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£35m summer spending spree for Toon

Posted on February 2nd, 2011 | 35 Comments |

Alan Pardew, Newcastle United
Pardew told Ashley to reinvest
Allegedly, Alan Pardew will get all the money made from the Andy Carroll sale to spend on rebuilding the team in the summer

I’ve had enough of the whole Andy Carroll debacle now to be honest. If truth be told, I have no idea whether he was pushed or not, whether Ashley had always planned to sell him or not, or – when Pardew insisted that Carroll was not for sale – whether he was lying or not.

Either way, he’s gone to Liverpool and we simply have to get on with things.

The good news is that, according to Pardew, Ashley isn’t planning a £35m casino blow out but will reinvest the lot of it in the team during the summer. Pardew said:

“One thing I said to Mike (Ashley) on Monday is that if this boy (Carroll) is going to go, this money has to be reinvested – all of it.

“He assured me of that, and so for the Newcastle fans that is the most important message I can give to them. All that money will be used.

“Could it have been used on Monday? We made a couple of bids late in the night but were getting extortionate figures thrown at us – it was ridiculous.

“Were we going to pay an over-inflated price for a lesser player than Andy Carroll? No.

“Unfortunately as I sit here now I’m weaker than I was on Monday morning because I had Andy Carroll maybe four or five weeks away from fitness. But it is what it is.”

£35m can buy us a lot, particularly if – as I hope – we put the scouting department to work and look for the Ben Arfa/Tiote sort of signings rather than paying over the odds for some established Premier League ‘big name’.

I would suggest that a striker might be top of the list in the summer but, wisely spent, it’s the sort of money that could see us get 3-5 players and add some much-needed depth to the squad.

Still, we will have to wait for the summer to find out more about that and in the mean time it’s business as usual as we face an away game to Fulham tonight.

NUFCBlog Author: Hugh de Payen I'm a baby-boomer of the punk rock persuasion, currently exiled in Somerset for crimes committed in a previous life where locals keep trying to poison me with something called 'scrumpy'. Hates sprouts, coat-hangers, Cilla Black, ornaments, Steven Seagull movies and 50 Cent (he's not worth 10). Hugh de Payen has written 634 articles on this blog.

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Comment on this post

35 Responses

  1. The money isn’t only to be used on transfer fees though it’s also on the player wages. Plus I don’t know whether to trust the word of Mike Ashley the man is a proven liar. I think all parties are telling lies in this one as Carroll had a 5 year contract so no party was in pressure for the deal to go through. This deal has left me feeling really disillusioned about football its not the beautiful game it once was.

  2. either pardew is daft or he is doing what the rest of the fat ****s staff are doing, towing the company line. Thought you promised Carroll wouldn’t leave Pards? How can we believe what you say now? I have decided that anything that comes out of the club I will believe the opposite, manage my expectations better.

  3. For those who think this is good business can you think of anyone else who is as good and asyoung as Carroll that you can get for less than £35 million?

  5. “For those who think this is good business can you think of anyone else who is as good and asyoung as Carroll that you can get for less than £35 million?”

    I’m sad to see him go but have to agree with the consensus that he isn’t worth that amount…he could be one day but he could also drop off the radar all together after 1/2 bad seasons.

    I’m left feeling empty, this has killed the idea of the beautiful game for me, I would walk across broken burning glass to wear that shirt nevermind be paid thousands per week…everyone is lying to some degree. 5 year deal if ashley wanted shot then all carroll had to say was no.

    If the club wanted him to stay all they had to say was no, everyone involved is at fault here

  6. The only injured parties in this whole fiasco are the fans who have yet again been short changed, Carroll and Ashley have both filled their boots and have both realised as an after thought that they had quite a bit of explaining to do after the initial rush of greed subsided.
    Hence the bullshit which is now irrelivant to the task the smaller squad now has to deal with.
    This charm offensive re summer spending is based on the hopeful gamble that we win 4 of our last 15 games, what if we get more crucial injuries and we dont, everything at this club is based on a wing and a prayer with nothing concrete being done to ensure that we have enough to cope with whats ahead.

