Winning Lascelles but losing the war
IF Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley thought handing skipper Jamaal Lascelles a six-year, £24million contract would win over protesting fans, then he thought wrong.
Having given the talented central defender a five-year contract as recently as October 2017, Toon cynics view the latest contract as yet another publicity stunt aimed at weakening the impact of a series of anti-ashley demonstrations.
It followed a recent recycling of an old Newcastle chestnut, ‘the five-year plan’.
Unsurprisingly, Toon supporters – more interested in the here and now – scoffed at the promise of jam tomorrow, with a third relegation in a decade a distinct possibility.
Toon legend Alan Shearer succinctly summed up Ashley’s responses to the growing fans’ unrest, branding it “cut and paste”.
In their desperation to stifle the fans’ revolt led by The Magpie Group, Ashley’s PR machine seems only to succeed in further fanning the flames of discontent.
They clearly hoped the new Lascelles deal would go some way to winning over the owner’s critics.
But many disenchanted supporters were quick to point out the muchheralded contract only added an extra year to the player’s existing deal.
There seems little sense in it, other than as a vain effort to win over protesters – or perhaps inflate Lascelles’ transfer-market value.
Given Newcastle’s constant struggles, it’s hard to imagine Lascelles will still be wearing black and white stripes in 2024, despite the player’s insistence he doesn’t have a relegation get-out clause.
Lascelles made a rod for his own back with ill-advised comments suggesting Ashley (below) is “a nice guy” and pointedly referring to “bad energy” created by the protests.
One of the most popular players at the club, Lascelles (left) was now being accused on social media of being a “traitor” and a “hypocrite”.
Supporters were making it clear that they don’t want any lessons in loyalty, or advice on how to respond to Ashley, from a multimillionaire footballer.
Wading into the Toon civil war so publicly was at best naive.
But Lascelles still received a positive response from fans at yesterday’s game with Watford, in contrast to that social media flak though he had to go off injured at half-time.
Hopefully, the esteem in which he is still clearly held helps teach Lascelles to choose his words more carefully in future.
TONY PULIS has guided Middlesbrough to a home Carabao Cup quarter-final against Burton Albion, and has them in contention for promotion.
But his pragmatic tactical approach isn’t impressing all the fans. The midweek win over Premier League Crystal Palace drew a paltry 11,850 crowd. The bad news is they need to get so much better at both ends – and quickly. This week brings a trip to Juventus and then to Manchester City. In the euphoria that followed substitute Rashford’s winner at the death here, those daunting challenges and United’s deficiencies might have been