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Post by White Lightning on Oct 7, 2018 11:11:13 GMT
Another piece well worth a read... My theory on why Ashley bought Newcastle United When Mike Ashley purchased Newcastle United FC it was said to be a spur of the moment deal, done so not for business but to allow the billionaire to “have some fun”. At the time it was made out that the deal was literally carried out in a couple of days. “The deal was put to me on a Saturday. By the Monday, in advance of speaking to Sir John, I’d deposited the equivalent of money we hoped he would accept for his shares at the lawyers and on the Tuesday the deal was effectively done. By Wednesday (May 23, 2007) the announcement was public and that was the first anyone, including the media, knew about it. Once I was told about it, it was done very quickly. Sir John was ready to act if I was and it was a very straightforward process.” If that is the case then why did Sports Direct register the domain name nufcdirect.com 6 months earlier? In fact, forget the date of the purchase, why did Sports Direct purchase that domain name at all? Without the will of the club they would have been on very shaky ground setting up any online store etc using Newcastle United in the name. Since 2012 that domain name has been used to run the Newcastle United FC online store through which all online sales of shirts, clothing and general tat have been funnelled. Every replica shirt (current retail price £59.99), beanie hat (£13) or SoccerStarz Rafa model (£3.50) that we buy from the “official” store goes through here. And there lies the problem, the official site is just a front end to the Sports Direct website, they are one and the same just with a different look. Imagine a Sports Direct shop with a big cardboard front to make it look like the club shop! Dont believe me? Have you ever compared any of the products between Newcastle United FC and SD? Everything is described, priced etc exactly the same. Try this: www.nufcdirect.com/puma-newcastle-united-authentic-home-shirt-2017-2018-377410?colcode=37741040www.sportsdirect.com/puma-newcastle-united-authentic-home-shirt-2017-2018-377410?colcode=37741040Or how about: www.sportsdirect.com/team-knit-hat-mens-900013?colcode=90001310www.nufcdirect.com/team-knit-hat-mens-900013?colcode=90001310Now try this one www.nufcdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136?colcode=84013640www.sportsdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136?colcode=84013618And now remove the last part of the URL…. www.sportsdirect.com/team-club-3-pack-air-fresheners-840136Hmmmm Rangers….Spooky eh? Try it, for yourself, go on nufcdirect and pick a product, then change the www.nufcdirect.com in the URL to sportsdirect.com and I’ll guarantee you’ll pull up the same page on their site just looking very slightly different. Word for word every description matches, every image is the same. Most importantly the prices are exact in every case. Whats happening is that the nufcdirect site uses a subset of the Sports Direct product range. Basically anything related to Newcastle United is displayed on the nufcdirect site. Other than that though everything else is Sports Direct. Ordering, warehouse, delivery etc etc. You are even given a £5 Sports Direct voucher if you get your purchase delivered to one of their stores! Remember this from 2013? The decision to sell Rangers items on Newcastle United site caused a kick off….Except I dont think there ever was a decision to add them, it was a mistake caused by the fact that someone cocked up when writing the description and started the 2nd para with “The Newcastle United jacket sports a traditional…..” meaning it was picked up and included within the Newcastle United FC range by the website. This link can be proven by another look at the nufcdirect who.is record however this time select the DNS tab and heres where it gets a tad technical. Look to the bottom of the list and you’ll see a CNAME record showing CNAME 599 others.sportsdirect.edgekey.net Funnily enough, if you view the Rangers who.is record you’ll see CNAME 599 others.sportsdirect.edgekey.net A CNAME Record allows you to redirect a URL to a totally different site without it being obvious. Once you’re redirected to Sports Direct the website sees where you’ve come from and styles the site accordingly, narrowing the products down to the allowed subset (ie anything containing Newcastle United FC or Newcastle United). All the time leaving the domain name and any product URL the same as you visited originally. A check of the sites code shows that the code is the same as well, examples such as.. src="/DesktopModules/SportsDirect/SharedControls/JavaScript/jquery.bxslider.min.js" litter the HTML for nufcdirect.com. This is exactly what happens when a company offers their products for sale via white label i.e. the ability to sell a third parties goods with a site that looks like its your own. In all white label solutions the referring domain (in this case nufcdirect.com) receives a small commission from every purchase. When MA bought into Rangers there was uproar at the fact he negotiated a deal to see Sports Direct take over the merchandising of the club. That deal absolutely screwed Rangers seeing their share of the takings reduced to only 7%. MA owned 9% of Rangers and managed to do that. He owns 100% of Newcastle United FC, there is zero chance that he's not doing the same thing (or even potentially worse) here. Why wouldn't he? So what does that mean in terms of actual cash? well based on a £59.99 shirt sale, assuming get the same 7% commission structure as Rangers did then you’d be looking at £4.20 per shirt coming 's way. In 2010 the extremely knowledgeable Swiss Ramble quoted the club share of a shirt sale in their own stores as being €10 – 15, that was 7 year ago when an adult shirt cost €46 (£40) so if we take €10 that's approx. 22% from every shirt sale. SportingIntelligence.com published an article on shirt sales which stated that Newcastle United sold an average 100,000 shirts per year. Based on those figures Newcastle would have received a nice €1.32m under the standard commission structure. From a 7% SD rate that drops to €420k. Multiply that by the last 5 years and you’re looking at about €4.5m. In itself, that's not a massive amount however that’s shirt sales alone, we’re talking every piece of tat, scarf, kids gear, garden gnome, souvenirs etc. etc. Just as importantly to Ashley however it boosts SD’s standing, increases share prices and the overall value of his company while reducing ours. Add in the free advertising, payment of PR fees to his own company, movement of assets from Newcastle United to St James’ holdings etc and he’s not doing too badly at all. That is of course, assuming we even get 7% there’s nothing to say that ’s cut from this isn’t a big fat zero. One thing that’s always said about football ownership is that it rarely makes a profit which is exactly what I believe Ashley wants. Think about it, you have 2 businesses, 1 is massively profitable the other makes nowt therefore why not take some of the profitable bit of business 2 and move it to business 1 meaning the 2nd makes a bigger loss while the 1st a bigger profit. Ashley then includes the loss of Newcastle United FC in his personal tax return meaning 47% of that loss is recovered by paying less tax! So, if you’re still reading this, THAT is why I believe Mike Ashley bought Newcastle United FC and more worryingly why he has no intention of selling. The above comes via Pete Whitfields blog... for more stuff go hereLights Oot! blackandwhitethinking
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Post by White Lightning on Oct 7, 2018 11:34:25 GMT
Will Newcastle ever truly be set alight under the Mike Ashley regime? Daniel Taylor
When will the generations of supporters too young to remember the thrill of a championship chase under Kevin Keegan see their club emerge from all the stagnation and drift? Sun 7th Oct 2018 09.00 BST In happier times for Newcastle United, it probably summed up the club’s ambitions that a delegation from St James’ Park once travelled to Turin on the off-chance they might be able to persuade Juventus into selling Roberto Baggio on the spot. It’s a great story. They didn’t have an appointment. They didn’t have a contact at Juve and when the relevant directors invited Kevin Keegan, Newcastle’s manager at the time, he told them they must be round the twist to think one of the giants of European football would appreciate them turning up without an invitation. Full marks for trying, though. Those were the days, you see, when Newcastle truly understood what ambition meant. It didn’t get them Baggio and, somehow, I doubt Juve were too impressed by the suggestion they would let a player of that calibre go. Or indeed the follow-up proposal that, if Baggio was not so keen, a deal could be arranged for Dennis Bergkamp instead. But you can’t fault Newcastle for having a go. “I did gently point out that it wasn’t really the way the top clubs conducted transfer business,” Keegan writes in his new autobiography, recalling his conversations with Douglas Hall, the director who came up with the idea. “But I had to admire his nerve, even if it wasn’t necessarily the way I would have gone about it myself.”
