Newcastle United Need Urgent Action To Arrest The Slide

by Tom Mallows

It was always going to be a traumatic summer at St James’ Park. The wounds of relegation from the Premier League will take a long time to heal. But in order to aid the recovery process decisive action from the board downwards can give Newcastle United’s players renewed vigour ahead of the Championship season.

Closure from the last campaign, new additions, several departures, putting the past behind them and looking at new challenges ahead could finally give the Geordie fans reason for optimism ahead of their first season in England’s second division since 1992.

But instead all we are seeing is increasing inertia as Mike Ashley’s desperate attempts to sell up chain the club to the spot, making any sort of meaningful progress impossible. With no new owner it looks like Alan Shearer will not be given a new deal in case the new men in charge have someone else in mind.

With no owner or manager those important transfer deals cannot be put in place. Modern transfers take weeks and even months to organise so while there is nothing happening with the ownership those vital weeks needed to put transfers in place are being eaten up. Even the clubs pre-season schedule is not fully organised yet.

Added to that is the expected exodus. Several players clearly need to leave to get off the wage bill, but where will they go? Many players have pledged their loyalty to the club, though this maybe be more to their ridiculous wage packet rather than to Newcastle itself. Others can’t even be given away **cough** Michael Owen **cough**.

The decision not to insert relegation clauses into the big earning players contract ( a ‘we are too big to go down’ attitude perhaps?) mean Newcastle are stuck with under performing players on massive wages who are unwilling to take a cut, be it with the Magpies or anywhere else. They are haemorrhaging money with no sign of cash coming in to replace it.

Say the wave of departures does eventually come. What about the players who are left? Newcastle have the nucleus of a side that should compete at the top of the Championship and with a few additions be well equipped to come straight back up.

However without leadership or direction from the top who is going to organise the side? The inertia that has existed since the end of the season is paralysing the club from the top down. Newcastle are rudderless at the moment, drifting towards the start of pre-season with no route out of the Championship mapped out in front of them.

You only have to mention the word ‘Leeds’ to give enough warning about what could happen. If the Magpies don’t secure automatic promotion at the first attempt it will only become harder. The Championship is a deceptively tough and unforgiving league, especially for those who haven’t been in it for a while – they will be shown no respect and will be targeted as a prize scalp.

Newcastle are in this position because of years of mis-management and I initially thought relegation might finally shake them into action. But it looks like they haven’t learned their lessons in this, arguably the most important close-season in 20 years. I fear that if things aren’t moved along in the few weeks before the players report back for pre-season there will be more tears on the Tyne in 2010.

Tom Mallows is a sports writer for Betfair and columnist for Just Football

England, English Championship, Newcastle United, Tom Mallows