I Wish I Was A Geordie - The Blog of Newcastle United in the US

IS NEWCASTLE BRINGING MONEYBALL TO THE PREMIER LEAGUE?

Derek Llambias is unlikely ever to be played by Brad Pitt in a movie. But there are signs Newcastle United's early success this Premier League season owes something to the Oakland A's' stingy strategy currently being immortalized in a blockbuster movie starring Pitt, based on the book whose title made "Moneyball" an American word for winning big on a small budget in baseball and in life.

No one's written an insider book detailing Newcastle's scouting philosophy, so it's hard to know how United has been able to target apparent steals like Hatem Ben Arfa, Yohan Cabaye, Sylvain Marveaux and Mehdi Abeid before other Premier League clubs. It's not hard, though, to see parallels between economic conditions in Major League Baseball and Premier League soccer that made such steals possible, and parallels between Oakland's and Newcastle's responses to those conditions.

Thanks to competition-balancing mechanisms like reverse-order-of-finish player drafts, salary caps, spending "taxes" and guaranteed contracts, rich clubs in baseball and other American professional sports have been unable to lock the upper floors of their leagues as tightly as in the Premier League. However, the rich Premier League clubs haven't been as successful at buying victory as it may seem at first glance. In researching the history of the Premier League table while trying to predict whether Newcastle's fast start to this season is for real, it struck me that while only five Premier League clubs are spending above the league average for players, eight or nine are still staying above the league average in points. The rich clubs are managing to win, but the overall table isn't as distorted as the budgets. As in baseball, much of the money going to big player salaries in the Premier League is wasted. That's because money isn't brains: every player has a price, but no amount will guarantee the player is worth it.

There being only so much space in the league for soccer players, big-name auctions create a depressed market for small names, and an opportunity for bargain hunting if scouting is sharp. That was Oakland's strategy in 2002; that's Newcastle's strategy in 2011. It's easy to dismiss it as mere cheapness borne of necessity, and there may be truth in that. On the other hand, where modestly financed clubs go most seriously wrong, in baseball and in soccer, is when they participate against richer clubs in marquee auctions. When big clubs buy the inevitable clunker in an auction, they go on to the next auction. Smaller clubs suffer the hangover for years.

So as loath as we may be to admit it, there's logic when a club like Newcastle, in its current stage of economic recovery, places what can feel like an overly strict quarantine between itself and spendy players. While the freer market of soccer means bargain-hunting is unlikely to get Newcastle to title contention as it did with Oakland in baseball, it seems like the right way to get to the door of the penthouse, where Newcastle stands right now.

Moneyball isn't easy, and it isn't always fun, especially for us fans, who tend to be impatient. It requires an eye for talent so sharp that Hollywood can make a movie out of it. But so long as Newcastle can identify and sign the Yohan Cabayes of the world, the club will continue making its thrift-hating supporters eat very sweet helpings of crow.

JONAS AND THE JOY OF STABILITY

If we're all being honest, we can admit this much: No Newcastle United fan expected to be praising the stability surrounding the club six weeks into this season.

And yet another sign of the good vibes bursting out of St. James' Park arrived on Tuesday when news broke that winger Jonas Gutierrez had agreed to a contract extension that will see him through 2015.

But even beyond the obvious positive of Gutierrez's new deal - securing the services of a player who's been one of the team's most consistent performers over the past two-plus seasons - this is a superb PR move for a club that has taken a beating (oftentimes rightly) in that area over the past few years.

Weren't we all told by none other than the Prophet Joseph Barton that all of Newcastle's established players would soon be following him and Kevin Nolan out the door? And, remember, Jose Enrique warned us "it is not settled like it is here at Liverpool and I think that is why everyone is leaving Newcastle."

It's fair to say that Gutierrez was never going to draw as much interest on the transfer market as his pal Enrique (although he'd likely get more offers than Barton). But the fact that a player who's still receiving call-ups to the Argentina national team feels good about the direction in which the club is headed is fairly significant. That, combined with an unbeaten start to the season, adds credibility to the club's rebuilding efforts.

Realistically, Gutierrez isn't an indispensable player. His final ball tends to be lacking and he's not a major goal-scoring threat. But the positives easily outweigh the negatives. He tracks back and is Newcastle's release valve against high-pressuring opponents. He's willing to run at opposition fullbacks, is awkward to defend against and draws a handful of fouls each match. And on a team that has its share of wild cards, he's about as reliable a player as you could hope for. He might not be a matchwinner, but he plays a significant - and sometimes understated - role in just about every match Newcastle wins.