Keegan, after all, never used to be shy when it came to seeing what adventures were possible, in the days when Newcastle had an entirely different set of priorities to today’s club. Keegan’s philosophy was simple: if there was ever the chance to improve a position in the team, go for the upgrade. Peter Beardsley took over from David Kelly, David Ginola replaced Scott Sellars, David Batty came in for Lee Clark, and on and on.
It took Newcastle from the relegation places of the old Second Division to the verge of a Premier League title and, in the process, they broke the club’s transfer record seven times: Andy Cole, Ruel Fox, Darren Peacock, Warren Barton, Faustino Asprilla, Les Ferdinand, Alan Shearer. Remember that 5 - 0 win against Manchester United in October 1996? It was Eric Cantona, passing Keegan in one of the corridors afterwards, who neatly epitomised the work at St James’ Park. Six words, and then he was gone. “Fucking good team you have here,” Cantona said.
And now? Does anyone seriously believe Newcastle, still winless after Saturday’s 3 - 2 ordeal at Manchester United, will truly be set alight under their current regime? What to make of a club that promises to put “every last penny generated” into the transfer market when, back in the real world, Newcastle’s net spend is lower than that of some Championship clubs? When will the generations of supporters who are too young to remember the thrill of a championship chase with Keegan – and we are talking anyone below the age of 30 – see the club emerge from all the stagnation and drift? How much longer must they wait before they have some modern‑day heroes?
One day last week, Keegan was back in the north-east, passing some of the old sights, taking in the memories and not sounding entirely convincing when he tried to argue, more than once, that he was not really one for nostalgia. It was nice, he said, to be home and that night, with a capacity audience waiting for him at the Sage, Gateshead, it was no wonder he puffed out his cheeks and looked a bit emotional. It wasn’t easy to find the words for that moment, though I did like the opening line of the Times’ coverage. “You have never known true love until you have seen Kevin Keegan take to a stage on Tyneside,” it read. But it was tinged with sadness, too. Keegan’s memories are from a different century now. Or, at least, the happier memories are, before he was coaxed back to St James’ Park in 2008, to be part of the Mike Ashley era, and found out the hard way that what Newcastle tended to say for PR purposes was very different to the sapping reality behind the scenes.
It certainly isn’t easy to understand how Newcastle expect us to believe they have kept up with the changing landscape of football’s finances when it is, in fact, 13 years since the club, under Sir John Hall’s ownership, last broke their transfer record? Graeme Souness was manager at the time. Sven-Göran Eriksson was in charge of the England team, Bolton were competing in the Uefa Cup and Rafael Benítez was a Champions League winner with Liverpool. Jamiroquai was in the charts, Tony Blair was prime minister and Rolf Harris was working on a portrait of the Queen. Michael Owen cost £16m from Real Madrid. It feels a long time ago and £16m these days is what Arsenal paid to sign Sokratis Papastathopoulos in the summer and the valuation Wolves put on Oleksandr Zinchenko, from Manchester City’s reserves. All of which helps to explain why the more jarring details of the Keegan autobiography, a book I was assigned to ghost-write, is not just a sobering journey into the past for Newcastle’s supporters but a reminder that it is still, for the most part, the same dysfunctional empire. Keegan might tell his stories in the past tense but it is still Ashley’s name above the door. Newcastle still resemble a works side for the boss’s sportswear company. A once-buoyant football club is still being run by unconventional people who don’t seem to appreciate that an elite manager, in an escalating transfer market, might occasionally want to spend some money. Some of the names have changed but the only real difference, as far as I can see, is that St James’ Park is 10 years older, corroding, in obvious need of care.
Ashley now wants us to believe that it is not the case – “inaccurate and irresponsible”, according to a spokesman – that when he encountered some disillusioned Newcastle fans outside a pizza restaurant the other night he went in for the Peter Kay technique of surreptitiously flashing a V-sign with a scratching-the-head disguise. All that can really be said is he has taken supporters for fools before and it is not easy accepting his version of the truth when the evidence from Keegan’s book makes it clear the Newcastle owner will happily blur the lines between PR and make‑believe, true and false, fact and fantasy.
“I have never looked at the club website and I have to be exceptionally bored to read the programme,” Ashley told the panel at Keegan’s tribunal for constructive dismissal. “You will get more sense out of the Beano.” Yet Ashley was happy to put his name to an article on both platforms stating Keegan had the final say on transfers, knowing that was patently untrue. “Was I conscious that I was involved in a PR exercise?” he said. “Yes.”
Even the smallest details contribute to the bigger picture. Ashley was asked in another interview, ticked off by the club, about his favourite game at Newcastle and picked out a 2 - 0 win against Sunderland. That turned out to be another PR strategy. The truth, Ashley admitted in his evidence, was that he preferred a 4 - 1 win against Tottenham, where his mate, Paul Kemsley, had been vice-chairman. “If you want to refer to dealing with the media as lying, then I would say yes, but I don’t think it’s lying in the true sense of the word.” No harm done, perhaps, in that instance but would you necessarily trust that man? The tribunal found that Keegan was the victim of constructive dismissal and concluded that Newcastle had been guilty of “repeatedly and intentionally misleading the press, public and fans”. Lying, in other words.
