We’ll be getting drip fed the latest Newcastle United account sheet by Mike Ashley’s cohorts in the next couple of weeks and with that a watered down version of the BBC.
By that I mean what is on display is not necessarily the whole truth but more in how the club wants things to be portrayed.
The last accounts showed our last season in the premier league being tarnished with a warning that the next filing would see a considerable difference with being in a self-inflicted less commercial division, so the reality should see the reverse come to the fore.
It won’t though.
Sales that were forgotten in media driven dialogue and instead replaced by the white lies of the prospective spend last season cant be lied about on the finance sheet but the tone of it will do its best to deceive. The club may have emptied one pocket to allow Rafa Benitez a little spend last season but it stuffed the other to the brim. This one is the forgotten pawn in the bigger picture.
The potential loss of income surely offset by transfer profit and massive wage cuts. Let’s also not forget the fact of a parachute payment being factored into the equation, whether the club ever received it in theory. it doesn’t matter. The damage has already been inspected, the fall out dealt with and in the real world we’re eighteen months or so on from that scenario.
The reality that is here surrounding the new accounts is that things are bright and positive with money there to spend for Rafa in the Summer. The message from it should be about what the ambitious target of 17th or above will prospectively create but like the aforementioned media company or the various versions of the gutter press, the negatives will be fed on and dragged out.
The self inflicted state of Newcastle United under Mike Ashley is a rhetorical statement that is borne out of the way it is run. Nothing more, nothing less.
The accounts would look a hell of a lot better with an intelligent sort running the show but then again, we know what the benefits of running the club are to Ashley and the club’s true accounts don’t show that so ultimately they will be yet another waste of time.
It won’t stop us being fed the same fabricated story from last year of doom and gloom.