The money to fund Gutierrez's extension will almost assuredly come from that infamous £35 million, which would theoretically eat away future transfer funds. But for this move, at this time, it's worth it.

LET'S GET CARRIED AWAY AND NOT KEEP THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE

One of my favorite moments as a Newcastle United supporter is when everyone is going completely off the rails at some piece of good or bad news or fortune, and people start saying "let's not get carried away." That's just so poignant and hilarious at the same time - it's like an alcoholic walking into a Munich beer hall and saying "I can only stay for one." As an American fan I chose Newcastle precisely IN ORDER TO get carried away. If I wanted to clap politely and keep things in perspective, I'd follow Chelsea, or the Lakers, or astronomy. And after relegation and Ben Arfa's leg and Andy Carroll's bolt and the empty 9 shirt, it's about time we had something good to get carried away about.

Or is it so irrational to believe this club is as good as it looked in thrashing Blackburn? Last week we dealt with the argument that it's too early to tell: it isn't. After six matches, we're down to only four times in Premier League history that the fourth-place club hasn't gone to Europe. One of those clubs, Wimbledon in 1998-'99, did eventually sink to 16th by the end of the season. But with Saturday's victory, Newcastle United now looks to be above the norm for fourth-place teams at this point. Only one fourth-place club after six weeks has had more points than Newcastle's 12: Manchester United, with 13 points in 1994-'95. That Man U team went on to finish second.

Another argument gaining speed among the let's-not-get-carried-away crowd is that Newcastle "hasn't played anyone yet." Well, Arsenal isn't exactly no one, shaky start aside. Drawing Aston Villa away isn't shabby either, Villa being one of just four unbeatens left in the league. But looking at history the argument about schedule holds some water. No fourth-place club after six matches in Premier League history has had an easier run to this point than Newcastle United this season. The six clubs Newcastle has met thus far are currently 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, 17th and 18th, totaling just 36 points between them, a historic low pending Monday's Norwich-Sunderland match, in which a Mackem victory would push Newcastle's opponents to a slightly more respectable 39. Other fourth-place clubs at this point have played opponents totaling an average of 45 points among them, and as many as 58 points.

Interestingly, though, the fourth-place club that played the toughest schedule to this point was the '99 Wimbledon club that crashed the hardest. The three most comparable fourth-place clubs at six weeks to Newcastle in terms of schedule strength were Manchester City in 2009-'10 (opponents had 39 points), Everton in 2006-'07 (37), and Southampton in 2003-'04 (39). Those clubs finished 5th, 6th and 12th. Next beyond that would be Newcastle's 1996-'97 club that was fourth after six weeks having played no one better than the Sheffield Wednesday club that eventually finished eighth. Newcastle, meanwhile, rose by the end of the season to second. I'm not in the mood to do hours of data entry and multiple regressions on this, but by eyeball it seems like strength of schedule is only mildly related to future performance at this point - certainly not as relevant as the overall record and standing.

So you're all welcome to try not to get your hopes up and protect yourself from disappointment and pretend you're rational after Saturday's sublime-as-French-wine performance. I'll be scouting a Valencia-Barcelona replay for Champions League purposes, and calling my Italian cousins to brag.

TIME TO REWORK LINEUP ON THE SLY

Full disclosure: A lack of TV or radio options made it difficult to intensely follow Newcastle United's third-round Carling Cup victory at Nottingham Forest on Tuesday.

So I was limited to relying on Twitter and various media reports to glean details of Newcastle's pulsating 4-3 extra-time win.

And from all accounts, French winger Sylvain Marveaux was one of United's top performers. Hopefully that will resonate with manager Alan Pardew, because it's about time to see how Newcastle would function in the attack with a genuine left-sided player in the midfield.

For all the positives Jonas Gutierrez brings - a dogged work ethic, an ability to relieve pressure by carrying the ball out of defense and a penchant for drawing fouls - he's never been a strong crosser of the ball. And, since he's naturally right-footed, his final product has been worse since he switched onto the left flank. Opposing fullbacks don't need to be overly concerned with Gutierrez beating them to the byline, because he'd rather cut back inside.