For Newcastle’s sake, it can only be hoped Benítez is not encountering anything like the same kind of provocation that led, in Keegan’s time, to players being signed as a “favour” for agents, the hiring of a transfer executive who had never heard of Per Mertesacker, Luka Modric being “too lightweight” for English football and the tragicomedy of James Milner being sold on the basis that Bastian Schweinsteiger was being lined up from Bayern Munich as the replacement. Bastian Schweinsteiger? When Keegan rang Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the Bayern chief executive, to find out if it was a hoax he had to listen to one of the greats of European football roaring down the phone with laughter. Newcastle had, indeed, put in a bid. “Five million euros, Kevin,” Rummenigge explained. “Kevin, what are your people thinking of? We wouldn’t sell Bastian Schweinsteiger for €50m. We killed ourselves laughing.”
Somehow, Keegan can laugh about it too now, 10 years on, but it is a strained kind of humour and I doubt Benítez finds it particularly amusing to learn from one of his predecessors, if he was not already aware, what a hard-faced operation it has become behind the scenes. The time, for example, Keegan wanted to sign Sami Hyypiä from Liverpool, a player Benítez will know well. Newcastle’s directors arranged a 9pm conference call with Keegan to discuss that one and agreed to put in a £2m offer. Then, once the manager had rung off, another conference call was arranged for 9.30pm, this time without Dennis Wise, Tony Jimenez or any of the others letting him know. On the second call they agreed to make it £1m instead, and keep it from Keegan, almost certainly knowing a bid that derisory would be turned down. When Stoke put in a £2.5m offer Newcastle’s unofficial records – a notebook with “This Belongs to Mr Wise” scrawled in pen on the front and described by a barrister in Keegan’s tribunal as “like a child’s exercise book” – covered that development with the words: “Problem solved.”
The saddest thing, as far as I can see, is that there is no obvious end in sight. Benítez is in the last year of his contract and could surely be forgiven for thinking he could do better elsewhere. The supporters are dreaming of change, as they have been for the last decade, and the years are ticking by. It is a marvellous club, Newcastle, and the bottom line is that they deserve better.
At the Sage last week, a giant banner was unfurled showing Keegan in that iconic black and white strip and emblazoned with one word: “Honesty.” It was taken to the last home game, along with a similar banner for Benítez bearing its own message: “Hope.” The stewards pulled them both down and that, more than anything, probably sums up Newcastle United in the Mike Ashley years. A football club that could do with some honesty and hope.
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Post by White Lightning on Oct 23, 2018 16:35:24 GMT
For those of you that don't read TF here's something to ponder on...
Well, to no-one’s great surprise, least of all, the manager’s, this season is unravelling into a shit-storm. The crippling lack of investment which extends beyond even Rafa’s tenure at United remember, has the club as a nailed on cert for relegation. Insufficient recruitment has been made since the club returned to the PL eighteen months ago and three successive windows have passed with Benitez going through the bargain basket to get enough players to pull a squad together. Does anyone really believe Rafa Benitez, the decorated manager of Real Madrid, Valencia, Napoli, Inter, Chelsea and Liverpool really wants to work with players of the calibre of Manquillo, Joselu et al? Yet, as someone who spends time gauging opinions on social media, I see hysterical comments about Rafa being responsible for signing players like Atsu and Murphy who have not set the world alight at SJP. Atsu cost the club less in 2017 than we sold Ruel Fox for in 1995/96. You can’t get a decent full-back for what we paid for Murphy. We spent more on our strike-force in 1996/97 than we have in 2018 despite the riches of the new TV deal and all of the associated wealth coming into the game, which manages to bypass our club and has us as paupers. The club has never been poorer despite the riches of the PL, full-houses and a billionaire owner. Where has the money gone indeed?
I have no doubt Ashley wants shot of Benitez, the troublesome football man who wants to build a proper sporting institution rather than keep a football club afloat while his boss does whatever he does with the proceeds of the TV deal. That’s not for Rafa Benitez. But I don’t see where Ashley has left to go that will not see him turn into a cul-de-sac of shit. He has a manager, utterly disillusioned at how he has been treated and who is unquestionably on his way out of the club barring a miracle. He has a squad which is running on empty as the result of a horrific lack of investment in the squad and an academy which has produced little in a decade. He has the dilemma of providing funds to Rafa for January in an attempt to keep the club in the PL, perfectly in the knowledge that will not be enough to retain the Spaniard at United, thus providing his successor with players he may not want in whatever division we find ourselves in come May 2019. But Ashley also must know if he does not invest in January, his club is relegated and the value he places upon it at £400m, will be laughable. Yet must understand the cost of funding a promotion campaign next season will be astronomical and because he has not funded sensible recruitment, he has very little to sell amongst the current pool, the better of whom will be want to be away. Ashley has reached the bottom of the barrel. Ashley must see that sacking Benitez will leave him open to personal ridicule and fans in open revolt as despite the whingeing on social media, most supporters by and large understand where the problems lie and they aren’t in the dug-out. Added to that of course is the pay-off required for Benitez which will give our loathed owner sleepless nights. I don’t see Rafa signing those non-disclosure agreements the club is increasingly fond of to gag former employees. I can see Benitez acting as determinedly as Kevin Keegan should Ashley attempt to bin him off in the usual crass manner.
And while we have all of this bubbling along with the first team, the shit-show rages elsewhere at United. The case with HMRC has not gone away. That is a huge elephant in the room. Then there is the investigation into Peter Beardsley’s charges of racism and bullying in his work in the Academy. That appears to have been rumbling on for the thick end of a calendar year and you’d imagine the club was investigating the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald rather than allegations of straightforward misconduct against an employee. I don’t know of any other institution that would fanny on so much about this.
We are now awaiting the next steps in the exposure to come from the Fans Forum and what was really disclosed and said, particularly by Charnley and which was so clumsily airbrushed by the minutes. Still, there is a recording of proceedings so if the club wishes to defend its Managing Director in particular, it can refer to that. I would desperately hope those with the wherewithal to land Charnley in a world of shit, don’t draw back from doing so. That would be a huge blunder. We’ve also seen the growing strength of anti-Ashley protests via #IFRAFAGOESWEGO and The Magpie Group. These have centred around street protests outside Sports Direct shops (which have contributed to a nose-diving share price in that company) and an online campaign which has cowed his businesses into retreat on social media. I noted last week that the campaign has extended to major Sports Direct shareholders who have been challenged on their corporate morality and the nonsense they put out about their business ethics. All of this has an impact.
