We are now in the last day of the transfer window. As I type this up at 7 in the morning, 
Newcastle United has made no major signings whatsoever. Nor have we made any major sales.
The Director of Football, Joe Kinnear, who on his appointment accepted the club needed to buy attacking players, has not done so. Nor has he sold anyone for a significant fee. Yet.
His major act in the transfer window was to pull the Douglas deal which led to the resignation of Managing Director, Derek Llambias, who has not been replaced.
The club accounts state that Mike Ashley has an intention to take back £18m from United up to June 2013. This would add to the £11m taken out in the previous accounting period. Repayments of the loan to Ashley are structured around the new TV deal.
We now want you to tell us what you think about this transfer window and what this says about the direction of Newcastle United under Mike Ashley’s ownership.
Simply enter your thoughts in the comment boxes and submit.
That Is All. 
leeds, blackburn, pompey – doesn’t matter. They spent, were badly managed and crashed. But plently others have spent more sensibly and improved. They are the extreme, that’s all, and I don’t see the comparison only to them? We could have spent, say, £6m each on a physical forward & a decent wide player (much needed). About a third of the INCREASE in TV money – are we saying that would have seen us in administration / league 1 by 2015??
Totally agree on the bad management and lack of attractiveness to players. Who’s fault is that? Isn’t MA in charge, could he not appoint someone more competent? He’s a billionnaire business mogul right? Fact is, we have a useless set up by choice – because it’s cheap, and happy to bump along the bottom while trying to deceive the fans (pardews latest statement another example)
And yep, we have spent similar money to other clubs, but haven’t won things like them, so does that mean we should stop trying? Or should we change the crap set up which is to blame and try to grow sensibly? I know what I think. No offence, but your logic escapes me.
By East Stand Exile: ok, I take your point about saying “doing a Leeds”. How about we say “doing a Portsmouth” or “doing a Blackburn” instead? And don’t tell me that Blackburn’s “saviors” are any better than Ashley. At least he hasn’t forced the team into this – although I don’t want to give these people any ideas 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYwf2SBWa5o
Ralph and East Stand: IF we had a decent managerial set up, we would have been in a position to convince Chelsea/whoever that we are the right team to grow Victor Moses and Lukaku. And you are right: there wouldn’t be any need to break the bank. As things stand, we have Pardew (for whom playing in a European cup is a distraction – I guess a distraction from football?! I’m not sure I’m intelligent enough to understand what he’s on about most of the time). And JFK. What I’m trying to say is that it wouldn’t matter if Ashley had signed Messi this summer: there is something fundamentally wrong in our club and it’s not the kind of problem you can solve by throwing money at.
Here is an interesting comparison with other underdogs.
– Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008 – they had spent £30m in the transfer market.
We won nothing but still spent nearly £17m. We know what happened to Portsmouth.
– Wigan won it in 2013 having spent a total of £0 – in fact, they had a net revenue of over £10m from transfers (http://www.soccerbase.com/teams/team.sd?team_id=2783&teamTabs=transfers).
We won nothing, having brought in over £16m worth of talent.
– Birmingham won the League Cup in 2011 having spent £0 in the transfer market.
We won nothing having spent £5.5m
– Swansea won the League Cup last year having spent £19.5m.
We won nothing having spent £16m.
I am sorry if all this sounds defeatist; I call it realism. We have had a rotten managerial set up for years. As fans we have a clear choice: either treat all this as a bit of fun and enjoy what’s in front of us; or stay home and have a near empty stadium on match day: Sky would hate this, TV income would fall and Ashley would have to sell up sooner rather than later. At the moment, fellow fans reside in the worst possible world: they still attend AND they do so with constant grumpiness and negativity.
Ashley is happy to sit and laugh along at Newcastle United with the rest of the country. He allowed Kinnear to announce his own arrival in a telephone call to Sky tv and then talk absolute shite for three days before NUFC made an official announcement. Any right minded owner/boss would have told his ‘new man’ to shut the fuck up until the official announcement.
Ashley has probably recovered what he’s spent on NUFC two fold via his other business’s in the last few years and i firmly believe he could not give a fuck about the club anymore, he’s keeping it ticking over. When was he last at a game ? What owner would allow his business to have such a public image ? Almost everything about the club is a embarrassment, he just does not care.
