Why those who make a wall of noise at St James’ will be met with a wall of silence
TOON IN LIMBO AND BATTLING TO STAY UP
NEWCASTLE United fans could be facing a wall of silence in the aftermath of Mike Ashley’s move to pull out of talks with PCP Capital Partners.
The Chronicle understands that United - as a club - will not be making any public comment and managing director Lee Charnley will not be issuing any statements following Tuesday night’s developing story on the club’s takeover talks.
Should any official word be forthcoming it is likely to come via St James’ Holdings, who are dealing with the club’s sale, or Ashley’s legal team headed by Andrew Henderson.
Whether Amanda Staveley or PCP Capital Partners decide to make public comments remains to be seen, but the word coming from the Middle East consortium is that they did have a bid on the table for United, despite last night’s reports.
Staveley may choose not to make any remarks for the simple reason the deal, in PCP Capital Partners’ eyes, is still not completely dead.
And with United still for sale and NDAs still active from Newcastle’s point of view, it is a bit of a legal minefield at the moment.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t help the mood of the club’s fan-base at the moment and although there was anger directed at Ashley last night by fans on social media there were others that were questioning PCP Capital Partners and why they hadn’t upped their bid.
The undertone of the whole situation is that Ashley lost patience with PCP Capital Partners and was increasingly unhappy at talk in the papers of a deal going through.
But without any public comment from United today it does feel like the club is staggering in a state of limbo off the pitch and in relegation trouble on it.
What is clear is that Ashley will be in charge for the remainder of the transfer window and the squad still requires improvement if Newcastle are to stay in the Premier League.
There has been the talk of three transfers being sanctioned but while the takeover meltdown was taking place last night Benitez was still trying to bring in loan signings.
Crystal Palace’s Pape Souaré, Chelsea’s Kenedy and Liverpool’s Danny Ings are all on the wish-list but Premier League rules mean that Newcastle can only bring in two
players on loan so they have to tread carefully.
Without a takeover on the horizon, the club faces an uncertain future.
Yes, there will be money to spend in the summer when the TV money finally kicks in for the Magpies, but can they realistically compete with top-flight competitors with such a haphazard transfer system?
And will Benitez still be around to spend it?
Benitez is only human at the end of the day and will have his breaking point after three potentially bad transfer windows.
The worry is that if a more exciting project came his way, he might be tempted to move on and work with a more ambitious owner. Benitez hinted after the 4-1 loss at Man United that one day he would like to go face-to-face with the likes of José Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola again at some stage, and it’s not going to be at Newcastle under Ashley is it? For the fans, it sometimes feels like they are screaming in agony but nobody at the top can hear them. So what next? Ashley has admitted he can’t go into battle with the big boys, so are we facing endless battles against relegation for the rest of our lives? It certainly feels like that at the moment. Yet the only problem with that approach is that eventually it catches up with you, just ask Sunderland fans that. One way or another, there has to be a plan for Newcastle United - it can’t go on like this.