But, in my opinion and I say this as a supporter, rather than being active within the leadership of any of those groups (I resigned my position on the NUST board a number of years ago for a variety of reasons), the campaign has to ramp up. I have heard talk of targeting a live TV game at SJP for a mass boycott. I support that 100%. But I do think we need to go further and that is to agitate and work for a huge cancellation of season ticket Direct Debits come January 19, if the club is still owned by Mike Ashley. I believe there are thousands ready to cancel DDs in January in any event and I will be one of them. I’m no longer bothered about losing loyalty points for away games or bringing an end to the 30-odd successive seasons I’ve held a season ticket. It no longer matters. Some who took this course of action a number of years ago may sneer and say what took you so long to wise up. They have a point but like others I’ve held out hope Ashley would either go or recognise the jewel he had in Benitez would begin behaving and acting correctly. Well, on the last point, that’s now not going to happen. We’re in the last chance saloon with a takeover now which realistically has to happen before the middle of December. On that point, who in their right mind is going to pay top whack for a PL club when it looks doomed to have its value slashed through relegation in a matter of six months? But that’s Ashley’s problem not yours or mine.
For me, those leading the action against Ashley need to take the next step. A boycott of a televised game would attract sufficient support to have an impact. That impact is to illustrate again to the watching world how much damage Ashley is doing to the club and it weakens him. Similarly, supporting a mass boycott of season ticket direct debits come January is critical if we are serious about removing this tumour from the body of Newcastle United FC.
Ashley is in the weakest position he’s been in since he’s been here. His corporate reputation is on the ropes, the share value of Sports Direct is tanking and nothing at his PL club is working properly. Now is the time to sharpen that dagger and thrust it into his black heart.
Keep On, Keepin’ On … MICHAEL MARTIN – FOLLOW MICHAEL ON :@tfmichael1892
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Post by White Lightning on Nov 26, 2018 10:37:55 GMT
Here's a decent piece from a man that knows a thing or two about Football...Guillem Balague Rafael Benitez: Does Newcastle Utd manager have St James' Park future? After consecutive wins and seven points out of a possible nine, people are finally beginning to believe Rafael Benitez's claims that his Newcastle United side are not going to be relegated. But even if he does manage to keep them up, will it be enough to ensure he remains at St James' Park? If he does maintain the momentum and ensures Premier League status, it will be an achievement to rival any of the managerial successes crafted over a long and illustrious career. Can Benitez's vision be realised at Newcastle? A victim of his own success by finishing 10th in the Premier League the season after winning promotion, you wonder if it would not have been better, having steered the family saloon to a mid-place finish in football's equivalent of a grand prix, to leave while he was ahead. Had they beaten a virtually already relegated West Brom at home in their penultimate game of last season they would have finished in an almost unimaginable eighth place. It was a stressful season, and in the summer lots of doubts surfaced about how much the club was going to back the Spaniard's ambitious vision. The spurious and scurrilous assertions that he only took - and remains in - the job for the money are as outrageous as they are inaccurate. The fact is Benitez was lured to Newcastle with the same dreams and aspirations as just about every single Newcastle fan. He, like they, wanted to wake the "sleeping giant". For "sleeping", read comatose. Rip van Winkle, who slept for a mere 20 years, is practically an insomniac by comparison. Apart from the Championship and the kind of farce that was the Intertoto Cup, the last piece of silverware to sit in the club's trophy room was the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup from way back in 1969. He did not come to the club with a plan to merely avoid relegation. He wanted to win, to compete. And yet in the footballing-mad metropolis that is Tyneside, expectations are high. Unnaturally so, really, with the perception that a top-10 finish ought to be the bare minimum for a club with the facilities and fanbase that they enjoy. If Benitez had merely been there for the money, he could name his price and leave for China tomorrow. But for the Spanish manager that would mean failure, quitting, and one thing Benitez is not, and never has been, is a quitter. Ongoing money issues - can Benitez and Ashley find common ground? It is about money, of course, but not for Benitez himself. He needs it for the club, and not just on new players but also for much-needed investment in the academy, the lifeblood of the club that in the long term can help to raise it from its slumbers. Backing on both fronts is conspicuous by its absence and much will depend on whether or not money is spent in the winter transfer window. If it is not forthcoming then, despite Benitez's claim that Newcastle will survive, there is a very good chance that they will be relegated and that he will be sacked - or even move on. It would then fall to the owner, Mike Ashley, to explain to the fans just why he had dispensed with the services of a manager who maximised the potential of a side despite having to watch on helplessly as the 'family silver' was sold off around him and replaced, largely, with borrowed or cut-price cutlery. Relegation to the Championship at the end of 2015-16 led to a flurry of transfer activity and between July and August the club cashed in on quality players, with Moussa Sissoko (Tottenham), Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool), Andros Townsend (Crystal Palace), Daryl Janmaat (Watford), Remy Cabella (Marseille) and Papiss Cisse (Shandong Luneng) all leaving. Cheick Tiote, who died in June 2017, and Fabricio Coloccini were given away presumably to reduce the wage bill. About £87m worth of talent was sold, with about £57m re-invested on players including Dwight Gayle (Crystal Palace), Matt Ritchie (Bournemouth), Matz Sels (Gent), Grant Hanley (Blackburn Rovers), Ciaran Clark (Aston Villa) and Daryl Murphy (Ipswich). Those were quality players for the target that season - to be promoted. Despite the loss of quality, Newcastle won the Championship and won promotion alongside Brighton and Huddersfield. Benitez's reward for gaining promotion and Newcastle's idea of preparing for a life in the Premier League was to have a net spend of about a third of what Huddersfield and Brighton spent in summer 2017. In fact, the net spend of about £20m still put them well in credit on transfer dealing during Rafa's rule and streets behind the vast majority of Premier League clubs. Ashley's claim that he would "spend every penny generated" on improving the club has - to date - translated into a 2018-19 season in which he has made another net profit on the transfer market of about £7.5m. What happens in the winter window will define the direction Benitez's relationship with Newcastle takes. The impression local observers have is that he would probably not extend his contract unless they spend and Newcastle say they will not spend unless the manager commits to the club. It is not a western-style stand-off between Ashley and Benitez, though. It is a matter of vision and the possibility of a project - fundamentally nobody is asking the businessman to change how he runs his business, but also not to alter agreed parameters. Witnesses at St James' Park have seen the owner enjoying his recent visits to the ground, sharing time with the manager and players. It might be a good time to find common ground. From Valencia to Real Madrid - Benitez has been here before When Benitez left Valencia in 2004, the Spaniard said the events of the season had "undermined his