Did he sanction that ridiculous story apparently on Sports Directs website that Man Utd were to make a late bid for Cabaye ? i think so and i think it was an attempt to insult the player.
As for Pardew and his latest statement ” Joe worked hard on offensive targets but they were not as good as what we have already got” You are insulting us too Pardew, are you telling me that we could not find anyone better than the likes of Ameobi (both of them actually) and Obertan. You are taking the piss out of us too.
So Pardew`s quote on the tranfer window…
“We are delighted to have brought Loic Remy to the club in this window and we believe he will form an exciting and effective partnership with Papiss Cisse.
“Joe has worked hard on numerous targets, particularly an additional offensive player. However some of the options that were available within our financial means were not as good as the players we already had and there is no point bringing in new players unless they can improve us and take us forward.
“We did the majority of our business in the January window, signing five excellent first team players.
“With the strong squad we have we should all approach the season in a positive, optimistic frame of mind.”
End of last season..
“We’re very, very lucky to have the support that we got and therefore we owe them a debt next year to make sure that we serve up a better standard of football and better quality of results.
“We showed we’ve got great players. We’ve had some performances out there which were top drawer. We know, in that (dressing) room, we’ve got 80 per cent of the team.
“We still need to make sure we get two or three recruits in there which take us forward. If we can do that, they’ll grow as well, and we’ll be much, much better next year
Aug 23rd
“We have to make sure we get one or two transfers over the line before deadline.”
How the hell can you take this lot seriously …lol…For Pardew to come out with the quote at the top really shows the spine of the man…his quotes are getting as silly as kinnears
Not to be a pessimist….but if we start losing and losing players through injury …the viewing of him being pushed /sacked played out through will make for uncomfortable viewing for us fans as it`s played out through the media
Hi Ant …. everyone is entitled to their oponions and you are entitled to yours but but your observations are thinly disguised as defeatist talk and a bit shallow. The fans are not asking for the moon but some honesty and a little ambition from their club and their masters . We do not expect to be table toppers every season or believe we have the automatic right to be right up there with the best. . As Northerners we are used to being treated as second class citizens behind our southern cousins , However we do have the right to expect a bit of consideration as toon fans who spend so much time and money on supporting our team . We put great wealth into the pockets of players /. manager / directors / owner . I feel we have a right to be a bit aggrieved. at the raw deal we are given . Its not so much the lack of spending which is so annoying , its the deceit . I personally believe we have a decent team and some very good players although its obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse we need some cover. We are not looking for some Sheik who has made his money by tourturing poor people to fly in and buy success. So dont bemoan some fans getting ot off their chests , they are enititled to.
Here, here, well said that man. It amazes me that some fans think anyone asking for some investment is wanting to go back to the Owen days or make the club ‘do a leeds’ (laziest line of all). There is something in between – sensible investment, trying to grow the club, move up to regular top half, regular Europe, winning the odd cup (remember them). Swansea and wigan did the cup bit for gods sake!
Signing some cover for positions we are glaringly short in doesn’t make us pompey mark 2 – even yesterday we saw plenty of strikers move / available: lukaku, long, borini, anichebe etc. And that’s just the last day. Not sure all of them would be up to scratch, but many would be a better option than old shola..
I’m in a horrible position as a newcastle supporter right now where that if we win I know the owner’s delusions that everything is alright continues and if we lose i’m sort of hoping it sends a message to the top but realistically it never makes any difference.
I am not trolling but, c’mon: Newcastle has not been a trophy-rich club for decades; and we are in debt. What is it that we’re after with all this gnashing of teeth? Would JFK be a good and righteous director of football if he had landed Bent? Or would Bent’s signature get us to the Champions League?
I have no love for Ashley or his jolly gang of lickspittles, but -as fans- we need to accept where we are, how much we can afford to spend and how far we can reach without doing a Leeds.
The market has gone mental and our earning power is low so let’s get realistic.
100 million Euros for Bale, £46m for Ozil, nearly £28 for Fellaini. These are the kinds of player that would improve us. Not blooming Daren Bent or some random French bloke Dennis Wise or JFK saw once on YouTube.
