Link to the guardian article. Doesn’t fill me with hope for the future. I’ve been worrying about PIF’s dedication to the toon project for some time.
by Old_Nail6925
Link to the guardian article. Doesn’t fill me with hope for the future. I’ve been worrying about PIF’s dedication to the toon project for some time.
by Old_Nail6925
27 Comments
Staff were “effectively having to lie about the timescales and the cost of delivering the vision”
Standard project that.
It’s the guardian. The day they say something positive about us I’ll die of shock.
This article is spot on to be fair. It is becoming increasingly clear they bought us to legitimise themselves in football to support their World Cup 2034 bid. Mission accomplished as far as that objective is concerned.
Edit: When you list everything they haven’t done or even bothered to formalise it makes snake oil Hopkinson’s ridiculous interview even more of a slap in the face.
I mean it’s the guardian, I imagine that would be the last place in the world that would be singing the praises of the Saudis…
Edit: I’ll add as well that over half the article has fuck all to do directly with NUFC either. Just generally about PIF.
I don’t pay much mind to these articles, im almost certain they have a few on back log waiting for us to have a downturn in form before publishing them.
Guardian + Jonathan Liew? I’m good thanks, chief
If I were given £10 for every negative article The Guardian had written about the Saudi dream being over in the last year, I reckon I’d be able to buy us Mbappe
You can dislike the guardian, but I feel it raises some valid points.
I generally like The Guardian’s football coverage but they have been desperate for us to fail since the Saudi’s took over so I’d take this with a pinch of salt.
If anything, if the Saudi’s are readjusting their spending and investments, it would make sense for them to keep investing in viable, established investments like us. Rather than mad line cities or trying to stage the Winter Olympics
Honestly im in agreement with the rest of the sub in that this is the WORST the club has ever been and were being run into the ground by Eddie “Lefty” Howe. I say continue with all the DOOM and GLOOM postings cause that helps my narrative
I hate the whole narrative that the media is against the Toon, but honestly, The Guardian never fails to go after Newcastle with seemingly no understanding of the team, the fans, or the city. If it’s not the podcast surmising the intent of the fanbase from some bots on Twitter, it’s good writers like Jonathan Liew using their skills to churn out rubbish like this.
Take that bit on Isak in this piece. The team was built around him, he is the missing piece that cannot be replaced in a summer. They had him locked into a deal, until he spannered it for the dream of sitting on a bench in Liverpool. What is mentioned in the article…that he has shown other players how to get out of their contracts. No, that player is a disgrace and let down their team and fans for essentially a few more zeros in the bank account.
That’s the story of our season, it was dead before it began. It took us till Christmas to work out how to play without him. Moreover, why does everyone expect new signings to always hit the ground running? How often does that actually happen? New team, new home, new fans, new boss, new training, different weather, and then they have to go out in front of 50,000 Geordies and perform. Elanga will come good, so will the the others, but one season and a bit od preseason is not enough.
The new training ground and other infrastructure projects could have been happening since day one, breaking ground within weeks of the takeover but the fact we are still talking about it years later shows there’s a lack a ambition and impetus to the project from the PIF end.
The same ambition was sold to players like Tonali and Isak and it’s no wonder some of them are frustrated at the speed of everything and are starting to get itchy feet.
Even if they are losing interest idk what difference it makes, PSR means there’s no real benefit to being state owned anyway
I think a lot of you need to realise they’re not against Newcastle. They’re against the Saudi’s which is absolutely fair enough.
If we’re gonna be owned by evil fucks, the least they can do is actually invest in us.
The guardian: a newspaper written for people that live a charmed life down in Surrey but still like to think they are “progressive” because they once smoked week and listened to Pink Floyd in the 70s and occasionally find themselves baited into a culture war designed to distract them.
The fact that he hasn’t mentioned PSR at all as an obstacle to success shows the intent of the article.
Jonathan Liew article. I’ll pass cheers
The Guardian – is this Louise Taylor? Even people like Luke Edwards and Craig Hope love a negative story – I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it
How much is reluctance to invest by PIF and how much is FFP?
That’s what I keep wondering.
I’ll do a bit of research i think.
Saudis have bigger things to worry about, with the death machine about to start a war in their backyard soon.
For the uninitiated. Jonathan liew lives in the north east. He’s a spurs fan. He realised that houses are cheap and like Luke Edwards, another cockney he hates the area and people.
Liew has colleagues. Specifically the following.
Irish mackem Barry glendenning. Baz makes his living for guardian and talk sport. He also was briefly famous a few years ago for sending pics of his chap to lasses for kicks.
He’s got another colleague. Jonathan Wilson. Another mackem who on the football weekly podcast claimed he celebrated when sir bob died(long time ago iirc).
But most heinous is french arsenal fan Philippe auclair. Philippe hates the Saudis. Not long after the takeover he went on football weekly podcast and called for arsenal fans to physically assault nufc fans at the Emirates. Rip the shirts off our back and force us to our knees and apologise to them for not walking away when we were bought.
Odious bunch of holier than thous. Fuck them.
Yes, Louise Taylor works for them
> Malick Thiaw, a £35m centre-half bought from Milan, keeps making basic errors.
Does he? He’s probably been our most consistent player this season.
Google neom city if you want to see how good the Saudis are at running a project I have no faith in them whatever
Low effort bait article but it does have an undercurrent of truth. Hands on heart, I think every fan would admit it hasn’t gone the way they expected. We’re into the fifth year of the “project”, no stadium, no training ground and we still regularly play Jacob Murphy and Joe Willock.
Why would you read that headline and then continue to read the article, clickbait bullshit
Remember who are at the guardian and their affiliation, it would be their wet dream for the Saudis to go and for us to drop into oblivion.
I can’t lie while Ashley was shit, once the initial thrill of him going wore off I’ve always felt a bit odd about the current owners. Like I enjoyed the league Cup final, I went to the trophy parade, I love our signings like Bruno Trips etc etc so again I can’t lie and hold my hands up I’m 100 percent a hypocrite, however at the same time the amount of people booting off defending what is a pretty awful regime feels like madness. I try to just be apathetic rather than in full support of the owners while still trying to support the club.
All of that said and even purely looking at the running of the club it does seem like the fans were sold a big dream and since Stavely left theres been less info coming out and obviously we had the right fuck on with the summer transfer window and on top of that the interview on talksport of winning the league in 5 years (mental) yet we get no info on the stadium etc I cant tell if they just dont care anymore, if theyre keeping quiet for something big or something else.
I could stay apathetic and keep my discomfort at the ownership somewhat at bay when it seemed like there was at least some net positive for the city and club but idk. I dont think things are really as bad on the pitch as people say its just a bad season but I certainly worry about the bigger picture.
I think maybe seeing how happy everyone in the city was when Ashley left and getting to the champions league twice and then winning a cup may have papered over some cracks morally. Now theres some descent or even just confusion it makes me get that bad feeling about the owners come back to the forefront of my mind.
Im not saying we should gang together and hate the saudis, football is football nowadays. A tonne of other clubs have dodgy owners be it American or wherever else like it is what it is everyone is in the same plague pit. At the same time I think some people need to think about why they bought a prem club, what the PIF stands for and the wider implications of the ownership.
Again in case anyone kicks off I am fully admitting I am fully a hypocrite for not thinking about it as much in the good times and only properly thinking about it when things are a bit more murky, I just think that to go all in and kissing the PIFs arse is the wrong way to go about it but also ignoring what the success at the club mild or not has done for geordies would also be wrong.