morale" at the club Ashley's promises to Benitez on spending to strengthen the side will feel all too familiar - and hollow - to the 58-year-old, who more often than not gets the targets agreed at the start of projects but has to suffer the moving of the goal posts by owners and presidents. In 2004, and having won two La Liga titles in three seasons with Valencia, he left the club after the board signed winger Fabian Canobbio rather than Samuel Eto'o, the player he had asked for. "I was hoping for a sofa and they've brought me a lamp," he remarked. But that was nothing compared to the debacle that awaited him at Liverpool, where the American duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett contrived to steer the club into a perilous position, with administration a possibility before they sold it in 2010. There were more broken promises about rebuilding and so on at Inter Milan, where he signed and improved players like Philippe Coutinho - one of his great enjoyments - but where he did not get the players he chose and who were agreed with the ownership (Javier Mascherano and Dirk Kuyt). There followed the universal and unwarranted loathing by almost everyone at Chelsea, despite bringing home the Europa League, before becoming yet another victim of the player power that permeates the Real Madrid dressing room when he took charge at the Bernabeu. In such company, Newcastle and Ashley must have initially felt to Benitez like a philanthropic breath of fresh air. Perhaps he should have known better. A new contract on the table - but will he sign it? A look at Benitez's statistics reveals an interesting story. Despite having recorded Newcastle's worst 10-game start to a season since the 19th century, back-to-back wins means they are up to 14th in the table. For the time being at least, they can look upwards. Tottenham are the only side from the top six to have beaten Benitez's Newcastle by more than two goals (August 2017) and in his past eight Premier League games against the top six he has either won (twice) or lost by a single goal. All of which means one thing: Newcastle are close but clearly not close enough. Benitez's contract comes to an end next summer. As it stands he has a renewal offer on the table, but to be signed the club have to show enough commitment with a project that should be around improving facilities and results, not just survival. Should Salomon Rondon - on a year's loan from West Brom - continue to score for his new club then he may will dig them out of a hole, guarantee survival and once again Ashley will believe his approach has been vindicated. With Gayle having gone in the opposite direction to the Baggies, the two clubs should be able to sit down and work out a deal to suit all parties. But it will probably take considerably more than that to ensure Benitez will be committing his future to the city that has adopted him as one of their own - and that is a real shame. WL
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Post by White Lightning on Jun 19, 2019 9:03:40 GMT
Spotted this yesterday....here's the link, Greedand just in case it doesn't work.... Greed is the only reason why Mike Ashley wouldn’t sell Newcastle this summer By Rohan Banerjee With rich Arab investors waiting in the wings the retail magnate has no excuse to not end his time on Tyneside. By most measures, Mike Ashley has done a bad job of owning Newcastle United. Since buying out shares from the Hall family and the late Freddy Shepherd for around £134m in 2007, the retail magnate has overseen two relegations; lost two employment tribunals to senior members of the club’s staff; renamed the stadium; hired his equally contemptuous friends in board-level positions; and failed to re-invest the money generated by the club through TV and advertising deals into players or training facilities. In the Premier League era, prior to Mike Ashley’s arrival, Newcastle had finished second twice, third twice, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, while reaching two FA Cup finals and a European semi-final, and broke the world transfer record in 1996. They competed in European competitions more often than they didn’t and, historically, despite having not won a major trophy since 1969, are still the ninth-most successful English club in terms of honours won. Under Ashley, Newcastle have spent more time in the Championship than they have in Europe and have never once got past the fourth round of the FA Cup. Ashley’s ownership is characterised by parsimony, an unwillingness to pay the going rate to compete, whether that be for players or the basic upkeep of the club’s stadium, and all the while maintaining only a modicum of communication with the media or supporters. He is more than willing to sell Newcastle’s best players, but less enthusiastic about replacing them. His primary concern has never been Newcastle’s fortunes on the pitch, but simply keeping the club in the Premier League at the minimum cost to guarantee a proportion of the top flight’s broadcasting deal, while stocking the club shop with his own Sports Direct merchandise and emblazoning Sports Direct logos over as much of St James’ Park as possible. Ashley’s attempts to sell Newcastle, which he usually uses as a smokescreen for a lack of activity in the transfer market, have so far felt insincere. There is an argument to suggest that something is worth what people are prepared to pay, but that Mike Ashley’s asking price of £350m for a club that have in recent years yo-yoed between divisions was unanswered for so long, seems a pretty clear indication that it was too high; or equally, that he didn’t really want to sell. Newcastle are worse off than when he bought them, so even allowing for inflation, how can they be worth over double the price he paid in 2007? When the news broke last month that the £350m asking price had finally been met by the Abu Dhabi-based Bin Zayed Group (BZG) headed by Sheikh Khaled bin Al Nahyan, many Newcastle fans questioned its veracity. “We’ve been here before” was the tired sentiment echoed through the Twittersphere, with supporters speculating that it was either a ruse concocted by Ashley’s preferred PR firm, Keith Bishop Associates, to distract from another summer of minimalist spending, or that, if it was true, then Ashley would shortly pull the plug after wasting an interested buyer’s time. But in the weeks since the news of BZG “agreeing terms” to buy Newcastle, there has been enough to suggest that something is different about this takeover bid. For a start, BZG has been in correspondence with the English press, and issued two public statements, both of which Newcastle have refused to discredit. While Newcastle have gone on to maintain a line of “no comment” to most other queries about the progress of the takeover, and indeed, the soon-to-expire contract of popular manager Rafa Benitez, fans and the media have been left in the dark. Newcastle’s wall of silence has been mirrored by that of the Premier League. A new company, Monochrome Acquisition Limited, meanwhile, has been registered on Companies House with Sheikh Khaled listed as a director. Newcastle, for the uninitiated, play in black and white. At the same time, Newcastle’s managing director Lee Charnley, regarded by many as Mike Ashley’s fall guy, has applied to strike off several companies linked to St James Holdings – where Ashley keeps many of the club’s assets. Some of the ground’s Sports Direct signs have also been taken down. Why? Newcastle United have declined to comment. When some journalists tried to pour cold water on the takeover talks, suggesting that a member of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family has yet to provide “proof of funds” – an understandable requisite before any takeover of a Premier League club can happen – BZG bullishly dismissed this idea as “nonsense”. BZG claim it submitted proof of funds to Ashley and the Premier League after Newcastle’s 1-0 win over Leicester City, which confirmed they would be playing top-flight football again next season. BZG’s statement read: “These terms have been reflected in a document, signed by both parties, which