Newcastle United: PSR pressures - Minteh & Anderson sold
Newcastle United: PSR pressures - Minteh & Anderson sold
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00:00So, Chris, Newcastle United, of course, over the weekend had a bit of a situation, PSR,
00:09in terms of their PSR situation. They had to sell Ian Kubiminta, they had to sell Elliot
00:14Anderson, and at the very end, they also did an agreement with Manchester United to get
00:19rid of Dan Ashworth. If we go back just a week or two before this, did they know they
00:24were in quite a bit of a hole for some time?
00:28Well, internally, they did, but I don't think that what they did actually well was to keep
00:33it away from maybe the public knowledge of just maybe how much of a hole they were in.
00:39I mean, it came to Saturday morning and they didn't actually have any deals agreed at that
00:44stage, so less than 48 hours before the end of the window, and Newcastle still needed
00:48to bridge somewhere between ÂŁ50 and ÂŁ60 million in terms of a PSR black hole. I mean,
00:53they were close to an Ashworth agreement by that stage, but that was only a portion of
00:56it. So yes, internally, they did recognise the situation they'd been in, and it became
01:01a late scramble, but that wasn't necessarily for a lack of trying. Decisions were made
01:06in terms of, you could look back to January and Kieran Trippier wasn't sold when maybe
01:10he could have been, and obviously Newcastle's expenditure over the previous three years,
01:14knowing that they were operating within the PSR structure that is there. But at the same
01:19time, when some fans may point towards other players who wonder why Newcastle have not
01:24sold or did not try and sell, it wasn't for a lack of trying, but you also have to recognise
01:30that there's a reason why they would want to offload certain players, and in a sporting
01:35world where more and more sporting directors of their clubs want the same players, ideally
01:41of 25 years and under, and also for a reasonable fee, which would actually pacify Newcastle's
01:48PSR shortfall, they couldn't do any of the deals for maybe the senior players or the
01:54fringe players who also have amortisation costs in their contract as well. Someone who
02:00may have signed two years ago would still have three or four years remaining in terms
02:03of amortisation costs, and that would then lessen whatever value Newcastle would bring
02:08in. So that's a long way of saying that, yes, Newcastle did recognise the position
02:11they were in, but their determination not to lose one of the big players, even if at
02:17certain points maybe they came fleetingly close to having to consider it, their determination
02:22not to do that meant that it came right down to the wire for them to be able to do the
02:26deals that they eventually did do, which in hindsight I think actually looks like reasonable
02:30business, even if Ian Cooperman does a very exciting prospect, and nobody really wanted
02:34to lose Elliot Anderson at the same time. It's a player who never made a first team
02:38appearance for Newcastle and somebody else who was probably going to be fifth or sixth
02:41choice to be in midfield next season.
02:44Now some fans, of course, when the news started to break of the situation in Castlereagh and
02:49were trying to get rid of players such as those, I think a lot of fans, on Twitter at
02:53least or social media, thought, you know, this is a club who's trying to be ambitious,
02:58trying to build themselves up, and so how have they let themselves get into this situation?
03:02Now you mentioned January there where Kieran Trippier could have perhaps been sorted by
03:06Munich, but was there some mismanagement, do you think, going on? And perhaps could
03:11it have been better handled in the weeks leading up to this?
03:15I think that Newcastle, the message coming out is that lessons do need to be learned.
03:19Now, as I say, nobody wanted this situation necessarily to unfold, but Newcastle haven't
03:24had an active sporting director until today, since February, mid-February, because Dan
03:30Ashworth has been on gardening leave. So that was far from ideal in that sense, even if
03:34they've had a structure in place which they are confident in, a sporting director is heavily
03:39involved in decisions like that. And the reality of the situation is that Newcastle have been
03:44very ambitious in their growth. And this was the first year where three post-takeover
03:49seasons were added into that three-year rolling calculation for PSR. And so Newcastle had
03:54the problem of, in that first window, they spent heavily because they had to try and
03:57avoid relegation. But then some of those players weren't necessarily the next elite level that
04:02Newcastle then wanted to move on to when they'd survived. So then they had to spend again.
04:07And part of the problem has been they haven't sold well enough until the weekend. They'd
04:10only really recouped money for Chris Wood, who actually they lost money on on the deal
04:15in terms of year on year, and also Alan Sat-Maximan, who the profit on wasn't huge. So Newcastle
04:20weren't bringing in enough money from player sales. Their commercial revenues have increased
04:25substantially, but they're still dwarfed in terms of overall income compared to the so-called
04:30big six. So they had a lot of barriers put in front of them, including Premier League
04:34regulations being tightened around associated party transactions, which meant that Newcastle,
04:38any sponsorship deal I had was going to be scrutinized more heavily than maybe it had
04:43been previously. So they have had a lot of factors working against them. But I also think
04:48that part of the problem has just been that, yes, they've deferred decisions until the
04:54very last minute. And in the end, the ends possibly justify what happened previously.
04:58But I think the optics of the situation, certainly last week, and maybe also the sort of lingering
05:03doubts as to what happens now, and particularly maybe the Anthony Gordon situation and the
05:07suggestions that fears that his head may be turned. That is certainly a situation that
05:12Newcastle would rather avoid it because they didn't actually want to lose Anthony Gordon.
05:15It was just at the very height of the crisis maybe last week when they had to possibly
05:20consider every single Avenue as to how they could get themselves out of this hole because
05:24they were staring at a potential double digit points deduction. I think on that as well
05:29on the deduction side. Now, of course, you could argue if they'd perhaps recouped some
05:34of the money that they were in the hole with, would they have perhaps have considered maybe
05:37just taking a maybe a like a single digit maybe like a four or five point deduction
05:43whereas if it was double figures 10 points, you know, that can ruin a season essentially.
05:49Well, the thing with the suggested points deduction is that Newcastle wouldn't have
05:53known exactly what the points deduction may have been. It's just that they feared that
05:56sort of level. So I can't say for certain whether if it had been a smaller deficit that
06:00would have accepted that but that desire to make sure that they were compliant as
06:05Darren Eales, the CEO had said in January, they always would be I think trumped all of that.
06:10They didn't want to have any sort of points deduction because they know how much pressure
06:14that would have put on any how and the players going to the new season when obviously
06:18European football is desired. If not Champions League football, I might be ambitious but
06:22that is sort of where they want to get back to and so no, I think that as much as some
06:27supporters may be like, oh, we should just spend more because then we can just take a
06:30points deduction. But at least we improve the first team that wasn't the mindset inside
06:35Newcastle United and they left it to the very 11th hour before they actually got it
06:40sorted. But in the end they did get it sorted but that there's a sort of resolution inside
06:46the club not to let themselves get into this sort of situation again, despite all the factors
06:50may be working against them that they also recognize that it can't be allowed to be left
06:54this late again.