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Opinion

John Carver does more PR work for Mike Ashley in desperate play for job

9 years ago
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Once again John Carver is dancing to Mike Ashley’s tune, as the only mouthpiece at the club he is happy to take over Alan Pardew’s role, saying whatever it takes to deflect flak away from the Newcastle owner.

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At Thursday’s Arsenal pre-match press conference, the Newcastle Head Coach said the following when asked whether he’s paying the price for what happened in the January transfer window:

“Yes, the squad needs to be stronger and they’ve acknowledged this to me, Lee and the board (Mike Ashley) have acknowledged that to me. That is why I am saying to you now that they are going to invest because they know they have to.

“The fact that Lee and Mike have acknowledged that doesn’t make me feel better but at least the people understand out there that that’s what happened.

“I have always said from day one, I’ve got to deal with the situation and I will. Now who knows what they are thinking? They might take this into consideration, I don’t know.”

All the newspapers today are using the above quotes and running with a story which is basically that Mike Ashley has learnt from his mistakes, wishes he had spent in January, will spend big in the summer to put everything right etc etc.

However, less than two weeks ago the latest NUFC fans forum minutes were published and they included the following questions from fans, woth answers from the club. Remember these are carefully worded answers that are prepared and approved by Mike Ashley and/or his PR people.

Why was Santon loaned out and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa sold in January but nobody brought in?

The board explained that January is a very challenging market for clubs. The overall aim is to improve the squad and the club will only move for a player if it is felt they can help to achieve that on a longer-term basis. The club continues to assess its squad with a view to the summer transfer window.

Will the club ensure the transfer activity it does in the summer ensures we have a squad that’s equipped for the full season? I am also concerned that the club seems to be prepared to let players go in January, but not prepared to replace them in that window.

The board’s aim is to complete its recruitment for the season ahead each summer on the basis it will likely do little or no business in the January window.

No acceptance there that there had been any cock-up at the club in January and in fact they also said in the minutes that they’d let Santon go for purely financial reasons, as loaning him out in January meant that basically they had a better chance of selling him in ther summer.

The club is now in such a mess and Ashley desperate to try and send out some kind of message to keep fans renewing season tickets in the summer, he uses John Carver to send out this message that if faced with the position the club faced in January, that next time teh NUFC owner would invest in players.

Do you honestly believe that?

So Carver says everything will be sorted in the summer and enough money spent to make up for the current weak squad which is due to past failure to invest.

Personally I have zero faith that Mike Ashley will allow the TV riches to be properly used to give the club a squad that can compete in the Premier League.

What I do have complete belief in, is that John Carver will be repeating this ‘everything will be sorted in the summer’ message many more times before we get to the end of the season.

Whether he will perform well enough on this front to get the job from Mike Ashley permanently…I think it is a knocking bet.

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