Micky Quinn insisted that Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley must hand Rafa Benitez a transfer budget of £100million or lower his asking price and leave.
The former Magpies forward shared that all the club lacked was a world-class owner as there was already a world-class manager and world-class supporters at St James Park.
Quinn insisted that the minimum the club should be spending on new arrivals was £100million and that was no excuse for the club to spend less.
“While the loss is huge, it shouldn’t impact on Benitez’s transfer budget this summer,” wrote Quinn in his column for the Chronicle.
“He’s secured the club’s Premier League safety and Mike Ashley should be giving him £100million to spend as minimum.
“He barely spent last season, not really, he messed around with loans and while Martin Dubravka and Kenedy paid off, Ashley now needs to be giving Benitez a warchest and show that he shares the gaffer’s ambition to turn Newcastle into a top eight side.”
“There is no excuse not to back Benitez, if Ashley doesn’t want to do so, then he needs to bring his asking price down to a reasonable amount and sell the club. We have a world-class manager and world-class fans – we just need the owner.”
OPINION
It’s hard to argue with what Quinn is demanding be spent by his former club on transfers, even though the club announced the losses they made while in the Championship. The Magpies need to spend a mouthwatering amount if they don’t want to end up back in England’s second-tier and Benitez has been more than patient. Quinn is quite blunt with his message that is directly geared at Ashley by basically insisting that he either stumps up the cash or gets out of the club. The Magpies owner is demanding an astronomical asking price for the club at the moment, £400million according to The Sun, and no one is going to pay that as it stands. While the Magpies have so much going for it, that sort of asking price isn’t taking into account how much investment the current playing squad needs. If the club had an academy filled with hidden gems, then maybe at a real push it would be an option, but even the youth set-up needs lots of money pouring into it, in order to get it up to the needed standard. So Quinn’s blunt message about the Magpies transfer kitty is spot on.