But do you seriously think that we could outbid any of these clubs which enjoy Champions League football every year? And, even if good players came here, what would they do for us? We’ve tried to invest on a talisman and build a team around them (Cole, Shearer, etc). It’s never worked before; why would it work now? Or are we pining for the crappy old days when we used to sign wasters like Owen and paying them £120k per week and all the helicopter rides he wanted out of the NE?
Rich sheiks -whose security forces torture people to death- can afford to throw this sort of cash around and, hey, some times they might get enough good players together (by accident rather than design) to win the Premiership. We are not in that space – thank God.
I am as frustrated as anyone else with our status as a mid-table club; but let’s concentrate on putting together a few decent performances and let’s get out there and enjoy ourselves. This craving for spending is making us miserable and we are turning football games into funerals.
It’s not about making ‘daft’ signings.
Turnover will this year exceed £110m and the wage bill should be circa £60m. Even after allowing for operating costs, that leaves a substantial surplus, some of which will be used to repay part of the MASH Holdings loan.
When that loan is eventually repaid, do you see Ashley selling the club for his net cost ie. the original purchase price?
The fact of the matter is that he paid Hall & Shepherd way too much for the club in the first place and has made some poor decisions subsequently which have resulted in further costs. He’s now using our money to pay off the debts that he incurred in his many misjudgements. The eventual result will be a club that has cost him a big fat zero and during his years of ownership he will have benefited from millions in free advertising.
Why accept mid table when the club is better than that?
Run well and successfully, the value of the club would grow. I’d much prefer to see that with a successful team on the pitch, than what we have today, which is to cut costs at the expense of everything else.
Joe Kinnear asked us to judge him on his signings. Well he made it pretty easy for us, didn’t he? We don’t even have to wait half a season to see if his signing(s) were any good! Either that, or it was a cunning plan – we’ve got nothing to judge him on so he can’t be judged!
I think we should all write/tweet/FB the club and tell Joe that we have judged him, and we’ve decided he’s shite.
Shame that line keeps moving into the distance, no doubt there will be claims again in January that we are nearly over it before falling short of it again. pardew again shows he has no say about anything and looks a proper plonker
So I take it that theres no need for a director of football as the transfer window has closed till next year? Joe can now head home to the smoke or on holiday.
Thats ok then its been a real sucess.
Oh Ashley id love to know how much he is getting each month, maybe we could have had another player on loan and paid his wages instead of Joes, but hey ho wot do I know.
Mick
Ashley’s plan has worked …. The fat bastard never intended to spend on new players, they offered sums they knew would not be accepted . Never sold because they were not offered enough . Feel let down badly but unbowed , I wont let these three twats grind me down . Their tenure will end . Toon will go on for ever.
Door slammed shut…we are fucked….Pardew gone by the end of the year and that twat Kinnear steps up…only to step down again , what a nightmare
Its a shame the Mike Ashley Out campaign will never amount to anything. The only way to hurt Ashley is to attack his pockets. Fans should boycott merchandise if possible, cover sports direct adverts
with banners. Its time to be ruthless and drive this scum bag out of our club!
totally lost the faith.
The lack of activity in the transfer market is a good indication of how much Fat Ass-ley really thinks of the club, where he wants it to go… Not very much and not very far.
Agree if he ever gets control of rangers standby they won’t take this white like
We should have run Ashley out of town when he dismissed Keegan. It was an event repulsive enough to finally galvanise the support into creating an organisation to provide the leadership we need. Unfortunately too many people got on their high horse about NUSC being a protest group and the opportunity to stand united morphed into a toothless waste of time.
Now all we can do is act as individuals. I’ve gone gone down the boycott route. What other supporters do is up to them. However, unless you think NUFC are a nothing little club, turning up at SJP and carrying on as normal shouldn’t be an option. Nothing will change if we do nothing.
NUFC is ( mis ) run by a set of self serving conniving twats , We all know this . Most of us having been saying this for a long time. We can jump up and down and spill our beer but its not going to make a blind bit of difference . Whats to be done ? We need to come up with a stratagy … maybe picketing Ashley’s shops / preventing sales that line his fat arsed trouser pockets … I dont have all the answers but one of you out there maybe does have a good idea. ……………..