  7. My only worry is that Pardew does what previous Newcastle managers have done when they have been given a great wodge of readies and proceeded to spend recklessly on hopeless duds. Since relegation and possibly because of it (due to all the failed expensive superstars and carpetbaggers on their last big pay cheque) the club appears to have spent wisely. I doubt many fans can seriously disagree with the likes of Tiote, Ben Arfa, Simpson, Williamson, Gosling and perhaps Guthrie with the jury out on Pearch. It’s now down to Graham Carr and his scouts. I hope they continue to spot gems like Tiote and Ben Arfa and not take the easy route and buy premiership players that their clubs want to get rid of and who know we have money to spend. Down to you know Graham, don’t let us down.

  8. I think it is as Pards said. Andy is crying poor and putting the spot light on Mike wanting the money but I dont think Andy had any real right to demand a new contract so soon after signing the old one. It would have been the beginning of the end again with other players demanding ridiculous wages every time another team came in for them. I hope he has a shocker as it wont take the fickle Liverpool crowd to turn on him and say he cant stand the pressure and all that crap.

  10. 35M is a lot of money, and if it had happened sooner I would be okay with it.. But when the transfer is confirmed five minutes before deadline it is bad business no matter how much money we got. I would really like some semi-big name signings in the summer. Edinson Cavani for instance would suit us well, but not sure if we can attract that callibre. Balazs Dzsudzsak from PSV, Marko Marin from Bremen and Andrea Poli from Sampdoria are other names I’d like to see us linked with. Anyone else having some thoughts about players we could spend those money on? (If fatman does keep his promise, like he wont)

  12. Maybe no more transfer budget for next season, 35m or less from Carroll is all Pard get. However i don’t thaink we’ll buy someone for 10-15m next summer too.

  13. I know, now we’ve got the misery out the way, lets start playing ‘who is to blame’ game…. anyone of us offered £35m for a unproven, yet talented prospect player would sell, epsecially if it was in the best interests of the club yeah… I myself have said all this month, that it would be completely useless selling Carroll if we wanted to move forward & that accepting an offer of £20m for him would be stupid because he’d be worth almost double that in a season or 2….. but then we go & sell him for almost double that & the lad put a transfer request in because he saw the ££££ signs surrounding him…

    Transfers are like dancing, both parties really need to agree the move or it won’t work!!!!!

    If we blame Ashley, then we also need to blame Carroll… End of story….

    Tbh, today I’ve decided that I’m not going to dwell on the fact that he’s gone & whether he wanted to go or was pushed, I’m now goin to start looking forward to what’s goin to happen in the next few months leading up to the summer transfer window… :)

  14. How can we believe this promise?
    Pardew said Carroll wouldnt be sold!
    Pardew said he would fight the board for cash for players!
    Pardew said that after Routledge went we were going to sign at least 2 players!
    Pardew said the squad was seriously under strength!
    We signed one crocked player and moved three on!
    Ashley has come out of this window with 3 wages wiped off the books and 35m in his pocket!

    On the back of all these latest broken promises, why should we believe a word Pardew, on behalf of the board, says?

  15. As for summer transfers, we should shell: Raylor, Smith, Pearch, Xisco….. that should rbing in another £5m possibly ;) than I think the money should be broken down into this:

    £15m for 1 or 2 Strikers
    £15m for 2 Midfielders
    £10m for 1 x LB cover & 1 x CB cover

    So we should be looking to get at least 5 or 6 decent players in :)

  17. bob that nicely sums up this window – expect/believe the worst & you’ll not be far short of what the future holds.

