Newcastle United Release Transfer Statement: "We Tried, We Failed"

Newcastle United have today taken the relatively unprecedented step of releasing a statement concerning their dealings in the transfer window, in an attempt to appease those fans left frustrated by the inability of the recruitment team (which probably doesn't include manager Alan Pardew - no matter how much of the flack he gets) to bring in a striker to fill the void left by Andy Carroll's sale to Liverpool back in January. The statement, released on the club's official site reads as follows:

A statement from Newcastle United Managing Director Derek Llambias Now that the transfer window has closed, we have had some time to reflect on the business we have conducted over the summer. Our aim was to secure young players who represented value for money and could add real strength to the squad. The majority of our transfer dealings were completed in the early part of the window and we feel we have signed some players of exceptional quality. Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveaux, Mehdi Abeid, Demba Ba and Gabriel Obertan were all brought in early and we have seen these players settle quickly into the squad and perform well on the pitch. Earlier this week we were delighted to sign Davide Santon from Inter Milan to fill our left-back position after the departure of Jose Enrique. Davide is an excellent young prospect and we're sure he'll be another superb addition to the squad. We also welcomed young goalkeeper Rob Elliot from Charlton Athletic who will help us retain healthy competition for that position after loaning out Fraser Forster to Celtic. Of course we had also hoped to secure a further striker in the window, in addition to Demba Ba. Work to bring a striker into the club began early in the summer. Negotiations were complex and protracted and unfortunately it was disappointing that ultimately we could not secure our priority target. Whilst we did turn our attention to alternative prospects in the latter stages of the window, we have a very clear transfer policy and will not make knee-jerk decisions at the last-minute which are not in the best interests of the club. We understand that supporters will feel frustrated that we did not sign another striker during the window, but it was not for lack of trying that we did not bring our final target in.

This should perhaps be classed as a momentous occasion in the recent history of Newcastle United, because it represents the first time that Managing Director Derek Llambias - effectively the liaison between ownership and club remember - has taken it upon himself to directly address the fans, and highlight club policy in a way that doesn't criticise the fans (which he invariably does in his match-day programme column). It doesn't answer many questions though, and really it poses a few glaring ones as well. But first, talk about stating the bleeding obvious. It all boils down to four words: "We tried, we failed". Aside from the temptations to cast serious aspersions on the first half of that short summary, this is by no means a revelation. Nor is the refusal of Llambias to say anything more on the question of that £35m that seems to have evaporated into thin air. This is what Newcastle fans knew, what they wanted was an admission of failure, that their frustrations aren't falling on deaf, uncaring ears, and to have some idea about what went wrong, and how the club's policy is going to fix that error. They wanted a light at the end of the dark tunnel that started with the departure of one striker, and ended at a bricked up dark wall with the failure to replace him. The problem is that the upper echelons of the Newcastle United hierarchy think the fanbase are ignorant - stupid even - so they will no doubt believe, lead by that perpetual blusterer Llambias that this move towards "clear and open communication" regarding policy is a shrewd one that will appease some of the vocal dissenters in the ranks of those who still go to St James Park in their thousands. But, let's get something straight right from the start - those fans aren't the bleeding-martyr idiots that they are being painted to be by the media who rub their hands with glee every time the so-called Geordie Nation is abused, or by recently departed ex-players who bleet about the injustice those fans face despite "not deserving" their fate, while said players swan off to other, richer clubs. They know a little something about football, and there will be no more than a small minority of fans who will see this as anything other than an empty statement that says more about the false promises and downright lies that come out of the club these days. Reading between the lines, this statement says an awful lot about the recent conduct of the club in the transfer market, and shows statements made by both Alan Pardew, and Sky Sports News' man in the North East David Craig to be little more than the utter, unfounded rubbish Newcastle fans, and probably the majority of external commenters would have suspected. The line that immediately springs out as worthy of further investigation is this one:

Whilst we did turn our attention to alternative prospects in the latter stages of the window, we have a very clear transfer policy and will not make knee-jerk decisions at the last-minute which are not in the best interests of the club.

