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Opinion

It is 40 days before Lee Charnley passes the baton to Steve Bruce for the 2021/22 season

3 years ago
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The wheels keep turning, one Newcastle United season brought to an end and instantly the focus is on preparing for the next one.

The journalists that are still happy to help prop up Mike Ashley, trying to tell the fans that this, this and this has been pushed back to the summer to be sorted.

As though anybody should be comforted when hearing that.

When Newcastle United are the only Premier League club that operate without a board of directors and / or professional high level team running the club off the pitch on a day to day basis.

Instead, we have Lee Charnley sitting in his stationery cupboard counting paper clips, the club’s only director (by law they have to name one) AND he’s also the only named executive at the club.

Whilst over at the training ground we have Steve Bruce in charge, enough said.

To make matters worse this summer, Graeme Jones is away with England, that Euro 2020 tournament not ending until 11 July and no doubt Jones allowed some time off after that if he hasn’t had a break, to recharge his batteries.

When the journalists give throw away lines such as having the summer to sort everything out…it is totally false confidence where Newcastle United are concerned.

Counting from today, in only 40 days time, the Newcastle United squad return for pre-season preparations on Monday 5 July.

Then after that you have exactly 40 days from Monday 5 July to Saturday 14 August, when the 2021/22 Premier League season kicks off.

Now what tends to happen in these first 40 days is pretty much nothing, instead, everything that should be getting tackled / sorted in that first (40 days) period, is pushed back to then pile on top of what needs to happen in the final (40 days) period before the season actually kicks off.

For example, transfers in and out, the Premier League transfer window opens exactly two weeks from today on 9 June (I went to Blaydon Races…), do you honestly expect anything of consequence to happen quickly?

I thought not. Instead we will have the journalists telling us that loads is going on behind the scenes, whilst we all picture Lee Charnley asleep at his desk / in his stationery cupboard.

A bit like blindly trusting the Government to do everything that is needed to look after us, many Newcastle fans want to do that with Mike Ashley and his minions, blindly believe that there is this very well hidden well oiled professional machine that will magically burst into life and get the club properly prepared for next season.

Reality of course is that Ashley is only interested in keeping costs down as much as possible, running Newcastle United with a skeleton crew. Something then made so much worse by Mike Ashley furloughing the vast majority of non-playing and coaching staff at NUFC back in spring 2020 and indeed an unknown number of those staff furloughed throughout the entire last 14 months or so, including all of the 2020/21 season, with reportedly some members of staff still furloughed as we speak.

So then, 80 days until next season kicks off and I might revisit this after the opening 40 days come to a close when players are back for pre-season.

Lets see how much is achieved by then…

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