Gutierrez's understanding with left back Jose Enrique made his crossing deficiencies easier to live with over the past two seasons. But with Enrique gone and Ryan Taylor, a makeshift left back, filling his place until Davide Santon is healthy, does it really make sense to keep Gutierrez on the left wing?

It's not that Gutierrez has been poor this season. He's probably been one of Newcastle's most consistent performers, and his willingness to track back has aided Taylor, who, like Gutierrez, is out of place on the left. But Marveaux would provide real width and top-end speed on the left. Gutierrez, in turn, could move to the right, where he'd provide a steadier alternative to Gabriel Obertan.

Of course, this is all assuming Marveaux can stay healthy, which, based on his past, is a big assumption. But he's available at the moment, and that's good reason for Pardew to rethink his best XI.

HISTORY, PROBABILITY INDICATE NEWCASTLE IS FOR REAL

With fans still stinging from the failure to fill the No. 9 shirt in the summer transfer market, there seems to be an understandable lack of belief in Newcastle United’s lofty fourth-place Premier League standing, all alone at nine points after five matches. There’s no way United can keep it up, right? With 33 matches left, it’s still too soon to get excited, right?

Actually: no. As a doctoral student years ago I did a statistical project on sports handicapping, and I can tell you, according to the laws of probability, five matches make a sample plenty large enough from which to draw confident predictions about a 38-match season. Predictions are still only predictions, and in the world of probability, “anything can happen” is a truth, not a cliché. But it would be very unusual for a team standing where Newcastle stands right now not to finish in the top eight after 33 more matches, in any league in any sport.

The history of the Premier League, as is researchable via this pretty cool site, bears out the probability. Tote up the standings of the past decade and the average final finish of the fourth-place club after five weeks is exactly fourth. No club standing fourth after five weeks has ever finished lower than 13th. It’s been 12 years since a club standing fourth after five games hasn’t gone to the Champions or UEFA/Europa leagues. In fact, only five times in Premier League history has a fourth-place club after five weeks not gone to Europe, and those were all in the first eight seasons of the league, when conditions were different, including more variance in the length of clubs’ off-seasons due to the international schedule. More recent seasons are more predictive, because they look more like the present.

I’m not a gambler; I don’t have a stomach for losing money. But I enjoy statistics and prediction, and I’ve been successful enough at handicapping NFL games for fun with the system I developed back in doctoral school that I’ve been occasionally offered a stake from investors who want to wager blindly according to the system. Unfortunately, statistics aren’t everything. You still need a human brain to vet the calculations a computer can do merely faster than a human. I never trust a statistic unless my brain can come up with a logical reason for what it’s telling me.

In this case, though, there are logical explanations for why Newcastle United’s early-season success might be real. Despite the failure to land a striker, Newcastle added more talent in the latest transfer window than most if not all the clubs behind them, including Yohan Cabaye, who is already being touted in some quarters as the Premier League signing of the summer. Yes, talent was lost in the window as well. But the talent gained was chosen for the manager’s system, not inherited, and at Aston Villa on Saturday we saw for the first time a team playing the brand of control football Alan Pardew has been touting since he landed. Consider that in context of a club that came within 30 minutes of ninth place last season, and fourth doesn’t seem so hard to believe.

Trends in the league as a whole may also be helping Newcastle. Talent is being concentrated ever increasingly on the rosters of three clubs. That leaves the rest to fight over an ever-diminishing pool and magnifies the impact of successful signings. It takes more talent than ever to be the best. Which inevitably means it takes less than ever to be best of the rest.

Newcastle United just went on the road against another unbeaten club – one of only four now left in the league – and dominated despite getting only a draw. The fourth-place club at this point of the Premier League season has nearly always had nine or 10 points. One could say Newcastle should have more than nine after Saturday. If it weren't for one uncharacteristic flub by the captain and a couple of brilliant saves by Shay Given, United would stand at 11 points, better than any fourth-place club after five weeks in Premier League history except Man City two seasons ago with 12. And United's prospects could improve from here, markedly, by finding someone in the next window to wear No. 9.

So rub your eyes as much as you like. Newcastle United’s fine start is, probably, not a mirage.

OUR OFFENSIVE FIX - OUT WITH THE 4-4-2

Professional coaches are rarely open to second-guessing.

They generally don't like having to defend their decisions to the media and the general public. While that's somewhat understandable - fans often don't realize how much time, effort and thought goes into every move - it can border on paranoia at times.

