Billionaire Buys Newcastle

Good news so the prem is getting touger , top 10 is a very congested area.

F*ck! I've just seen this.

This has to be the best day in your life Kimbo!




It does appear that Arsenal is really lagging behind now (financially), behind Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Tottenham, West Ham, even Pompey & Aston Villa and now Newcastle.

It'll make for an interesting top 10 next season.

Does it make that much a difference Newcastles squad cost £10m less than Arsenals, so money hasnt been the reason for the clubs failures.

Roeder, Souness and Fat Freddie were.

I can see a big fight for 4th next season

1 - 3 Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool
4 - 6 Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle

Rez wrote:Does it make that much a difference Newcastles squad cost £10m less than Arsenals, so money hasnt been the reason for the clubs failures.

Arsenal spent efficiently, we spent beyond our means, and Arsenal STILL have a more expensive squad. Just shows how big the financial gap is tbh.

Parks lives wrote:I can see a big fight for 4th next season

1 - 3 Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool
4 - 6 Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle

Not next season but the season after. Next year we'll see the same top 4 i reckon.

Parks lives wrote:I can see a big fight for 4th next season

1 - 3 Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool
4 - 6 Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle

come on we finished on the same points as pool, despite having some serious injury's.

we didnt play our first choice eleven once all season.

Parks lives wrote:I can see a big fight for 4th next season

1 - 3 Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool
4 - 6 Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle

Throw in a revitalised West Ham and Villa as possible darkhorse for the 4-6th possion. Not to mention Pompey. Everton are also always about.
Reading overachieved this season, and they're losing vital players already. Let's hope for them that tey won't do a 'West Ham' next season (first season back top 7 then next season battle relegation).

I don't know.

Big Sam + Money + Good players is a recipe for success. Maybe you are right and it will take two seasons but it wouldn't suprise me if it came sooner.

Parks lives wrote:I can see a big fight for 4th next season

1 - 3 Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool
4 - 6 Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle

I don’t think it’s fair to write us off just yet. There was very little difference between us and Liverpool in the league last season, and getting Henry and RVP back should make a big difference to our chances. Admittedly we look like the most likely club to get caught up in a fight for 4th place, but we still have some money to spend, and with key players fit again, and many of our players maturing we ought to be closing the gap to the top and fighting for 3rd place. I guess a lot depends on just how much Liverpool are able to spend under their new owners but I don’t think we will be that far away from them next year.

Plus, there is still the prospect of us being taken over by Kroenke, although hopefully that won't happen.

Parks lives wrote:I don't know.

Big Sam + Money + Good players is a recipe for success. Maybe you are right and it will take two seasons but it wouldn't suprise me if it came sooner.

New owner, new manager, new backroom staff - apparently the "director of sports science" at Bolton has turned down a new contract and will be coming our way. It'll probably take a bit of time for it all to gel.

DD wrote:F*ck! I've just seen this.

This has to be the best day in your life Kimbo!




It does appear that Arsenal is really lagging behind now (financially), behind Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Tottenham, West Ham, even Pompey & Aston Villa and now Newcastle.

It'll make for an interesting top 10 next season.

No.

We're probably the poorest (I use that term loosely) team left in the top ten.

All the other teams are capable of spending £15m+ on players (Newcastle were beforehand, anyway). We can't, quite simply. Our billionaire treats the club as a businees investment, & not as a sugar daddy.

Sorry, Sheffield I can just see Liverpool investing more heavily.

You'd still be massive favourites for 4th, however Spurs and Newcastle to a lesser extent could catch you.

TeamSpirit wrote:

DD wrote:F*ck! I've just seen this.

This has to be the best day in your life Kimbo!




It does appear that Arsenal is really lagging behind now (financially), behind Chelsea, Man United, Liverpool, Tottenham, West Ham, even Pompey & Aston Villa and now Newcastle.

It'll make for an interesting top 10 next season.

No.

We're probably the poorest (I use that term loosely) team left in the top ten.