has been forwarded to the Premier League. The proof of funds statement was forwarded to Mike Ashley’s lawyers on 17 April 2019. The so called fit-and-proper Premier League process is a standard procedure which will take time, and we are doing all we can to assist the Premier League during this process.” The uncertainty around Newcastle’s ownership, whether Benitez will still be the manager next season, and the fact that the club have not signed any first-team players since the transfer window re-opened, however, has not stopped Ashley from raising season ticket prices by five per cent. This marks a 25 per cent overall increase since the club’s promotion in 2017. Amid everything else, though, it is the Benitez issue that perhaps best sums up Ashley’s lack of respect for Newcastle’s fanbase. Benitez approached Newcastle – make no mistake, it was that way round – because he saw the potential to turn the club back into what they were. He took over from former manager Steve McClaren for the last ten games of the ill-fated 2015-16 Premier League season, and despite going six games unbeaten, couldn’t stop the club from dropping into the Championship. A huge emotional connection with Geordies led him to stay, much to the surprise of the football world, even after relegation. And under difficult circumstances, working within the flawed transfer remit imposed by Ashley, Benitez has delivered in three years: the Championship title, a league cup quarter-final, a top-half finish in the Premier League, and a solid mid-table finish last season, despite not being supported by his owner. In the only transfer window in which Benitez has been able to spend heavily, the summer of 2016, his signings were mostly funded through outgoing players’ sales, not Ashley. Rafa Benitez represents the antithesis of Mike Ashley; he is an ambitious manager, who has won trophies at Valencia, Liverpool, Inter Milan, Napoli and Chelsea, and he wants Newcastle to be the best possible club they can be. He hasn’t asked Ashley to pump his own money into transfers, simply to use the money generated from TV and advertising deals. In May 2017, Ashley released a rare statement on Newcastle’s website that promised Bentiez could have “every penny” generated by the club to improve his playing squad. Undoubtedly, Newcastle United are at a pivotal juncture in their history. Ashley has a willing buyer but as yet has done nothing to invalidate the opinion that he is an unwilling seller. New ownership is not a guarantee of success, of course, and there will be plenty to unpack regarding the background of BZG should the deal be completed, but after 12 years of Ashley, any change would be welcomed on Tyneside. The hopes and expectations of Newcastle fans, it is important to note, are not to necessarily compete with Manchester City or Liverpool, but simply for the club to be run with the club’s interests at heart, not Sports Direct’s. Ashley’s ownership is themed by selfishness and not caring about anything other than his own bottom line. Football, as it does in most post-industrial cities in the North, occupies a level of particular significance in Newcastle. It is the beating heart of the community and Ashley has done his level best to try and break it. If Mike Ashley does not sell Newcastle this summer, only greed could explain his decision. Newcastle United did not respond to a request to comment. WL
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Post by White Lightning on Jul 2, 2019 9:40:22 GMT
George Caulkin’s exclusive for the Times, featuring a telling insight from Benitez into life under Mike Ashley: Rafa Benítez: I lost trust at Newcastle. If those in charge had my ambition, I would still be there He is not a demonstrative person, but there is a moment — just a moment — when his eyes mist and his voice cracks. It is time to say farewell and it is not easy after three years of adoration and toil, of pushing a dysfunctional club to be better. Rafa Benítez cannot push any more, not against the immovable object that is Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United and so he has to go, but this was never what he wanted. Before too long, he will be analysing and explaining again, but this man of obsessional detail is also flesh. He hurts. A couple of messages from Newcastle supporters are read out to him, explaining how he made them “feel part of something good for the first time in ages”, that his being at St James’ Park meant “all hope wasn’t lost”. He winces. There is a little cough. “Very emotional,” he says. Benítez, 59, will forever be associated with Liverpool, but a manager who hoarded trophies at Anfield, Valencia, Inter Milan, Chelsea and Napoli, felt a ferocious, yearning love at Newcastle. He could not keep a fractured team in the Premier League following his appointment in March 2016, but he hauled them back as champions and then, with limited resources, kept them there twice. He was worshipped for it. Leaving is a wrench. “I’m sad,” he says, “because Newcastle has been my home. If Liverpool is where my family live, then Newcastle will always be my other home. You can sell a house, but you can never sell home. To have that connection with a city and fans, it’s strange and difficult to lose that. I feel like an honorary Geordie now.” Benítez’s contract at Newcastle, for so long such a source of angst, expired last night; his reluctant departure has sparked a guttural howl from fans. By now he will be in the Far East, where he is set to join Dalian Yifang of the Chinese Super League, which just goes to show how quickly football can pivot. In transit, he spoke to The Times for his only interview. It still feels extraordinary that Benítez, who had last been seen at Real Madrid, turned up at Newcastle. Amid the permafrost of Ashley’s ownership — calamitous miscalculations, limited ambition — the Spaniard arrived talking stature and possibility, persuading a disillusioned fanbase to believe again, to think differently about their club. His recommitment to them following relegation forged an unbreakable bond. On the day their demotion was confirmed, St James’ was alive with optimism; Newcastle thrashed Tottenham Hotspur 5 - 1 and Benítez was implored to stay. “That atmosphere . . . I will always remember it,” he says. “That was a key point in my decision. Everything we shared has been fantastic. I have to praise the amazing players who grew and fought with us, the brilliant staff, everyone involved. “In your career, you come to understand that football is a business, so you have to be professional, but sometimes it’s about the relationship with fans. I was lucky to have that in Valencia and Tenerife, in Napoli and Liverpool, and Newcastle was the same. In our bad runs, it meant I could stay calm and do my job. They were behind us. It is difficult to say goodbye, to say goodbye to that feeling. “I have just a . . . not regret, but a little bit of disappointment that I couldn’t go higher. I’m really pleased with what we did with the resources we had, with all the things around — everybody knows it’s not easy — but I’m just disappointed we couldn’t achieve more, that we couldn’t compete and reach the real potential of this fantastic club.” More than anything, the P word explains why Benítez came to Newcastle and why he has gone. “What I said from day one is what I still feel — I can see the potential of the team, the club, the city, the fans,” he says. “You cannot go away from home and take 9,000 fans without that potential. It means there’s something big there, something really important, as long as you manage it properly. “I wanted to stay, 100 per cent. I wanted to develop a project, to be competitive, to compete in the cups and to be as close as possible to the top of the league, but you have to have the tools. If you don’t, then you suffer, because you’re at the bottom of the table, every point is massive and you know that a mistake could mean relegation. That would be a disaster for the whole city. “That responsibility, the fact we were suffering in every game just to get a draw, is something I couldn’t manage for another three years. I couldn’t stay there just to be