Top players are expensive Alan, get used to it
Posted on August 14th, 2012 | 85 Comments |
As well known Daily Mail bigot, Richard Littlejohn, is rather fond of saying, you couldn’t make it up!
The Silver Supremo was asked a remarkably stupid and inaccurate question about why the transfer market has taken so long to get going. Premier League clubs have brought in no less than sixty nine players as of yesterday. That is an average of 3.45 players per club so far, with hundreds of millions changing hands in fees alone, even though it is well known that much of the activity in the English window often happens towards the end.
But before I continue, let’s take a look at Pardew response to this silly question, which seems to be lacking the slightest trace of irony:
“It’s valuation. Not just by the players themselves, but by the clubs and the agents. This is the big problem we have as managers and also chairmen in the Premier League. The valuation agents are putting on their player is far, far too much. They need to understand that times have changed.”
Do they, Alan? Most of the major players that Newcastle have been chasing weren’t transfer listed by their clubs when their heads were turned, so if Newcastle United refuse to pay the going rate for them, they can either keep them, or they always have the option of selling them to clubs with a more realistic outlook, as Twente did with Newcastle target Luuk de Jong when they sold him to Borussia Mönchengladbach.
But anyway, Pardew continued on a more optimistic note, and also kind of washed his hands of the business end of things, which are a matter for Derek Llambias and club secretary, Lee Charnley. He continued:
“Am I hopeful something can be done? I think it is touch and go, really. There are one or two things that might happen. Obviously, that’s not my department. I have targeted the players and we hope they arrive, but if they don’t then I do believe we still have a very strong side that will go in against Tottenham. You ask any Premier League manager, outside of Chelsea probably, and they will say the same thing. Even Manchester United haven’t done much business. Nobody else has really. I think everyone is biding their time before pitching in. However, I do think the ball will roll this week and there will be players joining Premier League teams for sure.”
Let’s take a look. As well as the things I mentioned earlier in this piece, despite the recession, Premiership clubs are earning more in broadcasting revenue than ever before and prices have never been higher. This goes for Newcastle as much as it does for any other clubs, many of whom are far smaller and have to work with a far lower budget. That does not go for clubs such as Ajax, Lille and Twente however, who’s broadcasting revenue from Ligue 1 and the Eredivisie is tiny by comparison, though Ajax and Lille will have Champions League football, they still have to constantly sell their finest assets to clubs in richer leagues such as the Premiership to keep their heads above water.
Looking in more detail at the sixty nine Premiership transfers Pardew seems to have missed, and omitting the moneybags Chelsea example which Pardew excempted from his sweeping generalisation, West Ham have brought in no fewer than eight players so far, Queens Park Rangers and Reading have brought in six each, West Bromwich have brought in five, Pardew’s predecessor, Chris Hughton, has brought in four at Norwich, as have Aston Villa and Southampton. Arsenal, Fulham, Stoke, Swansea and Wigan have brought in three. The example Pardew cited as “not having done much business,” Manchester United, have spent £18.75 million so far on Shinji Kagawa and Nick Powell, with Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham also on two. Finally, Blunderland have been lagging behind having only brought in a single player so far, though of course, there is still time yet, just as there is for Newcastle United.
Looking at some specific examples, Luuk de Jong was valued at around £11.5 million (and rising) by German football transfer website, Transfermarkt, when Newcastle were making a move for him. Whilst Newcastle United were huffing and puffing over Twente’s outrageous overvaluation and chuntering about not being held to ransom for transfers, he was sold for the extortionate fee of around £11.8 million to German side, Borussia Mönchengladbach, a team who can’t afford to spend as much as Newcastle.
On the seemingly never ending saga of Lille’s Mathieu Debuchy, he is valued at around £9.7 million by the same site, though despite still having three years left on his contract, Lille’s Chairman, Michelle Seydoux, who didn’t to sell the player in the first place with another Champions League campaign to fight this season, graciously allowed the player to go if Newcastle would agree to pay a mere £6.3 million for the French International. Newcastle United’s original bid for him was a derisory one of around £3.9 million. Eventually, they did reluctantly up this £4.7 million after Seydoux mentioned that they would accept £6.3 million after his head has been well and truly turned by Newcastle, not least by his friend and ex Lille teammate, Yohan Cabaye. This is the same Cabaye who Lille were forced to sell to Newcastle for a mere £4.8 million when he was worth around double that thanks to an outdated release clause in his Lille contract. He is now estimated to be worth around £14.5 million.
I could go on with several other examples, but I’ll spare you that as this piece is long enough already! In conclusion though, writing as a Newcastle United fan who spends many hours poring over NUFC related stuff for the sake of this ‘blog, I must say that this pathetic playing the victim routine has become more than a little tedious to say the least, especially so when the managing director brags in such a crude fashion about how “____ing horrible” he and the owner can be in business. If Mike Ashley, Derek Llambias and Alan Pardew can’t stand the heat of running a top level club, they should get out of the kitchen and stop blaming everyone else, whether it is previous owners from over five years ago, or the other clubs they have aggressively laid siege to. Either that or cut their cloth accordingly and just be content with cheaper players.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1093 articles on this blog.
“I could go on with several other examples, but I’ll spare you that”
Cheers.