for players that werent really good enough, most fans would gladly swap the likes of ameobi lovenkrands and ranger for 1 really good striker.

    i think we’ll do well providing the following players are never injured:

    gutierrez, coloccini, best, ba, cabaye, krul, s.taylor.

    otherewise we are in trouble. like birmingham last season they were doing really well and then got injury hit to several of their best players and were relegated.

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