Derek Llambias is essentially the current Chairman at Newcastle, although he has the title of Managing Director.
Mike Ashley with Derek Llambias
But Derek is the guy who is running the club on a day to day basis on Ashley’s behalf, and will know what’s going on as far the revenues are concerned, and where the money is coming in and going out.
But it’s clear the club is pushing ahead big time with its investment in youth, and that seems an excellent investment in the future.
Derek said today:
“We are still investing in our development squad, we are very keen on home-grown players and the academy is working very well.”
“We will get some investment into the development squad as far as we might be one of two players at a million who are 18, 19 that in two or three years will be in the first team.”
“We have some good players coming through which you can see with our youth squad in the FA (Youth) Cup.”
“The nucleus is there, there might be one or two positions we might need to review which is (manager) Chris Hughton’s job.”
“If he is going to ask for a forward or a creative midfielder then we will have to go out there and look for them.”
That second sentence we think Derek means they will get a couple of players in for say £1M, but they will be worth a lot more in a few years.
But not only that, they will be great players at Newcastle in the future hopefully.
We also expect to see a number of top class youngsters joining the club this summer.
Comments welcome.
6 comments so far
Sav
Mar 9, 2010 at 12:14 PM
Comment #1All very well but apart from Carr’s Da, have we got a scouting network left?
Every top club in the world wants ‘top youngsters’ .
Its not easy. Its a lottery.
And we end up not playing Ranger and Kadar for Aahnholt and Best?
DJM TOON
Mar 9, 2010 at 12:27 PM
Comment #2we brought in some good talent in january… there si obviously something going on behind the scenes because we were all pleasantly surprised by most of it, getting routledge and simpson on the books for example, not to mention williamson who seems to play well.
the basic work that they’ve talked about has and is being done
xfer
Mar 9, 2010 at 12:28 PM
Comment #3I’ve been reading that sentence over and over trying to figure out what he meant.
Youth policy is good until it gets exploited in business sense. Imagine a home-grown talent, say like Wayne Rooney for everton. They were good enough, and he moved on. Yes the club made the money, but would have been better had they held on to him.
Now the question, what makes you think that the talents groomed here wont seek for bigger football clubs elsewhere, eventually? We need a well-balanced regime, not purely on youngsters. As the saying goes, you dont win anything with kids (well, Arsenal have a say in that, but they are exceptional).
DJM TOON
Mar 9, 2010 at 12:32 PM
Comment #4ultimately XFER, if the player wants to move on there’s nothing you can do to stop them… simples
BeeGuy
Mar 9, 2010 at 12:55 PM
Comment #5To me, it seems NUFC is taking the Olympic Lyon model and applying it in its own way.
Not a bad model, but could be hard for fans to
swallow, as we like to have a consistent roster (at least until someone better comes along).
One could compare NUIFC to the USA housing market where many owners are “under water” in that their mortgage is greater than the value of their house. MA paid for NUFC at the peak of the PL club value & now has to live with his property or take a massive financial loss. Selective player selling, though at lower prices than in the past, eventually could bring him to break even.
With the youth, I’d like to see more loan deals, especially to clubs in Spain & Italy, or even the America’s where the loanees would learn some skills not often displayed in the UK. If you put a young player with the right coach, with a good system, it would effectively be bringing new skills and strategies to the Tyne. Plus it would enhance NUFC recognition on the world stage.
DJM TOON
Mar 9, 2010 at 1:02 PM
Comment #6no offence beeguy, but the quality of american football is not sufficiently high enough to warrant sending potential world class youth players there. please dont take offence, but its well known the best leagues are the premiership and la liga. serie A has not performed well for a while and the bundesliga is almost there but not quite, but ultimately, they are the only four leagues i would send a youth player to.
of course, promote yourself on the world stage, but do that by taking players from all over the world, not sending them there.
a youth player would not benefit from going to a country where the quality of football is second rate.. IMO