Newcastle United - Ashley Era (a thread)

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On June 7th 2007, Mike Ashley bought Newcastle United from owner Freddie Shepherd.

Newcastle United were the 5th most successful team in terms of points gained in the Premier League era. We also had more commercial revenue than the likes of Tottenham and Manchester City

Mike Ashley’s first step was to reappoint Kevin Keegan as Newcastle manager. Newcastle finished the 2007–08 season in twelfth place, but as the season drew to a close, Keegan publicly criticised the board, stating they were not

providing the team enough financial support

In September 2008 Keegan resigned as manager and had a very public fallout with Mike Ashley.

In only 1 year it had become clear that Ashley couldn’t match Newcastle fans’ ambition for the club.

This became even more clear next season...

Ashley sold £40m worth of players the next season, spending only £35m of that back on new signings.

This, combined with other poor decisions, saw Newcastle relegated for the 5th time in since they were founded.

In this season we saw another legend hung out to dry. Alan Shearer was appointed manager with 8 games to go to try to save the club from relegation. He wasn’t given enough games or enough quality players to carry out the job.

Ashley had fallen out with another club legend and

would later go on to rename the iconic ‘Shearer’s Bar’ in Saint James’ to its current name (‘Nine bar’).

At this point fans were starting to get really fed up...

Luckily for Ashley, Hughton led Newcastle to win the 2009–10 Football League Championship, securing automatic promotion on 5 April 2010 with five games remaining, and later securing the title. This was done again with no help from Ashley with the club making £20m in transfer fees

I know what you are thinking, surely Ashley splashed the cash next season to secure survival after getting promoted.

2010/11 transfers:

Expenditure: £13M
Income: £38M

Again, Newcastle United showed zero ambition in the transfer market

Surprisingly we started the season strongly, but the board had to throw and spanner in the works yet again.

Hughton was sacked on 6 December 2010. The club's board stated that they felt "an individual with more managerial experience was needed to take the club forward."

The fans and ex players didn’t agree with this decision and dispite finishing 12th in the league, Ashley had yet again angered Newcastle fans.

This is what @chriswaddle93 had to say

Shortly after this, Mike Ashley renamed the iconic St James’ Park to the Sports Direct Arena. This caused huge uproar amongst Newcastle United fans.

Ashley has paid an average of £83,000 per year on advertising in Saint James Park. Seem fair?

The next season was the only good season we have had in 13 years under Ashley. We had a net spent of 10M pounds and were able to finish 5th in the League.

Alan Pardew won Premier League manager of the month. Newcastle fans were extremely happy with this season,

but knew that we had money in the bank to spent and were keen to see us build on this good season.

Ashley however had other ideas. Newcastle United would go onto sell their best striker (Demba Ba) and finish in 16th place the next season. Dispite the huge profit in the transfer

windows over the past few seasons, and the Europa League money we would receive from coming 5th, We only spent £15m in this window. This, combined with a huge injury crisis, saw Newcastle only narrowly escape relegation in 2012-13.

Newcastle United needed to improve...

So what did Ashley do in the transfer market the following season?

Expenditure: £3M
Income: £22M

Newcastle made huge profits in the window yet again and fans had simply had enough. Newcastle United were a club that were constantly making money, so where had the money gone?

The 2014–15 season saw Newcastle fail to win any of their first seven games, prompting fans to start a campaign to get Pardew sacked as manager before an upturn in form saw them climb to fifth in the table. Pardew left for Crystal Palace in December. On 26 January 2015, his

assistant John Carver was put in charge for the remainder of the season but came close to relegation, staying up on the final day with a 2–0 home win against West Ham, with Jonás Gutiérrez, who beat testicular cancer earlier in the season, scoring the team's second goal.

Gutiérrez was now a Newcastle United legend and would surely be rewarded for his efforts, right?

No, Mike Ashley sacked him over the phone a few weeks after. Jonás would go on to win disability discrimination claim against the club after being dropped as a result of his battle

with cancer.

This shows exactly what kind of human being Mike Ashley is.

Ashley’s next move was one of his worst decisions in his time at Newcastle United. He appointed Steve McClaren as Newcastle United manager.

Dispite spending big for the first time in the transfer market. Newcastle United were yet again relegated from the Premier League under Ashley in 2016.

Rafa Benitez was then appointed, securing promotion despite making huge profits again in the transfer market with the sales

of Wijnaldum, Sissoko, Townsend and Janmatt.

Rafa Benitez would go onto to leave the club two season later due Ashley having:

- Not enough ambition in the transfer market
- Made no efforts to update the inadequate training facilities

It was the same old story yet again.

This brings us onto the present. We currently have the manager with the worst win rate in Premier League history, training facilities which aren’t good enough, players which aren’t good enough and fans that are fed up.

We undoubtedly have the worst owners in the league and are

in desperate need of change.

Under Ashley we have also:

- hugely increased debt
- seen our revenue go down (this is true for no other Premier League club)
- spent only 3.5m (net) per window
- made huge profits for Ashley and Sports Direct
- sold land behind the stadium

meaning we are now unable to expand
- not improved the training ground (we have gone from having the best facilities in England to the worst in only 20 years due to lack of ambition)

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