All you get is lies and more lies if Pardew had anything about him he would walk
The stance by some of you against Ashley is admirable but really it would take a boycott of large numbers, aka the crowd down to 20,000, to make a difference, and it would have to have a sustained and solid campaign behind it and would have to last more than one game, and include viable, sensible alternatives that have the backing of the majority of fans, not mindless, angry twitter accounts shouting ‘ASHLEY OUT!!!’ all over the place. It’s possible, yes, but will it happen? It would have have to have full co-operation between True Faith, The Mag, Black and White Daft, Steve Wraith… Etc etc. It’s a real shame the NE does not have a regional division of the FSF, which could really help co-ordinate any action.
All Summer we have heard Pardew claim that we ‘need a striker’ and acknowledgment of the mistakes made last year with the lack of transfer activity. Only last week were we told that an ‘action plan’ had been put in place for the remainder of the window. God only knows what Kinnear has actually been doing for 2 and a half months.
Sadly its a Summer of false hope and lies coming from the club. I feel immensely sorry for Pardew as he knows where we need to strengthen and is completely hopeless and powerless at having an influence in the transfers we are bringing in. Sadly it just epitomises Mike Ashley’s lack of ambition for NUFC and his complete and utter reluctance to invest to take our club forward.
its just a shame we have to put up with all of the bo**ocks all pre-season to make us believe that there is some ambition
Why feel sorry for Pardew ? he is pathetic.
We made our summer signings in jan, there will not be any investment in the team unless we are struggling in jan, this is how the club will be ran with only the intention to stay in the league.
Totally agree am 43 had season ticket 20 0dd years no more while this lot are in charge the club is a joke and your left with no hope whats so ever
If Cabaye stays at what time tomorrow will Pardew opine that keeping hold of him is ‘like a new signing’.
I would wager the first opportunity he gets.
Maintenance without improvement will send you backwards anyway you look at it. We might stand still for a while, but backwards were going. He will put the minimum amount of money in to keep us up, and take the maximum out to line his pockets.
When your getting outstripped by the likes of Norwich splashing out on players with the TV money, your in big trouble. And good luck to them, their taking the chance. We will be mid table this season I hope, as there are still a few good players there. But thats it-and there is no reason to dream anymore following NUFC, its been sucked out of us, which is why as an ex season ticket holder I can live with not going now.
Only my opinion, but the balance has swung, and he has pushed the loyalty card as far as it will go now. People will still support the club, but maybe not prop the fat man up, and Joe Kinnear was just a slap in the face. Attendance will be hitting 40,000 this year – and the whole point of supporting a club and going is enjoying it and dreaming a little bit. He’s killed that off, and ruined a lot of things in the process. Doesn’t get it, never did. Wa**er.
I moved back to Newcastle to study last September and was excited to be back here again and be able to go to the match. I went to a fair few home games last season but this season the excitement has almost been sucked out of me with what’s going on and it’s got to the point where it’s also partly out of principle that I won’t go. I certainly don’t hold it against anyone who does go and has season ticket commitments but those arseholes won’t spend any money on the team so I won’t be putting my money into it. Sad state of affairs really.
personally gave up along with the lads years ago. Lets face it the game these days is s##t all about money and there is’nt much anyone can do about it. I always thought a full scale boycott would do the trick but Newcastle fans have always been a shambles when anything like this happens.Also nowadays it would’nt make any difference. Why would Ashley leave? The TV deal is so good he would still make money with nee one there. Only long term solution for me and its grim reading. Relegation, not returning straight back up and bankruptcy and hopefully Ashley leaves, as in his dismal world the only thing that will hurt him is losing money. Hopefully then we can be bought by an owner who will restore some heart and soul back into our magnificent football club.
Surely the Chronicle running a live transfer update feed covering NUFC activity is the ultimate example of a pointless exercise? If it wasn’t so depressing it would be funny.
Ashley is a coward, a man with lots of money and no balls, most likely has a little tiddler as well. What a guy he is eh? Im suprised this epic coward of a man hasn’t been chased round the country by the media seeking an explenation to whats going on at NUFC. Come on journos? You argued for freedom of the press, now go do your job. Expose this fat fraud.