So, no knee-jerk decisions: that would surely rule out the supposed pursuit of Bryan Ruiz then, which came out of nowhere, was fed to Sky Sports News and the wider media by David Craig (thanks to his "close links" to the club), and then was subsequently confused by all quarters thanks to FC Twente's refusal to acknowledge that the bid was made (despite the club's president "telling" SSN otherwise), David Craig's stoic dedication to the story, and Ruiz's own agent's ignorance that anything of the sort was happening. If true, that would have made said agent the worst football agent in the entire world, surely? Doesn't that statement, from Llambias' own desk at least partially confirm that that story was a falsehood? Because it was by its very nature both "knee-jerk" and "last-minute", even if on paper it might have been in the best interests of the club. If so - and this goes for the Liam Ridgewell story as well - shouldn't something be done about the manner in which it was reported, and the source who pushed it to everyone's attention - Mr David Craig? It wouldn't be the first time Craig's involvement with the club's business, and with Lambias specifically would come into question. Now, what is meant by "alternative prospects in the latter stages of the window"? Thinking back to earlier in the summer, when some fans were still under the impression that the Carroll money might at least partly be reinvested, Newcastle were credited with bids for both Kevin Gameiro of Lorient and Mevlut Erdinc of PSG - both of which were confirmed by Alan Pardew at various stages of the early summer months, so that would make them the top-billed options presumably, unless this priority target was never revealed somehow... So those latter stage alternatives would have to be Madibo Maiga of Sochaux (a bid confirmed by the French club), Papiss Demba Cisse (widely reported in the press), Manchester United's Federico Macheda (according to his agent) and a host of others including largely unsubstantiated links to Shane Long, Mohamed Bangura and Nolan Roux among many, many others. But who was the "priority target" that they were eventually unable to secure after sweating blood and busting their backs to secure? It can't have been Gameiro, because he joined Paris St Germain way back in June, so he couldn't have been involved in "complex and protracted" negotiations. So that would leave Erding, who decided to stay with newboy Gameiro at PSG as early as the start of July, but I suppose we can accept those negotiations may have continued, though I'd doubt they did... Or we could go for option three. The club had no idea who they should sign, and were equally unwilling to part with anything like the right amount of money to secure any potential targets anyway: as grand, sweeping, and very possibly libelous a statement as that sounds, it might not be so far from the truth. For a start look at the precedence: almost every deal Newcastle failed to complete this summer failed because Newcastle failed to meet the asking price, because a stead-fast arrogance in the budget-controllers that they rather than the selling club knew the correct value of the player. It's like going to a supermarket and telling the manager that all of his prices are wrong and that you know full well what the real value to him of those products is. You would be rather unceremoniously be told to remove yourself, and that was the case with Newcastle. And then there's the doubts over the credibility of some of the deals the club tried to push through - not only the Ruiz one that David Craig seems to have helped create, or the Ridgewell, or the rumoured Peter Crouch bid, or the Charles N'Zogbia bid at 11.58pm in January... the list goes on. They are often cited as publicity stunts, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch of the imagination, given the club's commitment to "PR" that this statement is nothing more than something along the same lines, an attempt to save face with what they believe to be an adequate response to their own failings (without a real admission of fault). And it is good to remember that there is no smoke without fire, and it wouldn't be the first time the club had been discovered lying - after all that fact was proven in a court of law. All-in-all, the events of the final days and hours of the transfer window, and this empty statement are typified horribly and wonderfully by two statements made by Alan Pardew - the manager who knows as much about what is going on in the club as we do, and perhaps unfairly gets included as a malevolent force next to Lambias and Ashley - and it is there that I will leave this matter, letting the weight of the quotes do its own work:

Mike Ashley has made that commitment that the money will go back into the club... I€™m sure 100% that he will and it€™s my challenge to spend the money wisely. We will get a striker and left-back over the line, 100%. That will be before the window shuts.

And as a final point, have a look at the picture the NUFC website chose to run with the statement: Seemingly innocuous choice, and a fantastic view of the stadium, that advertising monstrosity on the Gallowgate aside. But again, read a little deeper and you might notice something else. The picture is taken from level 7 of the Sir John Hall Stand, and is an impressive shot at face value, though that glass wall to the left seems to cut off an entire stand and diminish the size of the stadium quite considerably. Surely that can't have been planned...? But now go and type "St James Park Interior" into Google Images, and notice the trend in the images that come up in response: the majority (though not the entirety) are taken from the North West Corner, which offers the best panoramic of the stadium, and in purely compositional terms is the best position from which to imply size and grandeur. So, why did the club decide to run a picture taken from the far end of Level 7, pushing into the North East Corner of the Sir John Hall stand and The East Stand? And why did they choose to run a picture taken from the Away section of the stand? No Newcastle fan wants to see that, because it's not a vantage point they will ever enjoy on a match-day. Well it might have something to do with the fact that they're in the process of taking a piece of history down from that stand. And it is definitely partly to do with the prime shot of that god-awful Sports Direct sign on the opposite roof. Mostly though, it looks like a case of the invisible sin being easily forgotten. Or at least that's what Ashley, Lambias and co are no doubt hoping. That compositional remark I made about the glass wall cutting of the stand is frankly the most telling part of the image - after all, if you're in the process of removing something that has been a major part of any buildings architecture and which was loved as an inherent part of that structure, you'd be mad to highlight it on the day it is to be removed. That's simple, irrefutable logic. But as in the case of someone to fill the Number 9 shirt, the fact is that the East Stand, and its former "Newcastle United" sign are extremely conspicuous by their absence. And Newcastle's legion of fans will not forgive or forget in either case.