  18. If you forget the emotional aspects – and it’s hard not to feel let down and upset (personally more with AC than the club but others may differ) – you can start to think about it rationally. I’ve been through this before – I was heart-broken as a lad of 6 when my and my dad’s favourite player George Eastham wanted to leave. How could he do that to me? Perhaps if I got to speak to him and tell him how I felt….?
    Older, and slightly wiser (just slightly cos I was still supporting the Toon!) I am sure there are many who were gutted when Pedro was sold, allegedly to pay for the new stand. And Chrissie Waddle. Gazza. Tony Cunningham – sorry, must have gone through a warp into a different dimension there. But you get the point.
    There are 2 differences here. All the above were far more established top-flight players than Carroll and the money they brought was nowt special whereas this, to a lot of outsiders as well as Toon fans, is sheer madness.
    Hey ho – been through worse – I actually felt more upset at CH leaving and still do. But let’s park it, move on, support the Toon – which will mean more agony and just the occasional ecstasy (5-1!). I agree with those who think that we should rely on the scouts finding the Tiote’s and HBA’s.

  19. I think we are foolish to believe that £35m+ will buy what it would a week ago.The ante as gone up,it won’t now buy 5/6 decent players.Every club in the world now knows what we have to spend and it will affect negotiations who ever we deal with.I now think £35m equates to 2 maybe 3 decent players tops.

  20. He has gone – we must move on.

    We have proved we can compete well in the league – without Carroll. We have a tight knit squad who I’m sure won’t allow themselves to fall apart because of the events of the last few days. Despite lots of comments to the contrary, Carroll was not our best player although he was a very influential one and his presence in the opposing penalty area did cause absolute panic. Our remaining strikers must step up – we know that – but the rest of a team I have delighted in watching this season is still there, and with Ben Arfa and Gosling to come back I am still looking forward to the rest of the season. We will miss Carroll’s presence for sure but he is still only one player who we could have lost through injury at any time. Have faith and let’s see some wise (Tiote/Ben Arfa) type investment in the summer. The future remains encouraging in my view.
    One last thing – At the beginning of the season Carroll wasn’t even guaranteed a first team place and had he been sold to Huddersfield or any other suitor for £4m then few tears would have been shed.
    Like you all I was deeply upset when he left but I was similarly affected when George Eastham went to Arsenal for a then record fee (yes I am that old) and you know what – NUFC survived and went on tho win the Fairs Cup a few years later.

  22. I know we are not as strong up front but we have been without Andy so far this year and we STILL remain unbeaten. I dont think we will have any troubles securing our premiership status at all, we have 4 reasonalbly good strikers that CAN find the net :). I Believe that pardew Will get at least 90% of that £35,000,000 . We saw some grat additions to the squad in summer and last season so there is proof that ashley will spend its just difficult when the funds are never really there. the fact he now has £35,000,000 and yes £35,000,000 we could see some super talent been brought in and cheap like Tiote, Ben Arfa etc. There are alot of negative heads around but as u said Kamer its time to move on because theres happier times ahead. Bring on the summer and watch this space :))

  23. Does anybody know how much money the club still owes to MA?? Just asking because I can see this asset stripping continue until he has recouped every penny. If anyone seriously believes that Tiote will be part of our squad come the kick off of next season, then I’m sorry but they are living in la la land. Oh and hoy Enrique into that mix as well. Probably Ben Arfa the following January.
    The only way we are ever going to dine at the top table again is if we get a sugar daddy of our own, because as things stand, we will never be allowed to get there under our own merit. As soon as we look like having players of potential, the big boys will be ready to pounce and take them away from us and our owner has proved he is not the kind of guy to refuse good money.
    Some of you will no doubt continue to pay your money and renew your season tickets, but I think this is where our fans are at fault. It is admirable, and something to be proud of, that we have the most loyal support in English football, arguably the world, but I seriously believe we need to be cruel to be kind and stay away from home games and hurt the fat cnut where it hurts the most – his wallet. Until we do, he will continue to take the piss.

