Mike Ashley Wants To Build Newcastle – Not Sell It

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Mike Ashley Wants To Build Newcastle – Not Sell It

11:22 am, Saturday, February 26th, 2011 by Ed Harrison · 11 Comments

It seems that Alan Pardew will now become the mouth-piece for Mike Ashley – and that’s okay – as long as somebody is.

Mike Ashley – wants to build up the Newcastle club

The Newcastle fans know far too little about what Mike Ashley wants to do with the Newcastle club, but over the last day or two that’s been revealed a little, with the things Alan Pardew has been saying.
And of course the signing of Cheick Tiote and coach John Carver to long term contracts at Newcastle, has certainly helped the feel-good factor surrounding the Tyneside club, and a win today against Bolton Wanderers would certainly further that feeling – and we could even be in 7th place in the league by this evening.
This is what Alan told Sky Sports today about Mike Ashley:

“There was a period when Mike perhaps wanted to sell the club. “But he’s out of the other side of that. He wants to build something here, but he wants to build it in a financial structure where it’s not costing him £10-15m a year of his own money.”
“He wants it to try and run itself and with the fan base we’ve got, there’s no reason why that can’t happen if the finances are correctly managed. Between myself, Mike and Derek Llambias we’re trying to do that, and in doing that we’re trying to build the team.”
“After the sale of Andy, I think everybody involved with Newcastle, in the dressing room and on the terraces, was a little bit concerned.” “But I think Mike Ashley wanted to answer that and I think he’s done that in the best possible way.”
“You can always harp on about the negatives of Andy leaving, but we have a surplus of cash to buy in the summer and if I was in the dressing room at the moment, I’d be thinking we already have a good side, as we’ve proved since Andy left.”
“It is a massive statement of intent, and in terms of me and my staff, I think the signing of Cheik is very, very important. I think that’s true for the fans as well because they have taken to him and he’s a very important player for us. He’s someone who would be very difficult to replace.”
“If we can improve on that with signings like Cheick and some new players, we could be a force next year. That’s what we hope to be.”

Alan Pardew has done much better than we expected from him,  in his first couple of months on Tyneside.
And the former Reading, West Ham, Charlton and Southampton manager has more than a decent record do far at the club, and if Alan can lead Newcastle into Europe next season, with a little luck it’s possible, then we’ll ll be in fine fettle over the summer.
Comments welcome.