Someone left a comment the other day about supporting a twelfth man initiative that has started doing the rounds and I thought we had already done that a couple of weeks ago, but this appears to be a new one. So, if you are going to the Newcastle game, please sing and support the team.
Yes, I am sorry for my lazy approach to this but we haven't just tried this once, we've tried a few times and it is well documented. I'm just not convinced it will last and while that is, I'm afraid, rather defeatist of me, it is just how I feel on the matter today.
Only time will tell
I could be wrong, we could sing the team to victory against Newcastle, but if things are not going right, I wouldn't be surprised if it went the other way entirely. We will see, but for anyone thinking about going and doing this, remember, a dog is for life, not just for Christmas.
But I'm a firm believer, as you know, that the twelfth man can make an impact and the mood of the twelfth man is the most important element. If the twelfth man isn't happy and he decides to make his view known, that will have a negative impact and right now could have very serious repercussions.
If the twelfth man decides to be positive and supports for ninety minutes, and make his voice heard, that will have a much more positive impact. Behaviour breeds behaviour.
New contract for Nigel?
I'm touching on Nigel today because his name popped up on my Google alert this morning along with a couple of team names. The bottom line is this; Reo-Coker is out of contract in the summer and chances are, unless we offer him a fair chunk of change, he will be off.
Why will he be off? Simple. After his fall out with O'Neill, he probably asked his agent to look into his options. He was possibly told that if he waited out his contract, he could make quite a bit of cash in the form of a signing on fee, or he could dramatically increase his weekly wage, as nobody was having to pay millions to bring him to the club.
This is just me guessing, so don't take it as the truth, but it would be very hard, if you have thought about that and had the discussion and it is something that is probably more than possible, to walk away from.
So, if my name was Nigel Reo-Coker and I had a falling out with the club and I made that decision to look around and I was aware that I could make an extra £5mn, then unless my current club were going to pay that to me over the next four years on top of the £65,000 a week I wanted, I'd probably be looking elsewhere too. Wouldn't you?
Ashley Young
That above scenario leads me very nicely to the situation we are in with Ashley Young this summer. If he wants out and we get an offer for £10mn for him, that would pretty much be what we paid for him. After that, he would have cost us money. If we keep him until next summer, it is only going to cost us more and if he leaves, much more again, but only because we are getting nothing for him.
If however we offer him £100,000 a week today to sign for five years it might actually be that he doesn't cost us that much. You see, it is a big number, but £100,000 a week for five years is actually only going to cost us £26,000,000 and when you consider that paying £10mn for a player and paying him £65,000 a week over five years is actually more, £100,000 a week doesn't actually sound that bad.
I know I just wrote that something is 'only' going to cost the club a fortune, but I was merely trying to get my point across. I guess what the club have to decide is how much they are willing to offer Nigel Reo-Coker a week to stay, if anything and how much they are willing to pay each week for Ashley Young.
I guess it comes down to the manager but one thing in football is for sure; money talks and players these days know their value, thanks mostly to the agent.