Newcastle United - Life After Cabaye

Being a Newcastle fan, and among many to be not currently happy with the way things are going at the club, I've decided to take over from Alan Pardew, and look to improve the fortunes of Newcastle United, hopefully returning them once again to being one of the giants of the English game.

Club Background
Founded in 1892, Newcastle United are a professional English club currently playing in the English Premier Division. Newcastle Narrowly avoided relegation last season.

The club play their home games at St James' Park and possess superb training facilities and great youth facilities. The club's training ground is at Darsley Park. The Newcastle youth team play at Whitley Park. The club also has above average junior coaching and an above average youth recruitment network. The club is affectionately known as The Magpies, and retains a fierce rivalry with Sunderland.

Enjoying their greatest spell of success during the 1900s, The Magpies have a history they can be proud of. Boasting a total of sixteen competition wins, here are just some of their highlights: Newcastle won the English top division in 1905, 1907, 1909 and 1927 and finished runners-up two times, won the EURO Cup in 1969, have six FA Cup wins to their name and finished second best seven further times, and won the English second tier in 1965,1993 and 2010 and finished runners-up two times.

The Manager

So this is me.
(N.B. I've gone with previous experience of being a professional footballer to hopefully prevent any problems with the squad.)

My aim during the career is to concentrate on bringing through youth team players to challenge for first team places rather than relying on bringing in 'ready-made' players, however this will have to be done in certain circumstances.

Note: Can't seem to get the data update for transfers to also include transfer budget changes currently, will keep trying to get it to work, but if not may have to wait until the official update to begin this thread.

Have just seen Poe is also doing the same thing. Oops!

Sure the more Newcastle stories the better. Good luck.

Transfers - In



With a £20M transfer budget, following the sale of Yohan Cabaye, a replacement midfielder was top priority, and the £12M signing of Clement Grenier from Lyon will be an able replacement.

Along with Grenier, we also brought in Mason Bennett from Derby for a fee of £600K as a promising young striker, who has been sent out on loan for the season to get some game time.


We also brought in Callum Chambers, a £7M signing from Southampton who is a good prospect for the future, but will also provide immediate cover and offer an alternative to Mathieu Debuchy in the right-back position.


Unfortunately these transfers took up all of our £20M budget, so I will be unable to sign anyone in January without selling first.

Transfers - Out



Just the one permanent transfer out this summer as Dan Gosling leaves us to head to Sheffield Wednesday for a fee of £500K. He was not going to have a future at Newcastle unfortunately, and with just one year on his contract left we decided to cash in on him. The remaining transfers were all loan deals as some of our younger players look to get some match time to help aid their development.

Pre-Season Games



It was a disappointing pre-season after starting with a bang as we lost a cracking 7-goal thriller against Zenit St Petersburg. Following that game however, we only managed to succeed in winning one game, including two disappointing draws against Scunthorpe and Carlisle. Hopefully with the league season about to start, our pre-season woes can be forgotten.

Club News

With the club wanting me to concentrate on signing young players for the first team, as well as concentrating on developing our own talent, I thought it may be a good idea to ask the board and see if they would upgrade the facilities, and great news, they said yes!





In terms of finances, the club is currently £3.84M in debt, however so far this season we have made a profit of just over £8.5M, with the projected balance to be a very healthy £41M by the end of the season. We have about £25K spare in the wage budget, although I can't see any signings being made through the rest of the season.



With the Premier League Season about to begin, here's hoping we can get off to a good start.

Note: Am planning on doing updates at around each mid-season and then a second one at the end of each season.

Good luck with this, be interesting to see how yours and poes stories go

Barclays Premier League



An interesting first half to the season that has seen us be unbelievable at times and achieve some very good results, but also very poor at others, highlighted through some of the results. It was a phenomenal start to the season that saw us occupy first place in the league, as we went to the first international break of the season, which also included a very good 2-1 win away from home against Tottenham, and then an even better 3-0 win against Liverpool at home. Bizarrely we didn't draw a game until almost Christmas, when a late goal from Stoke rescued them a point. An inconsistent first half to the season has given us a good platform to build upon as we currently sit 5th in the league with 19 games played. With a more consistent second half to the season we can hopefully push on and firstly secure a Europa League position before potentially challenging for a Champions League place.



Capital One Cup



A disappointing Capital One Cup campaign saw us exit at the third round stage at the hands of West Bromwich Albion. This was a competition I felt that we had a really good opportunity of doing well in, however it will be another year without silverware for the Geordie faithful, unless success in the FA cup in the second half of the season becomes possible.

Barclays Premier League



The second half of the season kicked off with us hoping to consolidate our position and hopefully push on to attempt qualification for the Champions League. Accordingly, a change in season expectations saw the board increase our transfer budget to allow us to bring in another player or two. With the £5M I was given, I went and brought in Bruno Ecule Manga for £5.5M, following a very slight budget adjustment.



It was another inconsistent half to the season, with us looking good in some games, yet very poor in others. A number of injuries also took their toll, as we saw at one point six first team players out injured for prolonged periods of time. We managed to continue picking up points though and we managed to finish the season in fine form, with two very good victories, resulting in the player of the month competition being a clean sweep of Newcastle United players.



A satisfactory season overall saw us finish in fifth position in the Barclays Premier League, resulting in us qualifying for the Europa League next season, which was my minimum aim, however as the season continued, the Champions League positions became out of our grasp as the top four teams opened up a sizeable gap over the remainder of the league.