So it was refreshing to see Alan Pardew's quotes after his Newcastle United side played a scoreless draw at QPR on Monday. Pardew admitted that his 4-4-2 formation allowed QPR to dominate the center of the midfield with its 4-3-3 look.

We hope that's an indication that Pardew will change up his tactics for Saturday's trip to Villa Park.

Newcastle has impressed defensively so far this season, but just how long it can continue to get away with Ryan Taylor at left back - and with Davide Santon, the man earmarked for that spot, out for at least four weeks, Taylor will have to keep filling in - is a huge question mark. Danny Simpson hasn't exactly inspired confidence on the right side, either, although he played considerably better at QPR. And with Newcastle being Newcastle, it's never unwise to be braced for a defensive meltdown in the near future.

So at some point, United will need to start scoring goals. And to do that, it will need to create genuine chances, something that hasn't happened enough thus far. The fact that Newcastle is unbeaten in its first four Premier League games and has won twice is fairly astonishing given its limited offensive threats early on.

The question is, how should Pardew attempt to fix his team's attack? My recommendation would be to scrap the 4-4-2, a formation that's gone out of style. United simply doesn't have the right combination of forwards to pair together. There's no adaptable striker capable of dropping deeper to get the ball to prevent Newcastle's attacks from being long-ball driven. And unless you have the right sort of attacking players, the 4-4-2 can look horribly predictable and rigid.

The one striker Pardew signed this summer, Demba Ba, flourished in a 4-3-3 at West Ham last season, where he was given license to float out wide and play through the middle. Fellow summer signings Sylvain Marveaux and Gabriel Obertan are wingers who like to drift inside, and both are capable of playing in the hole. What's more, Marveaux appears to be getting closer to match fitness after a brief cameo against QPR. That's not even taking into consideration Hatem Ben Arfa's imminent return and Sammy Ameobi's continued growth. Both players would seem to be a bit out of place in a traditional 4-4-2.

In the second half of last season, Pardew didn't have the sort of adaptable attackers to give him much tactical flexibility. That's not the case right now, even if Newcastle failed to add the striker it desperately needed this summer.

So whether it's a 4-3-3 or a 4-5-1, we don't really care. Just don't give us another day of long ball with a 4-4-2.

A DECENT POINT, BUT A DISMAL PERFORMANCE

Somehow, someway Newcastle United emerged from West London with a point Monday after a scoreless draw with Queens Park Rangers.

That Newcastle posted its third clean sheet of the young season was nothing short of astonishing given the repeated chances QPR created in the first half alone.

United, by contrast, looked toothless going forward. Shola Ameobi and Leon Best appear totally ill-suited to play together - both are target forwards and neither has elite speed - and Newcastle's 4-4-2 formation was predictable and mechanical in attack. There was no interchanging among the attacking players or surging runs from the center of the midfield. United looked content to simply pump hopeful balls forward to Ameobi and Best.

Cheik Tiote continued his search for last season's form, while Yohan Cabaye was anonymous in his worst performance in a Newcastle shirt. Instead, QPR, playing a dynamic 4-3-3, controlled the midfield and looked dangerous with Shaun Wright-Phillips darting down the flanks and Adel Taarabt roaming all over.

Maybe Alan Pardew will follow suit and opt for a similar 4-5-1/4-3-3 hybrid at Aston Villa on Saturday. We sure hope so. Pardew repeatedly mentioned during the summer that he wanted his team to play more of a free-flowing, possession-based style this season. It's still early, but that style change doesn't appear to have taken effect just yet - and Newcastle doesn't look that dissimilar from the second half of last season in a long-ball-heavy 4-4-2.

From a big-picture standpoint, it's important to remember that United is still unbeaten after four Premier League games, and its eight points are good enough for fourth in the table. And, as ugly as Monday's performance was, Newcastle found a way to grind out a result in a match that had the potential to result in major embarrassment. It would have been typical Newcastle luck to see Joey Barton star as QPR, a club seemingly on the rise after an ownership change, rolled to a lopsided win.

Perhaps Pardew summed it up best: "Sometimes when you don't play well, you get beat. We didn't get beaten."

Hopefully that resolve - and not the performance - is a sign of things to come.