All the other teams are capable of spending £15m+ on players (Newcastle were beforehand, anyway). We can't, quite simply. Our billionaire treats the club as a businees investment, & not as a sugar daddy.

We're not. Have Everton been bought out as well?

Ok then Frenchie, 8th .

Fair enough Parks, you're entitled to your opinion, and to be honest I wouldn't disagree, Liverpool's prospects are better than ours at the moment. I just feel that at this moment in time our squad has an awful lot more quality than the teams looking to break into the CL places. With key players fit, and our youngsters maturing, we should improve on the last couple of seasons. I don't expect to challenge for the title but I think we should close the gap down to 10 points. There is still a big gap between the top 4 and the rest and it will take more than just money to close it.

If we play anywhere near our capabilities we should be comfortably ahead of the rest and should be competing with Liverpool in my opinion.

So lets see
Arsenal , Aston Villa , Blackburn , Chelsea , Everton , Liverpool ,Man City Man Utd , Newcastle ,Portsmouth, Tottenham , West Ham

Either of these teams have good squads , good managers or good money or all , so thats 12 positions without even mentioning Bolton.
Then coming to the lower tier
Sunderland and Birmingham will have money to spend we know.
left overs are
Middlesbrough,Fulham,Wigan,Reading.

Middlesbroug have a decent team and a good academy , Reading too have a decent team , a good manager and some cash.

so technically the weak links are Wigan and Fulham.

So there is going to be alot of depth in prem by the looks of things.

Parks lives wrote:Sorry, Sheffield I can just see Liverpool investing more heavily.

You'd still be massive favourites for 4th, however Spurs and Newcastle to a lesser extent could catch you.

Should you really be doing this considering the chances that everyone was giving you before this season...
This may sound extremely weird, but our squad needs less tamparing with than yours. A goal scoring right winger is the only position that can be massively improved and our strength in depth is very good whereas you'll have to inviest for more to maintain the strength in depth...

Yeah, fair point on last season. We we're written off before a ball was kicked and I really struggled to see how we'd over haul Chelsea, I was quite confident we'd be in the top 2 though.

Can't agree on the squads however, now Hargreaves is coming I only think we need a top striker (who will remain fit for most of the season) and we should have a good chance of holding onto the league and may have a better chance of the Champions league as well. Going into the Milan away game with no striker and because of that Scholes, Giggs and Rooney all playing out of position was a killer.

With Arsenal, whether you bring in the goalscoring winger or not I still think you will lack the experience to win the title. Also you've been much further away the last two seasons than we were the end of 2005/2006.

Parks lives wrote:Yeah, fair point on last season. We we're written off before a ball was kicked and I really struggled to see how we'd over haul Chelsea, I was quite confident we'd be in the top 2 though.

Can't agree on the squads however, now Hargreaves is coming I only think we need a top striker (who will remain fit for most of the season) and we should have a good chance of holding onto the league and may have a better chance of the Champions league as well. Going into the Milan away game with no striker and because of that Scholes, Giggs and Rooney all playing out of position was a killer.

With Arsenal, whether you bring in the goalscoring winger or not I still think you will lack the experience to win the title. Also you've been much further away the last two seasons than we were the end of 2005/2006.

"You'll never win anything with kids"

Dont you need a new winger as well. Giggs was extremely inconsitant this season, Richardson is Cr@p and Park is a nice player but nothing special...

This Arsenal team is a bit of an enigma. They showed that they can match the big teams when they need to, the main problem has been how hopelessly inefficient and wasteful we have been. The players we have should be good enough to fix these problems, and having Henry and RVP should make a big difference to us converting our chances. If we can find the ability to kill off teams and stop conceding soft goals it should get us at least 15 more points in the season. Whether they can step up and improve is the big question and I suspect that we will continue to frustrate next season. If things fall into place though we may surprise some people.

With everyone having money, all that will happen is that transfer fees will go through the roof. The way things are going, being able to afford £15m players wont help, if good players cost £30m, its false economy, with diminishing returns.

