67 year-old Graham Carr has given a long interview, and he’s taken some of the mystery away of what exactly he does for Newcastle, and how Newcastle are able to sign new players.
Graham Carr – done great job at Newcastle the last two years
Graham was born in Corbridge, Northumberland way back in 1944, and he’s even older than I am.
And he’s now been at the club just over two year as the Chief Scout, and is essentially doing the job once held by Derek Wise at the club, although he doesn’t have the fancy title of Football Director.
Graham has explained what he does for Newcastle, and says that Ashley and LLambias have to take credit for the turnaround at Newcastle, since he’s been here:
“I’m the Chief Scout at Newcastle. I went there with Chris Hughton in February, 2010, and I’ve been there just over two years and basically, I’m just recruiting players.”
“‘I’ve been doing the scouting job for fourteen years. I was at Tottenham for five years, Chief Scout at Manchester City for seven, and I’ve been mostly in Europe as well, so I’ve been been on the job for quite a long time.”
“I go and pick up three matches in Holland, three in France over the weekend, or midweek, or in Germany and I get a list of names together, sit down with the manager, Derek Llambias and Lee Charnley and our staff and we discuss them.”
“Then, if we think we want to sign one then Lee Charnley goes and gets a price for him.” “The club have got to take a lot of credit – Derek Llambias works hard, Mike Ashley, they’ve put the money there.”
“They’ve took the necessary stick from the supporters. On the outside looking in, I was a bit like what’s happened at Newcastle in the past.” But, since I’ve been in there working for them, I can’t speak too highly of them.”
And Graham is very complimentary on Alan Pardew, and has said this about the Newcastle manager:
“I think Alan Pardew’s done a great job because he’s actually organised the side into a winning side. Cheick Tiote has improved. Hatem Ben Arfa, he was a little bit temperamental in France. He’s a talented player who played for the French national side two years ago.”
“He had a problem, he fell asleep on the bench when he was at Lyon. But I think Alan Pardew’s putting an arm around him now and has got him playing to his true capabilities. Yohan Cabaye had a get out clause in his contract which was a major signing for us.”
“He was valued at £10M, but we found out he had a clause for £4.5M, so that really gave us the green light to go out and sign him and the club worked hard to get him.” “Cheick Tiote was available at the right price, at the right time.”
“Hatem Ben Arfa had played in the national side for France, we got him on loan.” “Then we’ve had Cabaye and Cisse come in, and Sylvain Marveaux too, who hasn’t played yet.” “Those are the players I was involved with.”
“I think at Newcastle that we haven’t been able to pay the big fees, so we’ve gone for what you might call realistic targets .” “But I just go and watch matches.”
It’s good that Graham has given another good interview yesterday, because he tends to let the fans know what’s going on, and how the Newcastle club work together on their transfer targets.
So all we want to know now from Graham is – who are the targets for the summer?
Who do you think they are?
Comments welcome.
49 comments so far
jimmymagpie
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:04 AM
Comment #41WWJBD – all I know is that £8m was set aside for a defender in January, and that is still there. The Cisse money was deducted from the summer budget, according to Pardew, so I suppoe it is £8m + ? + a liitle bit extra if we qualify for Europa League.Douglas, i think is free, but we would have to pay compensation bacause of his age, and that has been a barrier before. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see, as always.
jimmymagpie
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:06 AM
Comment #42Munster – Pardew was directly quoted in local press at the weekend saying that when Carroll learned what was on offer, he told Pardew he wanted to go, so was told to submit transfer request, which he willingly did.
WWJBD
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:07 AM
Comment #43jimmymagpie
I dont doubt that and I agree depending on where we finish (what we qualify for) it could be increased but as u say we’ll just have to wait and see. I doubt papers will be touting a war chest for us though
NotAGhostToon
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:10 AM
Comment #44I had a feeling the low cost generated by europa would be mentioned. I know its easy to say this but I mean the general income of being in that position, selling players on for greater prices (even fringe and young players) getting better players in because we’re in europe, I kind of mean the snowball effect. Plus even an additional 5m would be good, and tbh low gates isn’t really a thing we do in Newcastle so I would expect us to get a few mil more than Stoke…not sure mind
irishtoon086
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:18 AM
Comment #45i think you mean denis wise not derk wise
Munster Mag
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:19 AM
Comment #46Tks Jimmy. When I was in University here in Itreland, I used to have The Pink sent to me weekly, so its good to have fellas on the street like you! So I guess you’re a street urchin then ?! 🙂
jimmymagpie
Apr 3, 2012 at 11:28 AM
Comment #47Munster – no mate, just retired, and got the time to read all this stuff.
toonincheek
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:46 PM
Comment #48Freedom of the City for Graham Carr
(repeat)
Magpie_Man
Apr 3, 2012 at 12:50 PM
Comment #49Graham Carr plays Football Manager 😀