After another disappointing transfer window under the regime of Mike Ashley I thought I'd write a few notes on lessons learnt form the past:
1. Business Before Football
An obvious observation, but it's clear Ashley runs this club to make a profit and has no real ambition of taking the club forward on the pitch or bringing any form of success to the fans. I would also like to point out that the fans are not demanding money to be spent for the sake of it, we do want to see general improvements in the squad.
2. Hand Picked Manager.
After the departure of Kevin Keegan who seemingly caused too much trouble for Ashley's liking, an inexperienced Mr.Nice guy was chosen in the form of Chris Hughton to try and steady the club until the cheapest appointment could be made by the board.
Despite winning promotion at the first time of asking he fell out of favour after questioning the board which is strictly forbidden.
Alan Pardew was the next man in, and his reign so far seems to be that of a puppet fed lies and and untruths by director Derek Lambais, he doesn't seem to have any influence over transfer dealings and is the unfortunate one who has to face the fans and the media scrutiny over the failure to deliver any board promises of reinvestment in the team.
3. No Mutiny From The Ranks
A similar point but this time referring to unhappy players, if you don't like the way the board is treating you (Joey Barton, José Enrique) and speak about such matters in public you won't have a future at the club. Even former captain Kevin Nolan had a dig at the club after departing for West Ham earlier in the window.
4. Transfer Policy - Outgoings
Players will high market value or on big wages are targeted first, Carroll and Enrique were both shipped out for decent money. Ashley should take some credit for setting a price and not budging, ensuring maximum profit is made, but where the money goes after that remains to be seen...
5. Transfer Policy - Incoming
Young, foreign, and cheap is the quota for new players, there is a certain amount of risk in bringing in untested players and hoping/expecting them to make their mark immediately in the Premier League, the signing of Tiote last year looks like a great deal, but there is potential for huge profits to be made on successful players two years down the line so there is no certainty that the best players will stay.
If deals prove unsuccessful player will always find a club back home and losses will be minimal.
6. Deadline Day
Already a classic couple of tricks have been invented by the board to create false hope near the end of the window. The first trick I'm going to name the 'We Tried': It involves bidding a decent amount of money for a player (N'Zogbia), having the bid accepted, but then offering a laughable contract to the player and blaming the failed transfer as a 'unable to agree personal terms'. At first the fans fell for it and blamed the player for failing to agree terms but by now the fans can see through these false deals as just an excuse by the board to pretend they were active.
A second trick which I'll name the 'Hi-Jack', involves bidding for a player at the twelfth hour who's already agreeing personal terms with another club (preferably a club with more ambition), having a bid accepted but then offer a poor contract again, the player (Bryan Ruiz) rejects this and then signs with the first offer (Fulham with Europa League football) and we are again made too look like we were active but with no real intentions of signing anyone.
6. Broken Promises./lack of communication
Probably the biggest cause of controversy and anger from fans, press releases and promises of reinvestment broken by the board who feed the media with fake information regarding transfer so fans can get their hopes up about incoming players, hopeful quotes such as '"Judge us on the 1st September"- Pardew' or "Every penny of the £35m will be reinvested in the team" create a false optimism which results in another major let down at the end of the window.
The only way to stop Ashley is to boycott games, sadly this is not a viable possibility due to the pre-paid season tickets, and the unswerving loyalty of a lot of fans to the team (to be applauded).
We can only hope we find a buyer soon.
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