Saudi Arabia PIF with 10 year plan for Newcastle United – In for the long haul | OneFootball

I realised long ago that I was possibly not your “average” Newcastle United fan, if there even is such a thing.

I try to avoid transfer window “breaking news” wherever possible, and if you have read the stories of us trying to get Jack Grealish or Marcus Rashford to SJP on £300,000 a week, I’m sure you can see why.

Of course, at this stage in our fiscal journey there’s no way we can afford players on that sort of money, yet the stories still get written.

Saudi Arabia PIF, and their horde of accountants, will have been well aware of the PSR restrictions, and whilst Amanda Staveley was announcing her five year NUFC plan from the rafters, PIF would have been sitting quietly in the background turning it into a 10 year affair. However, have no doubt, they are in this for the long haul, and by the time we part ways with them, which we will eventually, we will have league trophies – of both the domestic and Champions varieties, under our Adidas emblazoned belts.

I’m confident that PIF will not rest until they are the top Middle East owned club in the Prem.

On the coverage of transfers by the media, to localise a colloquialism, too much “bait” and you will invariably become “fed up”, and this is particularly relevant with bait of the “click” variety.

Headlines telling you we have signed a 40 goal a season striker, might get you to the page, but when you get seven paragraphs in and finally discover that she is 12 years old, you wont be going back there in a hurry.

I put this piece together in the hope of providing you with a bit of a distraction from the transfer related madness, and maybe give you something to smile/rant about, or even just dismiss out of hand.

We all need a bit of smiling, ranting, dismissing out of hand to get us through the day!

For context – I’m writing this on Friday (4 July) morning, and as of this time the transfer floodgates have not yet opened, and if they don’t open soon we may be reminded of Eddie Howe’s words that he is happy to stay as long as he is adequately supported.

Playing to the crowd

I try to avoid “playing to the crowd” with my articles on The Mag.

Yes, we all know what most fans want to hear, and it would be so very easy to compose an article that presses all the right buttons, and then while talking about pundits I could use words like “embarrassing”, “laughable” and “pathetic”. But, truth be known, in general I seem to have a knack for pressing buttons of a different colour.

Okay. So here we go with my “nothing to do with transfers” rant.

Oh, and in the interests of balance, for every negative, I have tried to include a positive!

I know I’m going against the Geordie grain when I say loyalty in football is a myth, but unless his name is Matt Le Tissier, a footballer will dump his current club at the drop of a sideways turned Swarovski encrusted baseball cap, to chase trophies or a bigger pay cheque.

Those of you who think the likes of Bruno and Alexander Isak will automatically stay loyal because we are such great fans, should perhaps ask yourselves, “where was this loyalty to their previous clubs, that they left to come to us?”

Personally, I see nothing wrong with this. It’s part of the game. I’ve quit jobs in the past to take up better positions, and I’m sure most of you have too. Conventional wisdom suggests that a maximum of two years in any work environment is optimal to keep you fresh and interested in your job, plus, who in their right mind would turn down a pay rise that could buy you a three year old Bentley GT Continental EVERY WEEK? This is not a dig at our superstars, but if we want to keep them they need to see that we want to be serious challengers, and to do that we need to bring in some quality support for them. And we need to do it ASAP.

On the lighter side, when it comes to loyalty, we did have a certain Alan Shearer, who returned to the Barrack Road fold when greater riches were on offer elsewhere. Of course we remember the goals, but I don’t think the sacrifice that he made gets enough of a mention, except when Lineker and Richards are extracting the Michael.

On the skill side, our Le Tiss equivalent was undoubtedly Peter Beardsley.

In my travels I have reached the conclusion that Americans tend to confuse being loud with actually having a personality.

In the past, many fans have insisted that we don’t need to actually win games, we just need to see players giving their all. Going back a few years I was a huge fan of Peter Ramage. He wasn’t particularly brilliant, but boy did he try hard. Then there was Peter Beardsley (again), Wor Miggy and another of my controversial favourites, Scott Parker. They all put a shift in.

Somewhere, filed deep in my digital archives, I have the Arsenal match from 20 years ago where Parker, having been flattened by Jens Lehmann, was eventually assisted off the turf, concussed and with a mouth full of cotton wool and painkillers, after an Arsenal player landed on his head.

I think Parker was mistreated by our fans. He was encouraged to depart St James’ Park by a disgruntled mob after backing out of a 50-50 tackle, while already carrying a knee injury.

I’ve gone off down this particular rabbit hole because in a similar vein to the whole “trying hard” thing, I suspect that some fans are too easily drawn to a player’s personality at the expense of objectively considering their productivity.

Stirring the pot again, I was never a huge fan of Gutiérrez, and with a single goal for every 17 appearances, the stats (Spawn of Satan that they may be) tend to support my view.

Saint-Maximin, with one in nine and a bit, wasn’t much better. Yes, both were amazing personalities, but is it too much to expect more goals from our wingers?

Barnes and Gordon make them look decidedly pedestrian in comparison.

Going back to loyalty – I’m surprised Anthony Gordon is still with us. I think we need to watch this space on the Scouser.

Need an injection of positivity?

If you are fuelling up for the match, you can’t beat an Armstrong’s Steak and Kidney pie!

You see how I’m doing this?

On the subject of my dislikes, I don’t get as excited as some over Bruno. I think the phrase “puts the ball at risk too often”, sums up my thoughts on him. Plus he seems to have a problem with his balance. Falls over a lot!

On the positive side, I would play Dubravka between the sticks any day of the week.

Going back to the “not playing to the crowd” comment, I always thought we were over-generous in our praise of Rafa.

On the positive side, I thought Jackie Charlton was a star during his ever so brief tenure.

You have to respect a guy who says “I’m not staying where I’m not wanted”, and walks away.

Also seem to remember him, as manager of the Republic of Ireland, referring to some global superstar and saying, “bring him over here, I’ll find him an Irish granny!” Can’t for the life of me remember who he was talking about. Help me out here.

Transfers in passing

Even after all I said above, it would be remiss of me not to at least mention transfers in passing.

What winds me up so much about all the whole transfer gossip thing is that very little of it actually ties in with what we have learned over the last few years about Eddie Howe and how he likes to do business.

He has brought in a raft of players who have done a job for him, with not a so-called “marquee” signing in sight.

He has brought in younger players and moulded them to play his way.

He has taken “average” players and somehow raised their game.

He brought in Dan Burn, who takes our Player Of The Season award and deserves a category all of his own.

Do we need a marquee signing?

Do we even want a marquee signing?

Or do we just need to sign another couple of Halls or Livramentos, and bring in another couple of Mileys from the academy?

I’m not sure what the fascination with Anthony Elanga is. From a goal scoring perspective we already have four players who last season either equalled his tally or did better, and if he comes in as a winger he’ll replace one of those, knocking six to eight goals off our GF, and I can’t see us paying 55 million for his assists.

Do we really think that we can “do an Eddie” on him and turn him into something special?