BOARD LACKS INSPIRATION; TIME FOR FANS TO PROVIDE IT

Answers have now been published to 14 questions submitted by fans to the Newcastle United board via the Evening Chronicle. For us and for many fans, all the questions boil down to one: is the owner committed? There's no sense for a supporter to invest time, money, and hope in an outfit that isn't trying. Even incompetence is more forgivable than apathy.

Reading through the responses with my PR-sensitive eyes I found myself shaking my head at the tone. The club's answers come off too often as chilly or defensive or even adversarial. There isn't a strong sense of management pulling in the same direction as the fans - having the same hopes and dreaming the same dreams, regardless of differences about how to achieve them.

But despite how uninspiringly the club’s pronouncements are packaged, they do make a greater amount of sense than we might have expected, and are at times surprisingly candid – maybe too candid.

A key passage is this one, in response to a question about NUFC's long-range plan: "In the coming years we will continue to build the club sustainably. We have a generous owner, but we don’t have the bottomless pockets that some clubs do. At the moment we cannot compete with the financial strength of the top six. We are not a club willing to take a reckless approach and permit spending beyond our means, the result of which can be crippling at best and bankruptcy at worst. Instead we have a realistic view of what we can achieve at Newcastle and how quickly we can achieve it."

We can be thankful the board saw fit to qualify “cannot compete” with “at the moment,” which at least doesn’t rule out someday. But realism is almost the dictionary opposite of ambition. Trumpeting a realistic view without defining the view itself is a lot less than reassuring.

No reasonable fan wants spending beyond an owner’s means. I think most Newcastle supporters accept that Mike Ashley’s fortune doesn’t equal that of an Arab prince. While we’ve been half-seriously chatting up multi-billionaires about taking the club off Ashley’s hands, we wouldn’t want Newcastle United to become Manchester City, which would reduce us all to the equivalent of waving pom-poms at a shopping spree.

What we long for is a sign the owner believes – even unrealistically – that on his budget Newcastle might eventually outsmart if not outspend the big boys. If the goal is top 10 but realism rules out top 6, why should any fan care? That the board can’t voice more ambition than was already achieved save for the last half-hour of the last match of last season is beyond frustrating for supporters who invest as much of themselves in their team as Newcastle’s do. Newcastle must at least aspire to be a big club. The stadium is big enough. The support is big enough. We need the owner to be big enough, if not in wealth, in courage.

Which brings us to another striking passage, addressing the central question of whether Newcastle United is for sale. After what I thought was a deft and honest response – the club is for sale only to the extent that everything is for sale at an absurd price – the answer takes a surprising detour. “For [Ashley] to continue to support the club, he has to be interested and enthused to do so. He deserves credit for his financial support but a section of supporters don’t make him feel welcome at St. James’ Park, or when he attends away game. Criticism is part and parcel of the job, abuse is not. This makes life uncomfortable and certainly doesn’t make Mike inclined to put his hand once again in his pocket.”

That’s more candor than I’d normally endorse. In corporate terms it comes uncomfortably close to blaming the customers for the plight of the company, which is an untouchable third rail of PR. Some fans online are predictably likening the plea for civility to a threat: “Be nice to Mike or else.”

However: let’s be mature enough to admit that the runaway passion of Newcastle’s fans can manifest itself in ways that are at best unflattering and at worst cruel. If Newcastle United were indeed for sale, harsh criticism might at least be constructive in hurrying the inevitable along. But reading these answers with the bull$#!% meter on maximum, you don’t sense an owner quite ready to quit. You sense an over-businesslike coldness. You sense discouragement. Maybe even fear. But not surrender. The board wouldn’t bother being pleading for compassion toward Ashley if he was on his way out the door.

As icy as some of these answers feel, there’s enough in them, and in the effort to respond at all, to reassure us the owner hasn’t given up on the club. Therefore we’re not ready to give up on the owner. As one of our loyal commenters recently said, it’s possible to be critical when necessary and supportive at the same time, and it’s a balance we think all Newcastle United fans, including us, can strive harder to strike. It can’t hurt, and given that the key ingredient management lacks is enthusiasm, it might help. With a match coming up that could propel Newcastle United above every club in the league except the mega-rich Manchesters, there may be no better time to put differences aside and pull with patented Newcastle passion in the same direction as the club – even the owner.

HOW MIKE ASHLEY CAN WIN US BACK

You might have noticed a slight change in the tone of our blog over the past week and a half.

