Day 5 of Relegation

By: j | May 28th, 2009

Day 5 of the post-relegation nightmare opens with the Newcastle needing to begin trimming the fat from the bloated payroll whilst trying raise much needed funds. That is easier said then done and will require a stern series of hatchet man decisions and likely a number of concessions that the club will need to make. Reviewing the present salary budget, with asterisks marking free-agents, the following list represents a stunning £887k per-week salary budget:

Michael Owen, £115k*
Mark Viduka, £80k*
Oba Martin, £72k
Joey Barton, £65k
Fabricio Coloccini, £60k
Geremi, £60k*
Alan Smith, £60k
Habib Beye, £50k
Nicky Butt, £50k
Damien Duff, £50*
José Enrique, £50k
Jonás Gutiérrez, £50k
Xisco, £40k
Ignacio González, £40k
Kevin Nolan £40k

With owner Mike Ashley’s fortune plummeting the liklihood of a further capital investment seems to be a trying decision. While it is entirely possible that he may choose to make a limited investment, partially financed by his recent £4.7m sale JJB Sports shares, the bigger problem is off-loading many of these and it is entirely possibly the a number of fine performers (i.e. Kevin Nolan, Nicky Butt and Damien Duff) will be victims of the fire-sale needs. This equally assumes that other clubs are willing to accept over-paid players into their squad and undoubtedly Newcastle will need to make a series of concessions. Naturally standing out in the group is Oba Martins who was by far the most dependable striker during the campaign and the club will consider whether it can retain him outright in the promotion fight, need to sell off to bring in funds or loan out. However with so little transfer revenue derived sales, it is entirely possible the Nigerian international has played his final match at St James Park.

This leaves a problematic mix because even assuming they can cleanup wage expenses and that is a very big assumption, they still haven’t raised sufficient funds and made need to sell talented younger players such as Sébastien Bassong to finance purchases.

Within the early stages of Newcastle adjusting to the Championship, I will be looking regularly at the steps needed to right the ship and move back to the Premier League. Please feel free to add your comments on the salary list.