  24. Pardew, in The Grauniad’s words were to the effect that the £35m would go to tranfers and salaries. Whose salaries? The new buys’ or the whole palying staff?

    Sorry guys, but can we ever take Ashely’s words as bing said in good faith?

  26. Although I can understand the cynicism I think that the selling of Carroll was a result of the wage structure restrictions. It would have been counterproductive to have increased his salary dramatically weeks after signing a new contract. Both Pardew and Carroll’s statements are probably true with Andy being denied the financial backing he felt he deserved, well aware of the potential earnings he would get from Liverpool, while Pardew would be aware of the knock on effect any contract revision might have elsewhere.

    I do get the impression that the club did do all in their power (apart from tripling his wages) to prevent his sale. Despite Ashley’s history I have the feeling that he is now trying to keep his best players. The difference this time from previously sales is that the club are now on a firm financial footing with no huge debts as before so that when Pardew is told that the money will be reinvested I am prepared to believe him. The sale of Tiote, Ben Arfa, etc although possible is not a financial necessity.

  27. MrT76, strictly speaking the club does not owe Ashley anything as he owns it all. All money in and all money out goes through his pocket. I’m not even sure whether the loan from the bank is still in force. Ashley is a billionaire and nothing you can do will hurt him financially. He didn’t become so rich by being a soft touch. If we sell players like Tiote and Enrique it is up to the club to find replacements. ManU, Liverpool (of old) and Arsenal rarely if ever kept players on beyond their sell-by date or/and if they could get a good price. The one notable exception was Rooney but I suspect that Fergie will get his revenge.

  28. Theres a couple of things that somehow don’t make sense.
    AP is saying AC is 4/5 weeks away from fitness, so it will interesting to see when he does get a run out.
    i.e a debut this weekend would confirm him as a total liar.
    Secondly I know L/Pool got a fat wedge from Chelski but weren’t they almost in admistration not so long ago, I’d have thought their bankers and the IR would want to see some of that cash, or am I missing something.

  30. Grump – Dog Leash has also said the Lanky Streak ‘o Piss is “weeks” away.

    Time to put this to bed now – it aint Pardew’s fault – that much is certain.

  31. Don’t give a monkey’s about Andy Carroll, he’s gone, it’s history, we need to move on and focus on the match tonight

  32. guys, i dont want to defend ashely here generally as every decsion from a footballing perspective has been utterly terrible but financially we dont have much to complain about. has he actually ever taken any money out of the club? as dividends or even interest? i am not so sure.

    on the basis that the money will be kept within the club i dont have a problem selling one player for a british record and the 8th highest ever, despite his potential to be one of the best there is. where this money goes may cause some annoyance with the fans but realistically it might not be a bad thing if all the money doesnt go on buying players, some of it being spent on the youth system/recruitment and players contracts such as jose and tiote would be a sensible move and help put the club on a stronger financial footing for the future, which would make us a more attractive prospect to buy for a new owner, which lets face it is what everyone wants.
    also trying to hurt MA in the pocket by not turning up and trying to force him out is a futile exercise, he still kept the club through relegation and if that cant force him out financially then realistically what can?

  34. Tony Toon says:

    “Although I can understand the cynicism I think that the selling of Carroll was a result of the wage structure restrictions. It would have been counterproductive to have increased his salary dramatically weeks after signing a new contract”

    Nice sentiments TT but tyhe real world says: http://football-talk.co.uk/8636/rooney-signs-contract-united/

    Anyway it wasnt about AC’s renewed contract it was all about Fatman wanting to put a gloss on the half year end figures and not spending a penny in the process.

  35. “One thing I said to Mike (Ashley) on Monday is that if this boy (Carroll) is going to go, this money has to be reinvested – all of it.”

    Shall we start a book of Pardwho quotes beginning with

    “I do not go “way back” with Derek or Mike”
    “Carroll is going nowhere”
    “We’re building a team around Andy Carroll” blah blah etc