Takeovers and transfers - Fake news?
There has been little recently reported on the club takeover, but it's been suggested over the weekend that ‘would-be’ buyers the Bin Zayed Group were struggling to cough up the cash needed to complete a deal.
You couldn't make this stuff up - especially when there's been almost two months of unanswered speculation suggesting they were all set to seal a deal.
Are these really the prospective owners we need at NUFC? Has there really ever been a serious buyer? I don’t think so, and I think Mike Ashley has realised this to.
Rafa was never going to remain at the club where the aim season after season is to try to simply survive and, to be fair, neither was any manager of any stature with any genuine ambition.
Alan Shearer hinted that his friend Steve Bruce may have been 4th or 5th choice. First, second and third choices were possibly those with serious ambitions and fully aware they were never going to fulfil them at St James Park.
Moving on, we're now just a few weeks away from our first game of the season (scary I know!), but we're in desperate need of new signings - but where are they?
How often has it been suggested that we were splashing the cash, but the signing of that elusive player never gets across the line?
Don’t buy it! We’ve been conned season after season.
I’m sure the clubs media strategy is to feed us some mouth watering names, but the negotiating strategy is to steer well clear of making a serious offer. I read just yesterday that we wanted Burnley's "£30m-rated" winger Dwight McNeil - yet we are prepared to pat just £15 (half their asking price). That probably sums us up.
Several days ago many media outlets indicated Joelinton was almost a done deal at £36m. Almost a week on and it's still not happened. It might, but this proves how long we seem to take to get deals done - even the ones we've apparently had in place for months!
Generally, our market place is loan signings, free transfers and unknowns for under £10m, that is reality. Andy Carroll is a possibility, if paid on a game to game basis. He could be a good super-sub, like Peter Crouch did on so many occasions, but he's not the answer, is he?
He is however not a signing for any Premier League club with ambition.
As I see it at present, there are only two clubs in the Premier League with less spending capacity than Newcastle: Norwich and Sheffield United and there lies the three favourites for relegation.
The speculation on transfers and takeovers will continue but ‘fake news’ is something we as Geordies are only too aware of.