Rez wrote:With everyone having money, all that will happen is that transfer fees will go through the rough. The way things are going, being able to afford £15m players wont help, if good players cost £30m, its false economy, with diminishing returns.

Despite all these takeovers there's still only 2 clubs that can spend £30m on a player(maybe Pool aswell).

Obviously its impossible to make a judgement on who will be in the top 4 and in which particular order, untill the signings are made.

Chelsea need tweaking in terms of players, their 4-4-2 battering ram in my opinion is the reason they weren't as successful this season.

Naturally Utd will want to retain the title, and with Hargreaves coming in and possibly a couple of attackers they will look strong.

Liverpool obviously have the cash, its who they can bring into the club as a result of that money, if we win the Champions League i believe a better calibre of player will become availble for ourselves.

Arsenal are the team which need to work the hardest this summer if they are to really compete next season, they've greatly missed RVP and Henry this season, if im not wrong they are their two top goal scorers this season depsite missing most of it, however their midfield is my bone of contention as they really havn't settled on the starting 4 or 3.

I really hope that the likes of Everton, Villa, Newcastle, Tottenham etc buy wisely this summer and really put pressure on the top 4, it will make the league so much more exciting.

It would help, however there's a chance we could be playing Scholes, Carrick & Hargreaves all together, then Ronaldo, Rooney and a striker. Especially in Europe. Fletcher, Giggs, Rossi, Park & Saha is all good back up.


*Btw, people forget that side Hansen was on about also had Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Irwin, Keane, Cantona & Cole.

Park is quite a good player actually, but because he's not a starter at United you (=English public) don't see much of him.
Very underrated. And at the end of the season he seems like he's found some of his PSV form back, even scoring goals too.

But apart from Park, Fletcher and OGS, United need to revamp every other department on the bench.

I wonder if Giggs will even have a good month next season like he did this year - because apart from that, he has been mostly poor for his standards (for United standards) this year.

I think Arsenal, cant be written of yet, as they have a very good team and individually they are ahead of Liverpool at the moment. I think they can come at least 3rd if they dont get many injuries.

I think are squad needs less work than Arsenal's we only need a striker and a winger, but even if we didnt get either we would still be strong. As Ronaldo and Rooney will be older and wiser and Rossi will return from a very succesful loan spell at Parma.

DD wrote:Park is quite a good player actually, but because he's not a starter at United you (=English public) don't see much of him.
Very underrated. And at the end of the season he seems like he's found some of his PSV form back, even scoring goals too.

But apart from Park, Fletcher and OGS, United need to revamp every other department on the bench.

I wonder if Giggs will even have a good month next season like he did this year - because apart from that, he has been mostly poor for his standards (for United standards) this year.

Park could be out for a while now, seeing a specialist soon.

Could of done with him at the end of the season to rest Giggs, who can't play two games in a week. Every time we went to play Richardson and rest Giggs, he was shite and Giggs had to come on in the second half.

This is very surprising news. I did wonder why Shepherd was commenting last week when there seemed no fresh speculation regarding a takeover, but this deal has been kept so quiet. And I have to confess, though I dont mind Freddy, find him a little amusing, think he does care about the club and certainly think we could have much worse, Im already very excited as to the possibilities this investement might bring. Part of me would still be surprised to see Shepherd go, but with this guy having the majority stake it looks like it might happen. And its good to see hes putting support behind Allardyce already. With those two we could really revitalise the whole club.

As a side point, I think for various reasons Liverpool to me seem more like the side that might drop out of the top four next season. I think Arsenal still have the more talented players who will improve and gel more next season, they seem to have a bit of money at the moment, and Wenger, for me, doesnt have many limitations - he has experience, I think hes a good man manager and good at bringing players on, whilst he has a history of creating formidable defences and attacks. Im not convinced as to Benitezs man management skills, nor am I sure that Liverpool will bring in a top class striker this summer. I could imagine Arsenal having a great run in the league next season, whereas with Liverpool Im not convinced.