bottom. It wasn’t my idea when I went to Newcastle. The idea was the top ten, top eight and then maybe try for Europe later on. If the people at the top of the club had the same ideas, I would still be there.” Benítez is not bitter. He does not want a war with Ashley or Lee Charnley, Newcastle’s managing director. “If I start talking about every problem we had, then it will be wasting energy,” he says. “It is not a time to criticise, but a time to analyse.” Yet some clarification is needed, if only to address the saddest thing at all; how Benítez can be leaving when nobody wished it (or so they say). When Benítez was appointed, the club’s unofficial mantra was “what Rafa wants, Rafa gets”, but from his first January transfer window, when the manager pressed for a signing to help ensure promotion, he encountered roadblocks. Each trading period provoked spikes of tension, but not because he was asking for a fortune; when he wanted action, he met delay and obfuscation. It was exhausting. “People talk about power, money and control, but it wasn’t about that,” he says. “It was about doing things right. At Newcastle, we didn’t have the money the top sides had, so the first or second choice targets were really important because the third or fourth ones would be worse and worse and then you lose something. You work so hard to prepare for your signings and then you have to move quickly to get them. Sometimes we weren’t doing that.” Benítez reaches back into his own past. “When I was at Napoli, Juventus were winning everything, but we won two trophies,” he says. “Why? The resources we had meant we could compete and the relationship with the technical director, the chairman, the financial director was good. We won the Italian Cup and the Italian Super Cup and made a lot of money in the market. If you have this confidence, belief and trust, then normally you will be successful.” So trust had gone at Newcastle? “Yes,” he says. “We didn’t have that, so I had to choose.” Does he believe that Ashley and Charnley were eager for him to carry on? “Obviously, I had the feeling they were really pleased for me to stay at the beginning, but later on, when we had different views in terms of how to move forward, I couldn’t see this support,” he says. “I couldn’t see this clear desire I could feel at the beginning.” The club would claim otherwise. In their statement last Monday, Newcastle said they “worked hard to extend Rafa’s contract over a significant period of time”, yet the two sides conversed in different languages. When Charnley made his initial approach, Benítez was fretting about a lack of signings; he was baffled by the timing. As months elapsed, confusion and frustration became entrenched. The nub of it was about emotional and financial investment. During Ashley’s 12 years, the club’s infrastructure has not been enhanced to a meaningful extent. It was something Benítez thought vital. “When I came to Newcastle, they gave me the plans for the new training ground, I was talking to the architect about changing a few things,” he says, smiling now. “And after three years . . . they painted the walls. “If you want to attract players, it’s about the facilities, the contract, the city, the way you treat them, the way you treat the agents. If you want to keep them happy, you keep improving. If you want to have a good atmosphere, a real bond, you have to give players the right facilities for when they hang around together. We had that at a lot of clubs. It’s just the way.” Was Benítez asking too much? Did he demand £100 million to spend this summer, as has been reported? “I didn’t ask for any money,” he says. “I just wanted to know how much [there was]. The club put out some information about the budget being around £50 million plus the money from sales and that was fine. I wasn’t complaining. I knew it was the reality. It was about managing the budget you have — that was the key. “I knew from day one that you could not compete against the top six, that you cannot spend £100 million every year. But to have a chance, to compete in cup competitions, to be closer to the top, where Newcastle deserve to be, you have to do things really well. The reason I wasn’t happy was because we weren’t competing. We could have done more with the resources we had.” Even so, at the end of last season, with Newcastle safe again and his contract ticking down, Benítez believed there could still be a satisfactory compromise. He met Ashley and Charnley at the London headquarters of Flannels, one of the owner’s other companies. “I was expecting we would finish the meeting and everything would be done,” he says. “That was my thought. I thought I would be staying. “Common sense says you’ve been successful on the pitch, you’d reached the target the club wanted which was to stay in the Premier League and the same in terms of business — they’d made a profit. Any owner would surely say, ‘okay, on and off the pitch, you’ve delivered, so this will be an easy conversation’ and then you try to finalise the details. And it was not like that.” A one-year extension seemed an obvious solution, giving both sides wriggle-room, but when, as requested, he told Newcastle what it would take for him to sign, there was no response (it had been a similar story in the spring). Days went by, momentum drained. When an offer finally came, it was on the same £6 million salary (less than offered in earlier talks), with enhanced bonuses but less control over incoming signings. None of it felt like a club straining to keep him. With various groups negotiating to buy the club, Newcastle’s takeover saga did not help. “It was a big problem,” Benítez says. “In terms of my decision, I was waiting and I was asking for clarity and, like the fans, we didn’t know. Eventually, you have to decide. I could not continue in the same way, because I couldn’t see how to progress. It had to be clear to me — who was the owner, what would they do — and it wasn’t clear at any time.” Benítez sent Charnley an email; there would be no deal. The reply, which explained that Newcastle would now pursue other managers, arrived last Monday, moments before the release of the club’s official statement, about which he was given no . “I knew I was leaving,” he says. “I had been clear in what I’d said to them. But it was the fact they didn’t say, ‘okay, we understand that and we’re putting out a statement’. It was a simple thing they could have done.” There has been no further contact from Ashley. “No. But he didn’t do it during the three years anyway,” Benítez says. “I didn’t have a problem with Mike Ashley because he wasn’t around; maybe I met him four or five times.” Where Benítez excelled was in making an untethered club bind around him. He ventured into the community, donating money and time to charities, often without publicity. He made players better. “We could see how Jamaal Lascelles was coming from a young defender to a proper centre half,” he says. “You could see Paul Dummett doing the same, Isaac Hayden, Ayoze Pérez, all of them growing so much.” Tactically, he drilled them to beat superior teams. The crushing part of all this is that so much of the club — world-class manager, devoted supporters, willing players — was aligned. It gave fans hope. The thought of what might have been is difficult to bear, but Newcastle’s potential will forever be stunted with Ashley in situ and Benítez cannot wait. He has another plane to catch, another project to obsess over. There is one more thing; Benítez has accepted an honorary life membership of the Newcastle United Supporters Trust. “Your friends in those messages…” he says. “Newcastle is what they’ve had since they were kids. They must continue to support it. Their commitment, their passion has been so good for me. I tell them ‘thank you very much, you are in my heart’. Hopefully they will be successful and, you never know, maybe we will see each other again in the future.” So, in short, Rafa didn’t ask for the world, but Mike Ashley made no attempt to compromise – showing how little interest he had in keeping a world class manager at the club who could all but guarantee success to some extent. Lights Oot!
