Llambias - Resolving the many questions

Derek Llambias finally spoke today with the Chronicle and came out with some interesting fact and plans for Newcastle. After reading this you may have changed or opinion have it might have strengthened. Some things he says make sense and other comments he makes are very enticing although we need something to back that up. Here is what he say regarding Mike’s purchase of Newcastle at the start :

_“Historically, with Sports Direct, Mike stayed under the radar for 20 years until he floated his company.

“Then all of a sudden people realised there was a £2.5billion company there.

“He stayed under the radar because he had very little Press communication.

“But we do realise owning Newcastle United is a totally different forum.“When Chris Mort was here he was very proactive with the Press.

_“When I came on the board, Mike and I discussed it and we basically wanted to keep a lower profile.

“Then within no time at all KK happened.

“And then it just got worse and whatever we said got worse.

“So we decided to keep as low a profile as possible, get on with our business plan, move forward with what we were doing with our management team and to assist whatever manager was coming in as best as possible.

“Maybe we have made mistakes on the communication side.

“We freely admit we have made mistakes and we put our hands up.

“But now we’re in a position where Mike is back on board and we’re not selling the club.

“Our intention is to go back on the track we were on before with our business plan.

“We think that is the only way forward for the particular club.

“And I think it will be a model going forward for a lot of Premier League clubs.

“So we’re now trying to put the stability back into the club as far as that is concerned.

“We apologise and I personally apologise for the miscommunication.

“Mike has gone out and made some generic statements.

“We try to do generic statements through the club Press office which people have seen.

“Basically now we’re saying The Chronicle and the Journal are welcome to come in and ask the questions on a regular basis.

“We haven’t got anything to hide.

“We’re realistic about where we need to be in the next year or so.”

But the most interesting of all :

_“In five years’ time I would hope we would be challenging for everything.

“We hope to be like an Aston Villa.

“But you need to have solid grounding under your feet.

“You need that – it should have been built years ago.

“We inherited so much.

“We’re knocking down walls and rebuilding.”

_“We are trying to get away from dating so that we don’t have huge amounts of money going out.

“We are trying to pay up front.

“People like Coloccini, Xisco and Gutierrez, which is just getting sorted out now – we own those players.

“It’s like buying a car on HP but then it gets written off, but you still have to pay it.

“That’s how the business was being run, they ran it on a credit.” “There is £8m there and it will be spent in the summer.

“Mike isn’t afraid to spend money out of his own pocket.

“Last year we lost £34m, this year we’ll lose £20m, and next year it will be around £7m.

“But it still doesn’t mean that Mike won’t invest when he has to invest.

“We aren’t a selling club, we’re a buying club.

“We are out there in the market._

Makes for interesting reading.

Comments appreciated 🙂

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