£35m summer spending spree for Toon
Posted on February 2nd, 2011 | 35 Comments |
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.
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.