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Post by White Lightning on Jul 27, 2019 12:07:21 GMT
Quite like this... There was an outbreak of uncontrollable smirking across Tyneside this evening when news broke that Mike Ashley’s S****s D****t is facing a tax bill of €674m (£605m) tax bill from the Belgian authorities. There are full details in The Guardian – click here which goes onto detail the apparently terminal state of House of Fraser which he bought in 2018 and is a disaster which looks like costing him tens of those millions of pounds he likes. Insert smiley face thing here. We can obviously only speculate what this means for the beleaguered business and the impact upon Newcastle United FC. There are further details within The Financial Times which gives details of the farce related to the release of the S****s D****t accounts which call into question the corporate governance of Ashley’s business. The Telegraph describes the situation at S****s D****t as an “omnishambles”, the position with the business as “pandemonium” Several commentators have pointed to Ashley’s failure to take control of the situation and his lack of appreciation of what the situation at his tanking company is as his shares have dropped like a stone. The same commentators regard his public pronouncements as ranting. If this is the start of a business empire crumbling there won’t be many with Black & White blood running through their veins who will shed a tear. WL
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Post by White Lightning on Jul 27, 2019 12:15:40 GMT
This is one bloke who does tell it like it is.... Following Mike Ashley’s astonishing interview with the Daily Mail, reliable north-east writer George Caulkin has hit back – and he’s absolutely bang on with his assessment of the owner. Here’s what he’s had to say on Twitter in the last few moments, hitting the nail on the head in response to Ashley’s claims about Benitez, the Joelinton deal and more. “That Mike Ashley interview is desperately and depressingly familiar; the self-pitying, the delusion, the contradictions and the inconsistency. It’s always this way. The club says nothing and it’s terrible and then when the owner does speak it’s actually worse. Where do you start with it? Benitez took the “soft option” to leave? He didn’t take the soft option to manage Newcastle when they were threatened by relegation, or to stay in the Championship. He left because he was out of contract & didn’t want to stay for more of the same. Joelinton? Benitez didn’t think he was worth that fee. But if that money was there, allow him to spend it on his own targets. He’s the manager. He’s the man who won the Champions League. If Ashley wanted to put his own money in, great. Why not use it on the training ground? “Every time with Rafa it was impossible – there was always another thing, and the next thing and the next thing.” Yes. Good managers don’t just settle. They push for more. They push for excellence. “I’m not a football expert,” Ashley says. No, but he employed one & now he’s gone.” “I could say to Lee Charnley, our managing director, I’ll have £10m, £12m. But a good custodian will make every penny count. No interest, no repayments.” In 2017/18, Newcastle repaid a short-term loan of £33m to Ashley. Short-term, yes. But still a repayment. “We’ve seen and heard it all before. Each time he talks, he admits to making mistakes while making them all over again. “I probably shouldn’t own a football club,” he says. That’s definitely a concept to get behind.” George hits the nail on the head – and not for the first time when it comes to Mike Ashley’s baffling approach. The comments on Joelinton are bang on. It proves how much of a control freak he is and that he has MUCH more say on the football side of matters than he cares to admit. As George says, he occasionally accepts these ‘mistakes’, but he NEVER learns. If he ‘shouldn’t own a football club’, maybe he should take his own advice and leave! WL
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Post by White Lightning on Jan 28, 2021 10:54:43 GMT
Had a wry smile on reading this and love the ending...it's like something out of a Steve Bruce post match media session. Lies, Damn Lies and Steve Bruce’s Statistics We can all read the form guide. We can all see the League table and the P20 W5 D4 L11 Pts 19 statistics. We have not won in the league in nine attempts. In addition, we are woeful in front of goal, 19 goals in 20 games. What a time to be a Newcastle Fan. Statistically, Steve Bruce is not a bad manager; he is a bad Premier League manager. His PL career win percentage is 28. His Newcastle career win percentage is 27.1. However, in complete contrast, his Championship percentage is whopping 49.5. It would be fair to say that we have found his level (Ed: though Villa sacked him in The Championship and never looked back). Jumping back to this season though, Steve has only managed a win percentage of 26.3, which is down on both his PL career, and Newcastle United career. As we are halfway through the season, and our form has been poor of late, I wanted to look back, statistically, at Bruce’s relegation seasons to see what could be in store, statistically speaking of course. Let us begin with Birmingham City. I wrote a piece earlier this week about the 2005/6 season. Portsmouth changed their manager mid-season and ate away an eight point gap between them and safety. Pompey stayed up, eventually 4 points ahead of Bruce’s Birmingham City. Did Bruce throw it away, or did he perform in line with his career statistics? In the last 19 games of that season it looked like this;W5 D6 L8 – 21 points and a win percentage of 26.3. Brum were relegated on 34 points – so the damage was done in the first half of the season with only 3 wins and 13 points (WP 15.7). At Hull, the last 19 games finished W5 D4 L10 – 19 points and a win percentage of 26.3. Hull were relegated on 35 points – again the damage was done in the first half of the season. Just like Birmingham, they only managed 3 wins in the first half of the season. These two seasons are very similar. 21 points and 19 points. Roughly, the same number of wins and draws. Unfortunately, for Birmingham and Hull, this was not enough to save them due the shocking first half season performances. The reason I looked at these two relegation seasons was to see if we could see anything that would compare to our season. If, and it is a gigantic ‘if’ based on performances, Bruce can replicate these statistics for our last 19 games, we ‘should’ be OK on 38 points. That would mean Fulham needing 27 points from their remaining 20 games and West Brom requiring 28 from 18.However, as Pompey proved in 2005/6 it is not impossible. So far, I have only looked at part of the story. We are currently on a terrible run of form, eight PL games without a win. I wondered whether Bruce had managed anything similar at Hull or Birmingham. At Hull, Bruce managed a streak of 5 games without a win, that’s not too bad. However, he managed to go on three of those streaks in the same season – the last of which were the last five games of the season and Hull sunk like a stone, dropping from fifteenth to eighteenth place and went down. Careless. At Birmingham, in the 2005/6 season, Steve pulled off an eight game winless streak plus a five game run too. Special. Back to Bruce’s Newcastle United. Last season we finished the season with a six game winless streak, which to be honest are still burning my eyes. We are currently nine without a win, with half of the season still ahead of us. Oh, joy. Since December 22nd 2019 we have only won nine games of Premier League football. Nine games in 13 months. What does any of this mean? Can we read anything in to it? Well, as Mark Twain famously once said, “There are three types of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics”. In some respects, this is true; we can manipulate numbers to suit any narrative. I believe that Bruce is doing a terrible job and I have looked at some numbers and arranged them in a way that helps me with that narrative. There are plenty of numbers out there, I might even be able to build a narrative around how we will go on at twelve game winning streak and we will be pushing for Europa League spot. If someone can point me to those numbers, I will give it a crack, but as it stands, I cannot find them. For me though it is not all about statistics. Any sound reasoning has to come from more than just picking a few numbers to help you tell a particular story. We must look for other sources to build a picture, and in this case, it has been watching Newcastle United managed by Steve Bruce. Therefore, I will finish off with this quote from the noted French poet and socialist, Charles Peguy; “We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see .”Let’s face it, we can all see what we see and it is difficult. Very difficult. TIM WOOD – @woodylad8 WL
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