Newcastle Utd

[slappy]

Fan's view often covers the finances behind a club, but what do you get if you pay £340M for Newcastle United?
It looks like St James' Park is on a long leasehold. A fan in the Strawberry told me it is owned by the council. So you can presumably spend what you like improving it, but can't sell it.

I think I read about a potential land development nearby which would be so close to the ground to prevent any further extension of one of the stands.

So anyway, you get a 50K capacity stadium and all the revenues, a squad valued at £264million according to TransferMarkt.
And of course a team already in the Premier League. So you have saved the cost of getting promoted from the Championship, and the team is lower/ mid-table so you have the TV income for at least this season and next.

So overall it seems a fair price to me to buy a "big" club already established in the Premier League.

[Dr Bob]

Interesting you focus on what an owner can get out of the club with TV revenues etc, Slappy - and quite appropriate too, I think. Unless it becomes another part of Saudi 'sportswashing', I cannot imagine a sovereign wealth fund having a model of pumping hundreds of millions into the club. Then again, what chance mere fans ever know what really goes on with deals like this...

[Dr Bob]

Or Taylor on a permanent.

This is an issue that seems to have escaped much comment or discussion in talking about who we could or should get in in January. Maybe we need Taylor and another striker - but can we afford that? I guess Taylor would not come cheap.

Oh!:
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/sport/1819 ... ill-grigg/

[Kernow Yellow]

No comments on the replay? Having got over the disappointment of Newcastle's late goal I reckon that was a pretty decent showing from Us. The disappointing aspect is that where we kept our shape and discipline almost perfectly for 90 mins at SJP, here we had a hand in all of Newcastle's goals - dicking around with the ball in our own half (and then not closing down the striker on the edge of the area) for the first, getting carried away and playing too high a line for the second. Even the third came about when Sykes gave the ball away in the corner, though all the credit has to go to St Maximim, the one player who caused Us real problems over both games.

But Mackie, Long and Holland all had decent opportunities in the first half, as did Agyei and Ruffels later on, and we definitely caused them problems besides the two goals we scored. All without some of best players (Brannagan, Browne, Taylor) really firing on all cylinders. Holland struggled to get into the game much of the time too, but I'll forgive him for that sublime finish. A goal of real beauty. I was excited to see Thorne again, but he clearly isn't really fit. Kelly, on the other hand, looked very useful (as well as looking like a man in a chubby boy's body), and it will be interesting to see which combination of him, CamBran and Gorrin we go with as first choice midfield now.

The best part of the night was the fact that 4 million people got to watch the Mighty Yellows instead of the Ten O'clock News. And the stadium looked pretty decent on camera. Even the commentary was tolerable, as Keown clearly follows the goings on at OUFC. The obsession with showing the Geordie fans as the game went on wore a bit thin though.

What a Cup team we've become over the last few years. Given that we're safely ensconced in the upper reaches of L1, it's been a pretty good season really. Hopefully these exploits and the January player sales have given us a bit more financial stability for a year or two as well.