FA Cup



It was an FA Cup campaign filled with 'what ifs' for us this season as we very comfortably reached the sixth round stage, only to then have a number of injuries to the side before facing Burnley. In a dire performance we ended up losing to a last minute goal, which was no more than we deserved. Without those injuries for that game, we could well have advanced. I had taken the FA Cup quite seriously, putting out some strong teams, to try and end the awful trophyless run that Newcastle fans have faced, 45 years and counting now, but with our increased involvement in the Europa League next season, it looks as though it may well continue for a few more years.

FIFA World Cup 2014



It was a World Cup to remember for Germany, who defeated Uruguay 4-1 in the final to mark their fourth victory in the prestigious competition, and the first time a non South American country has won the competition in South America. England didn't cope so well, going out in the Second Round stage, losing to the Ivory Coast.

Club News

It was a very poor youth intake for us this season, and none of the trialists were offered full time contracts. Hopefully this season we will get a better intake as we look to bring through some top players for the future.



Team of the Season



Season Review

A solid first season in charge of Newcastle United, however I have been particularly worried about the lack of goals coming from our strikers, with Loic Remy our top scorer with 9 goals. Some tactical adjustments will have to be made to improve upon this, as well as strengthening the striker department. Some really good performances from some players, with my Player of the Season being undoubtedly Clement Grenier, who adapted very quickly and was a key man in the middle of the park before injury unfortunately cut his season short. Luuk de Jong disappointed in his loan spell and he will not be signed permanently as a result. With some intelligent signings, and strengthening of certain areas of the squad, we will hopefully be able to once again achieve Europa League football come the end of next season, as well as potentially looking to one of the domestic cups as a source of silverware.

Silverware

Barclays Premier League - Chelsea
FA Cup - Burnley
Capital One Cup - Swansea
Europa League - Barcalona
Champions League - Chelsea

Not a bad season Alec! Brilliant to end with european football next season!

It's good to see someone else finish where I did with Newcastle, bloody Poe won the league in season 1! Keep up the good work mate, once you break that top 4 the money you can make is monumental, especially with NUFC's minimal debt.

Good luck

Thanks Dan, European football was the minimum expectation for me this season, so I'm glad to have comfortably achieved that. Kez, we both know Poe cheated a little bit there is just a tactical mastermind!




Transfers Out



Firstly, the outgoing transfers. A majority of the outgoings this close season were players that didn't have a future at Newcastle any longer and one transfer that would probably have had me lynched by Newcastle fans. We begrudgingly waved goodbye to Hatem Ben Arfa as he joined AC Milan in a deal worth £21.5M, a huge figure that would allow us to fully strengthen all areas required within the team, as well as finding a suitable replacement for him. Of the others to leave, Gabriel Obertan, Squidward himself, left to join rivals Hull for £3.5M, and Jonas Gutierrez returned to Argentina in a deal worth just under £300K.



The biggest name to leave on a free this summer was long serving Geordie legend Shola Ameobi. However much I would have liked to be able to keep him, he just is no longer good enough to compete at the highest level, and it was sad to see him go. Others leaving were youth players who unfortunately were just not cut out to play at this level.

Transfers In



With the board having given me a transfer budget of £15M for the season, with the expectation being to qualify for the Europa League once again, much strengthening was needed to give me a competitive squad to compete on all fronts this season. This budget was boosted through the sale of Hatem Ben Arfa to a total of just under £30M, and we set about rebuilding the squad.

First incoming transfer was Jordan Rhodes, a player I had been scouting all season long, and he had impressed in the Championship scoring 23 goals and taking home the golden boot award. I feel he is more than ready for the step up to the Premier League, and hopefully he can make a big impact this season, bringing him in with a deal worth £7.5M



Our second incoming transfer was that of Chelsea's forgotten man Marko Marin. Despite never getting an opportunity at Chelsea, he is still a quality player and an absolute bargain at only £7M. A really good buy in my opinion, and will be Hatem Ben Arfa's replacement.



Our third incoming, and unbelievably on a free transfer was that of Tom Ince. Again, I had been keeping tabs on him all season long and couldn't believe it when he became available, and I quickly swooped in to provide more competition and strength in depth for the squad.



Our fourth transfer of the window, which was also our largest outlay was that of Will Hughes. Midfield is an area where we are perhaps strongest, however, I still felt as though we were one player short, which was highlighted to me during our injury crisis in the middle of the previous season. At £14.5M, he definitely wasn't cheap, but he is a player that I will be able to build the team around in the future.



Our last incoming transfer in this window is Javier Hernandez from Manchester United on a season long loan. With me having lost Loic Remy and Luuk de Jong and the end of last season, another striker was needed. Unfortunately I couldn't really find anybody suitable available at the right price on the transfer market so decided to bring in Hernandez as a stop gap. Although i don't see him remaining at the club beyond this season, with some good performances he may be able to win himself a full transfer.



Preseason Games



A week long preseason tour of France, book-ended by two home games saw us go through preseason winning every game. Hopefully with the season about to begin, we can carry on our good form as we look to get off to a solid start.

Looks like a good summer here, Ince and Hughes I have on my game, Hughes has come a long way but Ince not so far, but that was because I couldn't fit him into my team regularly!

Anxiously waiting for an update mate !