Pardew: “No one’s unsaleable” at Newcastle United.
Posted on February 27th, 2011 | 34 Comments |
He started with Barton, who’s contract negotiations have now been shelved until the summer, with the midfielder’s current contract having around eighteen month to run. It is thought that the current deal on offer sees Barton facing a pay cut, but that it is the length of the contract extension, two years rather than three that is causing problems in the Barton camp.
Speaking of the current deal on offer, Pardew said:
“We have made a decent offer, but it’s difficult negotiating with any senior player at this level and I think Joey’s view is to perhaps see what happens in the summer.
“I don’t want to speak for Joey, but that might be where he’s at with it. I want to keep him, and I’ve made that clear to Mike [Ashley], but that process will probably run until the summer now.”
Selling the club.
On Mike Ashley’s future intensions regarding ownership of the club, and whether he might be tempted into another attempt at a sale, Pardew added:
“There was a period when Mike perhaps wanted to sell the club.
“But he’s out of the other side of that. He wants to build something here, but he wants to build it in a financial structure where it’s not costing him £10-15m a year of his own money.
“He wants it to try and run itself and with the fanbase we’ve got, there’s no reason why that can’t happen if the finances are correctly managed. Between myself, Mike and Derek (Llambias) we’re trying to do that, and in doing that we’re trying to build the team.”
Tiote.
Moving on to the another contract extension, the incredibly long six and a half year deal just signed by Barton’s fellow midfielder, Cheik Tiote, Pardew then addressed the concern of fans after the £35 million sale of Andy Carroll, suggesting that Tiote’s new contract, thought to be around £50,000 per week, was a sign of Ashley’s big ambition for the club, saying:
“After the sale of Andy, I think everybody involved with Newcastle, in the dressing room and on the terraces, was a little bit concerned.
“But I think Mike Ashley wanted to answer that and I think he’s done that in the best possible way.
“It is a massive statement of intent, and in terms of me and my staff, I think the signing of Cheik is very, very important. I think that’s true for the fans as well because they have taken to him and he’s a very important player for us. He’s someone who would be very difficult to replace.
“He’s done exceptionally well in his first year, and hopefully he’s someone we can build a side around because he gives you some protection to play four midfield players.
“When you play against a team with five in midfield, you need energy and legs in there to be able to keep two strikers on the pitch and Cheik gives us that.”
However Pardew concluded with a note of caution, saying that there would be no guarantees on future player sales, concluding:
“I’m afraid no one’s unsaleable,”
“That’s the truth of it, but we hope we can guard against it (the sale of Tiote) with this statement. The difference between the two (Tiote and Carroll) is that Cheik wants to stay here. Although Andy said that, he went.
“You can always harp on about the negative of Andy leaving, but we have a surplus of cash to buy in the summer and if I was in the dressing room at the moment, I’d be thinking we already have a good side, as we’ve proved since Andy left.
“If we can improve on that with signings like Cheik and some new players, we could be a force next year. That’s what we hope to be.”
Hmmmm. There’s some food for thought.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1093 articles on this blog.
You guys are becoming more like the Daily Mail (and Ed) every day. Out of all that is in that quotefest, you choose to run the most inflammatory headline. Why not choose something positive? There were plenty of options there.
Scandalous.
Better still, why not try some sort of analysis instead of knee-jerking all the time? Stop trying to be a tabloid.