State of the Geordie Nation

The deal for striker Modibo Maiga between Newcastle United and Sochaux has been struck out, after the Malian player failed his medical. That NUFC are wary is understandable after the Michael Owen ordeal. The club, however, are short of proven hitmen, with Demba Ba accounting for more than half the goals, Leon Best having not found the net in the top flight since mid-September and full-back Ryan Taylor having more Premier League goals than Peter Lovenkrands and Shola Ameobi combined.


Then again, if the squad is not augmented (although it does need to be), it may keep some of the current members in club colours for a while longer. Andy Carroll now looks an outstanding sale for £35 million, even if all the money went into the club, none earmarked for the squad. That he was injured for a long time meant that Kenny Dalglish’s philosophy was more or less stamped on Liverpool by the time he recovered his fitness. It is all reminiscent of Real Madrid buying crocked defender Jonathan Woodgate (though Real got their revenge and their money back with Owen). The departures of Kevin Nolan and Jose Enrique are harder to justify in terms of team strength, if not boardroom politics and letting Joey Barton leave on a free transfer is because the board were too arrogant and paradoxically thin-skinned to accept his passion. The Toon had ‘problem’ players in the past – Craig Bellamy, Laurent Robert, Olivier Bernard – but those there were tantrums, the club and Bobby Robson especially always had a way of reconciling them.

There is ‘talk’ that Cheik Tiote, Fabricio Coloccini, even Tim Krul, might be sold for hefty price tags to bring in cheap as chips players as replacements, just as there was ‘talk’ that Carroll would be sold. The board call this the Arsenal model, but Arsene Wenger in his pomp never let players leave in their prime unless absolutely forced to and on such occasions – Nicolas Anelka, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit (the last two as a ‘double’ signing fro Barcelona) – he obtained eye-watering sums. Only recently, with the so-called trophy drought, has Wenger found it harder to retain star players. The NUFC strategy is not the Arsenal model, it is the Wigan model, much as Mike Ashley, who has no class and for whom money is all, would hate to admit. Trouble is, Wigan Athletic are going through their golden age and every year that they are not relegated, is a prolongation of this gilded era. Newcastle United are a far bigger club – the stadium could hold more than half of the total population of Wigan, while the Athletic can barely muster a crowd that Bashar al-Assad would not hesitate in killing were they to protest against him – with a far greater history. Brushing with relegation every season so Ashley can make moolah out of his mid-life crisis investment is not exploiting the potential.

It is all of a piece, though. Derek Llambias seems to be going gene-splicing therapy to make himself a total shit, all vestige of humanity removed. He treats fans like a card-sharp caught at the casino he used to work at. He should take care to note what happened to Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. Wiping St. James Park completely out of the stadium’s name on a spurious case of raising money, when it breaks all rules of marketing (in a bad way) and that the owner is the tenth richest man in English football and ninth in the Premier League was the most egregious act since Newcastle bounced back from the relegation induced by Ashley having four managers in one season. And this, on when they insisted on affixing sportsdirect.com before St. James Park, that under their reign (of terror) the name would stay, but it has been proven in court that they are pathological liars. As a result, how can anyone believe them that they stopped going bankrupt. The Shepherds and Halls were dancing on the edge of a volcano, but Sir John Hall didn’t acquire the nickname “Margaret Thatcher’s favourite businessman” through being too reckless with cash. They would never have allowed the goose that laid the golden eggs for them to be killed off (witness the spending freeze during Glenn Roeder’s tenure after the capture of Obafemi Martins). No-one though these two families could be exceeded in venality but it has not been more true of the saying ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’.