We've never classified ourselves as being the "Ashley Out" sort of Newcastle fans. Seeing as though we've begun contacting billionaires to attempt to convince them that buying the club would be a worthwhile venture, though, it's hard to argue that we don't fall into that category now.

But that doesn't mean we disagree with anything and everything Mike Ashley has done since buying United in 2007. Establishing some degree of financial sensibility is, well, sensible. We don't want Newcastle to turn into another Chelsea or Manchester City, where mega-contracts are handed out left and right. We're fine with United aiming to sign young up-and-coming players rather than overpriced aging superstars.

What we want is a well-thought-out and well-executed plan. We want to see players signed because they're the right players, not just the ones that are coming at the right price. Most of all, we want to see some evidence that Ashley is happy that he owns the club.

When Alan Pardew was hired last December, he talked about one of his challenges being reinvigorating Ashley as an owner. Based on the club's performance in the second half of the summer transfer window and Pardew's comments on Thursday about the board's failure to deliver a striker, it seems that hasn't really happened.

That could still change. Maybe a positive first half of the season will reignite whatever fire that prompted Ashley to buy Newcastle in the first place.

But if Ashley continues with this disinterested owner act, then yes, we do want him out.

ALEXEI MORDASHOV DOESN'T LIKE BEING ASKED TO BUY YOUR SOCCER TEAM (BUT WE ASK HIM ANYWAY)

There's not much someone who doesn't read Russian can glean from the Internet about the personal life of enigmatic Russian steel magnate Alexei Mordashov. But it's easy to glean this: he hates the stereotype of wealth-flaunting Russian oligarch, and the part of that stereotype he hates the most is having a soccer team as a toy.

"You can ask Alexei Mordashov anything, just don't suggest he buys your football club," opens a 2006 article on Mordashov in The Sunday Times, from an interview by Andrew Davidson. " 'Vot is this wiv vootball?' he says in his heavy Russian accent. 'When I bought a steel company in Italy, almost on the first day I was approached by the local football team manager. Our specialty is steel. If you want to sell me something in steel or mining, let’s discuss it. But not football.' " In a more recent Telegraph profile, Mordashov said, “Building companies involves creating great wealth. If that means I am an oligarch, OK, it’s fine. But if being an oligarch is about buying football clubs, it is not for me.”

Doesn't sound promising. However, there's not much to lose in trying, taking all this into account. Bear in mind, for Mordashov, Newcastle United isn't just any soccer club - it's the club he supports, or at least once supported. And his company, Severstal, does sponsor sports interests in its home city of Cherepovets, including the local ice hockey and women's volleyball clubs. Here's our appeal.

Dear Mr. Mordashov,

We know you dislike the stereotype of ostentatious Russian oligarch who owns a football club as a plaything and a show of wealth and power. We're writing on behalf of a club in which such an oligarch would have little interest.

This short letter comes to you from a pair of American football fans who are dedicated supporters of Newcastle United. Most American fans of English football choose a glamour club like Chelsea or Arsenal to follow, so they can display the shirt and brag about the victories. We chose Newcastle United because we wanted something more genuine: a tradition-laden club with intensely loyal supporters who are more about passion than glory - real, hardworking people not unlike those who operate your steel plants.

Newcastle United is in a discouraging situation. The current owner appears to have bought the club for the wrong reasons, as an amusement rather than a business to maintain and grow. Having become disinterested, he's tried and failed several times to sell the club, and is now developing players to resell at a profit rather than improve the team. But there is plenty of promising young talent on board, thanks to a good manager and a sharp-eyed scouting operation. All Newcastle United needs is someone with enough capital to take the club off the current owner's hands and treat players as assets rather than merchandise.

We're contacting you because we've read that Newcastle United is the club you support, or at least once supported, and because Newcastle United is the kind of club that needs a Mordashov, not an Abramovich. We understand steel and mining are your businesses, not football. But we also know you support sports interests as a sponsor, so you understand the positive effect sport can have on society. Newcastle United means more to its fans and its city than Chelsea or Arsenal ever could. And so we ask you, not as an oligarch but as a businessman and philanthropist, for any help you might provide.

Sincerely,

the Internet entrepreneurs at I Wish I Was A Geordie (www.newcastleunited.us)

A reader has graciously provided email contact information for Mr. Mordashov. We'll let you know what, if anything, we hear back.