It has always been Ashley’s plan to start to use additional TV income and surpluses from player transfers to pay off his loan to NUFC. He would then be able to offload the Club at a more affordable price, and would probably just be looking for a small profit on his initial investment (excluding the loan arising from the mortgage he had to pay off when he acquired NUFC). I would have more respect for him if he was upfront with the support about this, at least we would then know there was an end game, which we could all help to achieve! The risk is continuing to be able to attract ambitious players during this period as Ashley must minimise player investment to achieve his goal. So the sooner we reach this end game the better as we will have an opportunity to change strategy. In the meantime we have to hold onto the one strength we have – unity of support for the team. This is what will attract the next incumbent. Support the team, not the regime!
If Ashley can skim £20-30m per season off the top thanks top the Sky money,why would he sell up?
Just because he has his debt paid,doesnt mean he will sell…why would he?
The club is providing a useful income now and also give SD a fantastic FREE platform for advertising. Why would he give that up?
To me,it would only happen if someone offered him a ludicrous amount of money for the club….can you see that happening?
Agree with comments already posted. Ashley has no interest in the club other than to get his money back and then make a return on his investment and for it to act as an advertising vehicle for Sports Direct. I’m not sure that was his original intention but it certainly is now.
This transfer window eptiomises all that is wrong with the club; amateurish, shambolic, lacking commitment and organisation, no interest in anything but the bottom line etc etc.
Until Ashley decides to sell the club we will be stuck with the same old same old and we’ll be having the same conversations each August and each January.
The faithful are beginning to drift away. I gave up my season ticket a couple of seasons ago and have no intention of going back into that sort of commitment until there is a change at the top. 46,000 on Saturday which is well down on the average of last season but still enough to keep the money rolling in and the tills ringing. Having said that a full scale boycott will do nothing to deter Ashley – the TV money is so huge I don’t think playing to a half empty stadium will bother him. For those on the 10 year deal – don’t be fooled in January to continue if we bring in a couple of new faces – it’s not about strengthening the squad – it’s all about sucking you in and keeping the direct debits paying.
It’s depressing but it seems like nothing will change unless fans boycott his regime – will this ever happen? Is this something TF supports? Would it actually be successful or just send us into administration a la Leeds, Portsmouth, Rangers?
Niall Fleming’s comments (https://true-faith.co.uk/?p=1363) on our situation perfectly sums everything up for me. Basically we’re f**ked unless a Sheikh decides we’re worth the huge investment required to make us more than just an also-ran cash cow which is how MA sees us.
Agree with Wallace Wilson 100%
Thats why Ash has his paws all over Rangers they too have a massive fan base and he gets to flog more crap.
Im one of the “missing” thousands I will not pay one penny to Joke Kennear or this setup. It kills me not to go to the game, but looking at the attendance Im not the only one. Its in me blood for over 50 years this club, but I hate the way things have developed and contiune to go the same direction………Who knows what nasty suprise is coming next? I guarantee he will pull something else out the hat.
So much potential wasted for the sake of squeezing every penny from loyal support.
Mick
46,000 turned up at SJP on Saturday to look at a shop window and paid for the pleasure of doing so. NUFC is no longer a football club with all that it entail (see SBR). Rather it is a retail operation run as an extension of SD. Some people think that Ashley will leave when he re-coups his investment but why would he – he’s making £millions out of the loyalty of fans who still think of it as their club. Not any more it’s not and it won’t be until he leaves, forced out by people refusing to place money into his capacious wallet.
This window has been totally disheartening. The appointment of Joe Kinnear director of football (could it have been the result of a drunken night out?) was a proper kick in the unmentionables. Its blatantly obvious we need strengthening but surprise surprise nothing much has happened. It appears that the talk that we’d done our summer buying in the winter isn’t just talk. Learn from your mistakes? if Ashley’s only ambition is to keep us in the top flight history may well have to be repeated in January.Whilst Ashley is here, as the Wedding Present once sang we are going “Nowhere Fast”
I can’t understand why anyone is still surprised that Ashley wants his investment back with interest… When he eventually asset strips and sells, we will have a self sufficient NUFC but with no real value.